Thursday, 31 March 2011 09:12

A funeral Mass was celebrated March 12 for Adorer of the Blood of Christ Sister Maria Dolores Gonzalez, who served for many years as a pastoral minister, particularly to Hispanics.
The Mass took place in the Chapel of Our Lady of the New Covenant at the Adorers of the Blood of Christ’s Wichita Center in Kansas. Sister Maria Dolores, 77, died March 8 at Via Christi St. Francis in Wichita. Twenty-five of her years were lived as a professed Adorer of the Blood of Christ.
Father Juan Garza was the presider and homilist at the funeral Mass for Sister Maria Dolores. Her remains will be interred in Mexico.
She was born Sept. 15, l933, in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico, to Albino Gonzalez Cordero and Lina Zermeno Ramirez. Maria Dolores was the seventh of nine children.
Her father was a shoemaker and her mother was a homemaker who sold her pastries and bread locally and helped deliver the shoes. Family rules were protectively strict and nurtured spiritual values and practices.
Educated at a local Catholic primary school, she desired to enter a convent and strongly yearned to do missionary work. She worried that neither was possible, but with her mother’s encouragement, she became a member of the Poor Clare Missionaries of the Most Blessed Sacrament in 1952. Besides other duties, she loved doing missionary work in various parts of Mexico. Later she made private vows under the direction of the Bishop of Gallup, N.M.
After living with ASC Sisters in the community’s formation house in El Paso, Texas, she felt called to join them. Sister Maria Dolores entered the Adorers of the Blood of Christ on Sept. 15, 1984. She pronounced her first vows Jan. 25, 1986, and made her final vows Sept. 15, 1990. She earned a diploma from Centro Antonio de Montesinos, Mexico City. In El Paso, Sister Maria Dolores served in parish ministry, as a parish religious education coordinator, and in a care home for the elderly for about a dozen years.
Sister Maria Dolores moved to the ASC’s Wichita Center in 2007, and continued ministering with Spanish-speaking people, taking Holy Communion to the sick and carrying out other caring services. She traveled many weekends to worship with parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Newton, Kan. Sister Maria Dolores had looked forward to celebrating her 25th anniversary as an ASC in July 2011.

Thursday, 31 March 2011 09:11

CONCHA
Misty Lynn, 34, St. Mary Cathedral, Wichita, Feb. 18.
CONCHA-MARTINEZ
Mario, 37, St. Mary Cathedral, Wichita, Feb. 18.
TONGIER
Wayne Guthrie, 89, Holy Name, Coffeyville, Feb. 22.

Thursday, 03 March 2011 10:46

Shannon M. Rziha, 34, of Tulsa, Okla., a softball player for Newman University and the wife of Wayne, died Friday, Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.
Services were held at Church of the Madalene in Tulsa, her parish.
She was born Shannon Michelle Brill in Oklahoma City on May 15, 1976, and graduated from Putnam City High School in 1994. She attended Kansas Newman College, Wichita, in 1994 on a softball scholarship and graduated 1999 with a degree in biology. She married Wayne Rziha of Tampa, Kan., on July 15, 2000, in Wichita. They began their married life in Sioux Falls, S.D., and moved to Tulsa in 2002 where as a homemaker she raised three children, currently ages 8, 6, and 3.
Wayne formerly worked for the youth office of the Diocese of Wichita and Totus Tuus.
Condolences can be sent to www.fitzgeraldivychapel.com. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be sent to the Shannon Rziha Fund at Church of the Madalene Catholic Parish, Madalene Mom’s Group care of the Church of the Madalene Catholic Parish, or the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation for cancer research.
To learn more about Shannon's Journey: “Her Battle with Cancer,” you can read her journal at www.caringbridge.org/visit/shannonrziha.

Thursday, 03 March 2011 10:45

RUSSELL
Aron R., 59, St. Francis of Assisi, Wichita, Jan. 26.
WOMACK
John W. “Johnny,” 58, St. John, Iola.
ELY
Patti, 52, Church of the Magdalen, Wichita, Feb. 9.

Thursday, 17 February 2011 09:47

MARTINEZ
David Steven, 62, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Hutchinson, Jan. 27.
PEREZ
Rosa D., 92, St. Anthony, Wellington, Jan. 27.
POSCH
Alice Faye, 71, former of Wichita, Jan. 27.

Thursday, 03 February 2011 12:00

Sister M. Marian Hammerl, a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, died Jan. 26, in Oshkosh, Wisc. Services were held Jan. 28 in Oshkosh.
Sister M. Marian was born on July 7, 1915, in Eutenhofen, Oberfalz, Germany, and sailed for the United States in 1933, a year after she became a novice.
In 1935, she made first vows in Milwaukee, Wisc., and in 1940 she made final vows there. In 1937, Sister M. Marian entered the School of Nursing in Wichita, Kan., where she graduated in 1940.
Sister served as a nurse throughout her life as a religious. She received the Spirit of St. Francis Award in 1988 at St. Francis Hospital, Wichita, and retired in 1999.

Thursday, 03 February 2011 11:59

WERNEKE
Catherine D., 73, St. Margaret Mary, Wichita, Jan; 12.
McCREERY
James E., 68, St. Mary Cathedral, Wichita, Jan. 14.
SUMNER
Patsy Ruth, 84, Our Lady of Lourdes, Pittsburg, Jan. 14.

Thursday, 20 January 2011 13:19

CARTER
James E. “Jim,” 85, St. Francis, St. Paul, Dec. 27.
WOOD
Ferne, 95, Holy Name, Coffeyville, Dec. 27.
BINTER
Anna Marie, 86, All Saints, Wichita, Dec. 28.

Thursday, 06 January 2011 09:47

Father Walter Karrer, a Redemptorist priest who served St. Joseph Parish, Wichita, for 17 years, died Dec. 22 in Liguori, Mo.
A Mass was celebrated in memory of Fr. Karrer at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 3, at St. Joseph Church, Wichita. The church is located just west of the Delano district off of West Douglas at 139 S. Millwood.
Father Karrer died of complications resulting from hip surgery. He was 90 years old and would have celebrated 70 years of profession as a Redemptorist this coming summer.
Bill and Janet Walsh, members of St. Joseph Parish, Wichita, said Father Karrer played an important role in a difficult point in their lives.
Janet wrote that in the summer of 1998, she and her husband were joyfully awaiting the birth of their fifth child when they received the news that their baby, a boy, had anencephaly and would not survive long after birth.
Anencephaly is a condition where part of the brain does not develop.
“Although we prayed for a miracle,” she said, “during the next five weeks we made preparations for his funeral, if needed.”

Thursday, 06 January 2011 09:45

RAMIREZ
Maria Luz “Lucy,” 87, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Wichita, Nov. 17.
BACANI
Consolacion, 94, Sacred Heart, Fredonia, Dec. 4.
SIGG
Mary Barbara, 92, St. John, Iola, Dec. 7.