Eternal Memory, Sr. Adalberta

Sr. Adalberta, one of the two Social Mission Sisters from Hungary who preceded Christ the Bridegroom Monastery in this house in Burton, Ohio, fell asleep in the Lord on Friday, June 16. She and Sr. Flora (who passed away in 2015) served the pilgrims to the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch for decades. Shortly before our monastery was founded, they both moved to Regina Health Center in Richfield, Ohio, and when finding out about our desires to found a monastery, they gave us their house and property. 

Visiting Sr. Adalberta (left) & Sr. Flora (seated) at Regina Health Center, March 2012

When we visited Sr. Adalberta at Regina Health Center, she would always pour hospitality upon us. She would abandon her walker and disappear down the hallway and come back with a chair so that we would all have a place to sit! Even when we visited her recently when she was on hospice, she was still somehow full of energy, sitting on the edge of her bed and making sure there were enough seats. Sr. Adalberta was deeply prayerful, and when we didn't find her in her room we knew where to look: the chapel. It was often difficult for her to communicate with words with us, because her main language was Hungarian and her English wasn't very good, but it didn't matter because she communicated with love. Though we never knew her in her days of cooking chicken and rice dinners at the shrine and loving the pilgrims here, our moments spent with her at Regina tell us much about what her service at the shrine must have been like.

Sr. Adalberta was Roman Catholic and probably had a great devotion to the Sacred Heart; she fell asleep in the Lord on the Roman Catholic Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. In the photo above, there is an image of the Sacred Heart right behind her.

Please join us in praying for the soul of Sr. Adalberta. The obituary and funeral arrangements are given below:

Sister Mary Adalberta Rohaly, SM (Teresa)

Died: June 16, 2023

Age: 92, born September 12, 1930

Preceded in death by: parents, Rosa and Martin and two sisters, Mary and Helen

Special friend of Karen Thrasher, Mary Smith and Sr. Margaret Taylor, SIW.  

Sr. Mary Adalberta, SM was born in Faj, Hungary, the second of three children.  Her older sister was Mary and her younger sister was Helen.  She had a very religious upbringing as her father was a shoemaker who also assisted at the village church by ringing the bells and working in the sacristy for 25 years.

Sr. Mary Adalberta came to know the Social Mission Sisters because her pastor’s mother knew of them.  She entered the Order at age 15.

Sr. Mary Adalberta began her ministry by teaching kindergarten for twenty years.  In 1971, she came to Burton, Ohio, to minister at the Byzantine Shrine of Mariapoch.  She kept a very busy schedule of welcoming all the visitors to the Shrine over many years.  She compared herself to being “Veronica” as she responded to the needs of the Shrine visitors.  She worked with Sr. Flora Kovics in cooking Sunday dinner for the pilgrims to the Shrine; preparing for the Sunday Mass as well as keeping a religious goods store in their convent.  She and Sr. Flora even kept up with all the lawn mowing of the Shrine grounds.  

Sr. Mary Adalberta celebrated her 70th Jubilee of Religious Life in 2020.  She was always caring, sensitive and loving.  A good holy nun, she was prayerful, faithful and loyal to hours of prayer and Eucharistic Adoration.

Regina Health Center welcomed Sr. Mary Adalberta on January 4, 2008.

Wake:   Regina Health Center Chapel                  Funeral: Regina Health Center Chapel

             5232 Broadview Rd.-Richfield                Tuesday, June 20, 2023

             Tuesday, June 20, 2023                            11:00 a.m.

             10:00 am – 11:00 a.m.                             .

Father John Burkley will celebrate the Mass of Resurrection.

Burial:  All Saints Cemetery