Nun on the run

The presents are piling up under the tree in the narthex of the church, hundreds of them, with hundreds more stuffed in an adjacent room and small kitchen. No one can cook at the moment, or access the sink, or open the refrigerator.

Sister Mary Cyril Murray escorts a mother and her adult daughter to the vast mound and invites them to select a few gifts.

"Feel free to take a bag, if you like," Sister Mary Cyril says, and her guests express their appreciation. "Does anyone need a bicycle?" There are about a dozen crammed into the little room nearby.

After a few minutes, a couple of big bags are filled with board games, toy trucks, a Dora the Explorer scooter and a child's xylophone.

Sister Mary Cyril oversees many initiatives, one being the Angel Tree program in which members of Christ Our King Catholic Church in Mount Pleasant take one or more of 1,100 angel ornaments from the tree as a pledge, then return with gifts.

Many of the gifts will be delivered to the Neighborhood House on Charleston's East Side, a resource for

social services and a soup kitchen run by Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy, the small Dominican community of nuns to which Sister Mary Cyril belongs.

Her full-time job is director of senior ministries for Christ Our King, and this keeps her very busy. All year long, she and a loyal (and large) group of volunteers pack birthday boxes that are hand-delivered (usually by Sister Mary Cyril) to parish members 75 or older. They also prepare gift packets for those in assisted-living facilities. These contain candy, cookies, Post-it Notes, rosary beads and a card.

Senior ministries, under the attentive watch of the nun, sometimes helps transport the elderly to appointments. It organizes social gatherings. It hosts Wii bowling events, holiday teas, special lectures and discussions, an exercise group, a knitting and sewing group and an Alzheimer's support group. It runs a prison ministry (at Lieber Correctional Institution), a Lazarus Ministry (which provides support to families after the death of a loved one) and coordinates Eucharistic ministers for every parish funeral.

And then there are the visitations, often several a day, to nursing homes, poor neighborhoods, outreach centers and individuals in need of counsel, prayer and reassurance.

Obstinate smile

The growing parish now includes about 2,600 families, many elderly and homebound. As required, Sister Mary Cyril brings the church to them.

She straddles her Honda Metropolitan scooter and dashes off on her rounds. She is practically omnipresent, and her regular visitations -- those circuitous routes she takes on her mo-ped, from neighborhood to neighborhood -- are akin to a comet's path around the sun: predictable, reliable.

Then add her clear gaze, ready smile and confident faith and you've got something more: comfort and consolation.

"She's an easy person to talk to," says Muriel Clarkin of Mount Pleasant. After her son, Michael, was crushed by a shipping container in a November 2004 port accident and suffered extensive brain damage, Sister Mary Cyril made numerous trips to the intensive care unit at the Medical University to spend time with the family.

"She always had a smile on her face," Clarkin says. "Her face is just outstanding. It never has a frown on it."

Three years later, Michael Clarkin, still recovering from the accident, was invited by the nun to address an audience that filled the big room at the senior ministries house. When the lecture was over, Sister Mary Cyril put her arm around Michael and squeezed.

"She was so proud of him, she just makes you feel so good," Clarkin says.

Jan Maize, a Dunes West resident and longtime member of the parish, frequently has volunteered with senior ministries.

"We're just thrilled to have her," Maize says. "She has more energy. She's like a dynamo."

Where does she get that energy?

"I think the Lord gives it to her," Maize says.

Called

Sister Mary Cyril has been in charge of senior ministries for 18 years. Before that, she spent 38 years as a Catholic schoolteacher and administrator. A native New Yorker, she took her vows at 17 and has served the Lord for 58 years.

As a child growing up in Flushing, Queens, she excelled at basketball and attended the Dominican Academy for girls on East 68th St. in Manhattan. She was interested in working with children.

By her senior year, two older sisters had decided to become nuns. One was making her final vows when Sister Mary Cyril graduated.

"Maybe that's what I'll do," she thought at the time. "Then I'll get to be with many children and be able to help them to the Lord."

By 1966, Sister Mary Cyril was principal of St. Mary's Catholic School in Greenville. It was the year Msgr. James Carter was ordained.

The priest and the nun have been following each other around the state ever since, Carter says. "I was in Aiken, she was in Aiken; I was in Charleston, she was in Charleston."

In 1989, Carter was appointed pastor of Christ Our King. Sister Mary Cyril was at the Cathedral School and ready to retire from academics to pursue something new.

"What are you going to do?" Carter asked her.

"I don't know."

"I have a youth ministry at Christ Our King, but I've never had a senior ministry," he said.

That sounded good to the sister. "But," she reminded the priest, "I don't drive."

"You'll have to get a car."

"Oh, no. I'm not going to drive."

"How are you going to get around?"

"I'll get people to drive me around."

"You can't do that, impose on others that way."

So they compromised. Sister Mary Cyril would ride a mo-ped. She has a helmet but doesn't wear it. The Lord will provide, she says.

"She gets something on her mind and you can't change it," Carter says.

At first, she worked out of the rectory, then a portable office space, Carter says. Eventually, the parish purchased the little house on Russell Drive from which senior ministries now operates.

Next year, the parish could launch a capital campaign to build a new intergenerational facility, a combined youth and senior ministries center that enables interaction among young and old, Carter says.

"We're hoping they'll influence one another." Children could teach their elders how to use computers; seniors could teach their junior counterparts a life lesson or two.

Steadfast

At East Cooper Regional Medical Center, Sister Mary Cyril takes the elevator to the third floor, where she knows she will find Henry Fisher, a 42-year veteran of Christ Our King who is struggling with Alzheimer's and a bout of pneumonia.

Fisher's son, Paul, and 19-year-old granddaughter, Brittany (Paul's niece), are visiting. Paul, who works for a local electric utility, says he has seen Sister Mary Cyril occasionally at the office paying someone's bill.

The sister whispers a "Hail Mary" in the ear of the dozing elderly man. She pats his arm, touches his leg, then assures Paul and Brittany that the family is in her prayers.

Sister Mary Cyril makes her way to the room of Dorothy Cenkner, a fellow New Yorker who has lived in Charleston for about 25 years. Her son, Steven, is by her side.

Cenkner, who has been in an assisted-living facility since 2003, slipped and fell three years ago, hitting her head on a piece of furniture and breaking her neck, Steven says.

She's endured three operations and extensive rehabilitation. As a result, significant mobility has returned, though it is accompanied by some pain.

Now she's got pneumonia. An IV drips antibiotics into her veins.

The nun and the patient recite a "Hail Mary," which Sister Mary Cyril embellishes with extended prayer. A kiss on the forehead signals her departure.

Returning to the elevator, she runs into Bill Papke. His wife, Mary, was admitted three days before, and she's now scheduled for a CT scan. The Papkes have been members of Christ Our King for 55 years.

In her hospital room, Mary Papke and the visiting sister, holding hands, recite first the Prayer to the Eternal Father followed by the Lord's Prayer.

"I wish they could find out what's wrong with me," Mary Papke says.

"Are you comfortable?" replies the nun, observing that Mary Papke is sunken down in her bed.

Then the nurse arrives to attach monitors to the ailing woman. Sister Mary Cyril, full of faith and love and strength, stays.

Reach Adam Parker at 937-5902.