10,000 Mourners at Funeral Of Three Nuns Killed in Fire |
CHICAGO, Dec 4 - (UPI) - Three heroic nuns and five children - the first of 90 dead in the Our Lady of the Angels School fire - were laid to rest Thursday. |
Ten thousand mourners came to the parish church, where the smell of smoke and charred wood from the school next door still hung heavily in the air. |
They honored the selfless sisters who died with their children in Monday's tragedy. |
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The text of their funeral sermon was the same which had guided their lives and given meaning to their deaths - 20 words from St. Mark. |
“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of God.” |
In other West Side churches, services were held for five of the school's 87 dead children - Charles Nuebert, 9, Lorraine Nieri, 12, Mary Virgilio, 15, James Rogona, 9, and Karen Margaret Hobik, 13. |
Archbishop Albert G. Meyer of Chicago and Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York will offer masses in a National Guard armory for 27 of the victims Friday. Private services will be held for the others Friday and Saturday. |
The city's sorrow Thursday centered on the three women of God who were caught up in Chicago's greatest fire desaster in 55 years. |
The archbishop celebrated their funeral mass and Msgr. William McManus, superintendent of Chicago's Parochial schools, delivered their sermon. |
“Our three sisters died a magnificent death,” the monsignor said. “When the fire broke out they knew what to do - pray and save the children - and they did this until their death.” |
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He recalled that firemen heard the voices of the doomed nuns through the smoke and fire Monday. |
They were serenely repeating the last words of the Hail Mary - “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death; amen.” |
“No mother of any child killed in this fire could have been more unselfish or more heroic than these nuns,” the priest said. |
“They had taught, and believed, that all that matters is a happy death,” he said. “No lesson was ever so well taught as their last lesson.” |
Msgr. McManus did not mention the nuns' names in his sermon because “they would not have wanted it.” But their names and the way they died were well known to the mourners. They were. |
Sister Mary Clare Therese, 27; Sister Mary St. Canice, 44; Sister Mary Seraphica, 48. |
They were nuns of the order of Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin. |