APPLE VALLEY—Sister Teresa Maher is celebrating four decades of religious ministry as a member of the Sisters of the Precious Blood. Sr. Terry ministers as manager of the spiritual health department at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley and is a board-certified chaplain with the National Association of Catholic Chaplains.
On Oct. 17, she received the St. Damien of Molokai Award, which recognizes chaplains in the Diocese of San Bernardino who have distinguished themselves in providing compassionate and dedicated spiritual care to the sick and dying. Sr. Terry has served as a spiritual care manager in health care settings in California since 2008.
A daughter of St. Mary Catholic Church in Escondido, Sr. Terry began her ministry experience while working at the parish during college. She then went to Oceanside as a director of religious education and lived her candidacy with the Sisters of the Precious Blood at San Luis Rey, where the Congregation operated a private school for over 60 years.
Sr. Terry earned an associate degree from Palomar College in San Marcos, a bachelor’s degree in history and religion from the University of San Diego and a Master of Theological Studies from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
She has ministered as a director of religious education in California and Ohio, and as Associate Director of Youth Ministry for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. As a pastoral associate, she served for five years in Sandusky, Ohio, six years in Cincinnati, two years in Hemet and six years in Alta Loma.
“Over the past 40 years, it has been a blessing to experience the people, and their faith, and their hopes, their joys, their sadness, because each of those people, each of those incidents, each of those places taught me a little more about God and who God is,” she said.
Sr. Terry is among 15 Sisters who in 2020 and 2021 celebrated milestone anniversaries of entrance into the Sisters of the Precious Blood. All the Sisters were recognized at a Mass and banquet Oct. 3 at Salem Heights, the Congregation’s central house in Dayton, OH. Sr. Terry was also honored at an Oct. 13 gathering at St. Mary Medical Center.
The Sisters of the Precious Blood were founded in Switzerland by Maria Anna Brunner in 1834 and currently minister throughout the U.S. and in Chile and Guatemala.