By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
Often donning their distinctive garb of black, white, blue, or gray, consecrated sisters can be spotted serving on school campuses across the Diocese of Dallas. They are teachers; they are administrators; they are missionaries — the spiritual and educational pillars of their communities, providing a firm foundation of faith, academics, and well-rounded excellence in north Texas schools.
In recognition of the upcoming Jubilees of Consecrated Life and the World of Education, The Texas Catholic is highlighting a few of these religious sisters, sharing their stories of service to God, to each other, and to schools across the Diocese of Dallas.
Mary Immaculate
In a tiny town on the Texas-Mexico border — population: a few hundred — Sister Mary Anne Zuberbueler, OP, grew up attending a mission church, Mary, Queen of the Universe. Despite its small size, the parish produced three religious and priestly vocations that Sister Zuberbueler could name: her younger brother, a diocesan priest; another parishioner, a Dominican friar; and Sister Zuberbueler, a member of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, or the “Nashville Dominicans.”
Sister Zuberbueler first encountered the community that would become her own while attending college. As a student with an interest in teaching, she was attracted to the Nashville Dominicans’ charism of community and their focus on education.
“Teaching is a work that is life-giving, a work that is for the future,” the nun reflected. “You’re investing time and energy now, but it just ripples and ripples and ripples.”
She joined the order in 1989, and has since served as a teacher; as a principal in Virginia, Tennessee, and Indiana; and, for a decade, as a college dean of a school of education — “teaching teachers to be teachers.” In 2019, she joined Mary Immaculate Catholic School in Farmers Branch as its principal, where she remains today.
In that role, Sister Zuberbueler encounters “many, many varied tasks each day,” from answering student questions to supporting teachers in the classroom to considering the best path forward for the school as a whole. As principal, she also encourages opportunities for wonder and awe on campus — whether caring for creation in the on-campus greenhouse program or taking a moment of reflection during Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atrium. Her position requires creativity, the principal said, as “there’s no one answer, but there are answers; you just have to keep working it.”
Two other sisters from her order — Sister Annunciata Hawley and Sister Margaret Mary Sallwasser — also serve the MIS community, as an atrium teacher and middle school religion teacher respectively.
“Our interactions with one another at the school give witness,” Sister Zuberbueler said. “We work here together; we ride home together… In a real way, we’re all sisters working to build up the body of Christ here at Mary Immaculate.”
Reflecting on the relationship between her calling to consecrated life and her role as principal, Sister Zuberbueler said she does not separate the two vocations; rather, they are “of one piece.”
“The Lord places in our heart the desire to be a religious sister; but the fact is, in that desire, he’s already given the call. The work that I do then must be informed by the life that I lead as a sister,” she said. “The work that I do as a principal has to begin with my personal prayer, my life in community.”
Cristo Rey Dallas
The words of a morning prayer echo through the halls of Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep to begin each school day. Though recited by student voices, the words themselves are often those of Sister Bridget Waldorf, SSND, who serves in mission integration and campus ministry at the school.
Traces of an accent are still evident in the Minnesota-raised sister, who professed her first vows with the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 2001. She moved to Dallas in 2016 to serve in vocation ministry on behalf of her congregation; and in 2023, she began serving part-time in campus ministry at Cristo Rey as well.
“Coming to Cristo Rey was a little bit like coming home for me, because much of my ministry and work up until that point has been in youth ministry or campus ministry in parishes or schools,” said Sister Waldorf, who had been serving as a youth minister for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis when she began seriously discerning religious life.
In her campus ministry role at Cristo Rey, Sister Waldorf seeks to build relationships with students, faculty, and staff and offer them opportunities to practice and learn about their Catholic faith. She organizes retreats for each grade level, arranges service opportunities, and coordinates student participation in all-school Masses — from altar servers to lectors to choir members. She also encourages students to take initiative in their practice of faith in other ways, including through a lunchtime recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, currently led by a senior student, and a “very active” rosary society on campus.
“Our congregation is one that strives for unity… Primarily, we do that through the ministry of education,” Sister Waldorf said. “Education means that we’re helping to enable individuals to reach the fullness of their potential as individuals created in God’s image and then assisting them to direct those gifts toward changing the world, toward transforming the world.”
In her SSND vocation ministry role, the religious sister accompanies young women discerning how God might be calling them to use their gifts for the good of the Church and the world. With Cristo Rey students, Sister Waldorf said, she is doing much the same.
“They’re learning from their education about: ‘Where is God calling you to use your gifts?’ So, they work hand in hand,” she said.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
For Sister Mary Mercy, DSH, the call to the consecrated life came suddenly. As a young child, that path had never occurred to her; but when she completed the 10th grade, she said, “all of a sudden, I felt a need to become a sister.” At age 14, she moved to northern India to join the congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, where she learned English for the first time and made her first profession in 1983.
The Daughters of the Sacred Heart is a religious congregation with charisms of simplicity and charity, focusing on service to the poor, including through education. Sister Mercy was attracted to the order’s mission, harboring her own deep desire to serve the poor. So, when she was asked to serve as a teacher in the United States — which she perceived as a prosperous, wealthy nation — she was initially reluctant.
“I want to serve the mission where God has called me, not to serve the rich people in America,” the sister recalled saying; but in 2008, she began her work at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School in Dallas in obedience to her vows. After a month of teaching in the kindergarten class there, she recalled, she went to the chapel in prayer.
“I thanked God: ‘This is where you wanted me, and I know these are poor children,’” she said. “I was very, very happy.”
Sister Mercy now teaches in the school’s Montessori program, where she takes great joy in the academic and spiritual growth of her students. Each day, she asks God to work through her, she said, to form the eager young minds she encounters in the classroom.
Two other Daughters of the Sacred Heart, Sister Suni Varghese and Sister Manjula Tigga, also serve the OLPH community as teachers.
“We are truly blessed to have the sisters present in our school community,” OLPH Principal Jennifer Anderson said. “Their devotion, prayerful presence, and joyful witness provide our students with a living example of what it means to live out our Catholic faith.”
“At a time when it is increasingly rare to see religious sisters in schools, their vocation stands as a beautiful reminder of a life dedicated to Christ,” the administrator continued. “By modeling faith and service each day, they not only enrich our classrooms but also inspire our children to keep their eyes fixed on our ultimate goal — heaven.”
Cutline for featured image: Sister Mary Anne Zuberbueler, OP, serves as principal of Mary Immaculate Catholic School in Farmers Branch. (AMY WHITE/The Texas Catholic)
