Sister Marie Therese Carrick.
Marie Therese Carrick was born in Liverpool on the 28th of December 1934, the second child to Eileen and Gerard Carrick. It was a time of great economic hardship, making it difficult for her father to find employment. Determined to get a job that would support his family, Gerard took the big step of moving all of them to Romford in Essex, where they knew no one. It was the Catholic community there that became their family and supported them in the early years when two more children were born. However, it was the self-reliance, initiative and determination of the parents, to deal with problems that reversed the family fortunes. Theirs was a happy, united home where the faith was lived in their daily lives.
In September 1939, just at the outbreak of World War Two, Marie began her primary education at the local Catholic school. As it was close to London, air raids were occurring day and night. She recalled spending many hours in the air raid shelter under the school playground, time put to good use, “learning tables, spelling and recitations.” Having successfully sat for the Eleven Plus examination, Marie received a scholarship for the Ursuline Convent School in Brentwood, where she spent seven years before proceeding to Maria Assumpta Teachers’ Training College in London.
It was at the above College that she met the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions and became very friendly with them. During a field trip to the Isle of Thanet she visited the convents of Deal and Sturry. When asked by a Sister if she had ever thought of becoming a religious, she answered in the negative. However, that question touched something in Marie, as soon after that she accepted an invitation to a profession ceremony in Hastings. There she met Mother Mary St. Denis with whom she had a chat and who continued to keep in touch with her.
And so it was that Marie made the decision to enter our Congregation. After completing her probationary year of teaching she was received as a postulant in Hastings. In March 1956 she became a novice, taking the name of Edmund Campion, a great English martyr whose devotion to the Church, tenacity and courage Marie admired and tried to emulate.
Although Marie had expressed a desire for the foreign Missions, the next 10 years or more, were spent teaching in various primary schools in England, namely Hastings, Wealdstone, Chew Magna, and Sturry, the latter being for five and a half years at St Thomas’s Catholic Primary School in Canterbury.
In 1971 Marie had a short break from school to attend Notre Dame College in Liverpool obtaining a Diploma in Religious Education. This led her into secondary school teaching, specialising in Religious Education. It also opened for her the door to a Mission in Kenya, for after only one year as the head of the R.E. department at the Catholic secondary school in Bexhill Hasting, she was asked to go to Machakos, in Kenya, where a teacher was needed in the Primary Teacher’s Training College. Marie spent nearly six years there teaching Religious Education and Geography. She also helped and supported the catechists in the Parish.
On her return to England from Kenya, Sr. Marie was accepted at Sussex University to study for an MA in Education, her time teaching at the ‘Primary Teachers College’ in Machakos, qualifying her to do this.
On completing this Study she took up a post at St Brendan’s Sixth Form College in Bristol where she was part of the Theology Department, teaching A Level GCSE and general courses. She was also part of the pre-vocation team involved in careers preparation and work experience and was involved in the college chaplaincy.
In January 1990 Sr. Marie was asked to go to Longopoloti School, Samoa. She spent three years there, teaching R.E., Geography and English as a second Language. She considered it a great privilege to have served in a mission area begun by our Foundress, Euphrasie Barbier
All through her Religious Life and Teaching Career, Sr. Marie was involved in parish ministry. On her return from Kenya in 1982 she was attached for some months to St. Aidan’s Parish East Acton where she gained practical experience of the RCIA and current sacramental programmes. She spent time in Liverpool working with teenagers and Adults at St. Francis de Sales parish, Walton. During this time she helped to set up a residential centre in North Wales for school/youth/parish groups. She was blessed with great enthusiasm and energy, gifts she brought to all her many ministries. Although serious in her commitments, she could always lighten the situation with humour and was always ’game for a laugh’ which was a hearty and infectious one!
The last ten years of Sr. Marie’s active ministry was devoted to the monitoring of the UK & Ireland Solidarity Fund, keeping in touch with donors and managing the Solidarity Accounts. At the same time, she did Mission appeals up and down the country on behalf of the Missionary Sisters of England & Wales. She also had the opportunity to visit some of the Asian provinces of our Congregation, an experience she considered to be a privilege and a great blessing.
During these years, Marie’s health gradually deteriorated and her ability to sustain and manage these important ministries, so dear to her heart, diminished with it. In August of 2013 she moved to St Anne’s convent Sturry, where she could receive the care she needed. During 2015, she developed specific needs, as a result of which a period of time was spent at a care home in Deal, not far from Beechcourt; The Sisters visited her regularly making sure she had what she needed.
Towards the end of July she had a fall that necessitated a short time in hospital. She was now completely immobile, and, unable to return to the care home she had been in, was brought back to St Anne’s in Sturry. This was a blessing for Marie and for the community. Her awareness of being back in a familiar environment and where she knew she belonged was evident.
Sr. Marie died unexpectedly, but very peacefully at 1.30am on the 11th March 2018. Her funeral took place at St Anne’s Convent on the 4th April. The celebrant at her Requiem Mass was Fr Malachy Steenson, a Passionist Priest from Hearne Bay. Present at the funeral was her sister Patricia her brother, Michael, two nieces, a nephew, two cousins, a friend who had taught with her when she was on the staff of St. Thomas’ School Canterbury, members of the PLT, Sisters from Wealdstone, Beechcourt, and the communities of St Anne’s & Euphrasie Barbier Convents Sturry. Her burial was in the cemetery in Sturry where so many of our Sisters rest.
‘Happy are those who die in the Lord! Happy indeed, the Spirit says; now they can rest for ever after their work, since their good deeds go with them.”
Revelation 14:13