Benedictine served her monastery as sacristan, bookstore manager, spiritual director
Benedictine Sister Ann Cic, who came to the Benedictine Monastery of Hawaii in Waialua a dozen years ago, died Oct. 24 after two weeks in hospice care in Wahiawa. She was 88 and a professed religious for 66 years.
Before her illness, Sister Anne served the monastery as a sacristan, nurse, bookstore manager, spiritual director and prayer companion.
Her funeral is at 2 p.m., Nov. 25, at the Benedictine Monastery. Her urn will be interred under the tabernacle in the monastery chapel.
Sister Ann was born in Denver on Aug. 23, 1929, one of seven children of Anton and Annie Hoffman Cic. She entered religious life first as a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth, Kansas, making her initial profession of vows on Aug. 15, 1951.
As a Sister of Charity she served as a nurse in various Midwest hospitals. She then transferred to the Benedictines in New Mexico where she worked in administration, spiritual direction and retreats. She joined Hawaii’s Benedictine community in 2005.
In 2011, on the 60th anniversary of her first profession in religious life she expressed her gratitude for her “parents and family, her Catholic education, the many priests and sisters who touched my life, as well as the many people God sent my way.”
“I am blessed!” she said. “My daily walk with the Lord has been life-giving whether in light or in darkness. As I enter the next years of my journey, I am filled with gratitude, love and anticipation, for he has chosen me and I have chosen him.”
In a 2012 Hawaii Catholic Herald interview, she called her years in the monastery “the best years of my life.”
“There’s beautifulness in this monastery, a sphere of love and acceptance,” she said. “Through our regular prayer and community life, I find I am well fed.”
“I don’t want to make it sound like a paradise, because we all go through our own crosses both in community and in our personal lives,” she said. “We aren’t all angels. But, we do work out our problems between each other.”
Reflecting on her life’s calling, Sister Ann quoted St. Benedict: “Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.”
Sister Ann is survived by her sister Eileen Copeland of Denver and many nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews.
