Maryalyce Gilfeather
“We exist for the poor, only the poor, absolutely only the poor.”
—St. Julie Billiart (Letter #86)
By the time Maryalyce was 13, she and her family had lived in six states and attended seven schools. These many moves brought her family together in a wonderful bond of love. She loved her parents, and her brother became her best friend. In 1963, her father suffered a fatal heart attack, and so the family moved back to Melrose, Massachusetts, for good.
During her early years, both she and her brother were always seen as ‘the new students’ at school because of their many moves. This gave her a great empathy for ‘new students’, which she carried with her in all her ministries.
She was educated by the Society of the Holy Child. During her senior year in high school, she was interested in joining this order, but due to the turmoil of the time, they were not accepting candidates. She had been given a book during her senior year with information on various religious congregations, and she remembers marking the Notre Dame de Namur page because she loved the spirit of St. Julie and the charism of Notre Dame de Namur. She loved that Julie was called the Smiling Saint and that joy was part of the spirit of the congregation.
After high school, She attended Salem State College in Massachusetts, where she met some Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who were also attending school there—her first connection with SNDdeNs! In her junior year, she had the joy of meeting Sister Karen Hokanson, whom she admired, which led to her interest in becoming a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur.
Sister Maryalyce, SNDdeN began her ministries teaching first grade in Shrewsbury and Tyngsboro, Massachusetts. She loved her students and firmly believed, as Maya Angelou so clearly expressed, “That people may forget what you say or do, but they won’t forget how you make them feel.” As a testament to this belief, some of her first-grade students from her beginning years in education still stay in touch with her and are now contributing donors to her present ministry at Notre Dame Cristo Rey High School.
Sister Maryalyce had the pleasure of serving in other exciting ministries, including Dean of Students at Boston College and on the Ipswich Province Leadership Team. While at Boston College, Maryalyce completed her doctoral work in Educational Leadership. Her dissertation, “Rethinking Mission: Rhetoric and Reality,” became the foundation for the Notre Dame de Namur Hallmarks document that is used in many ministries today.
While her present ministry as President of Cristo Rey High School in Methuen, Massachusetts, is the most challenging she has faced so far, it is also the ministry she loves beyond words. She has great admiration for our early sisters who were not afraid to take the risk to open new schools during uncertain times. Most of the students at Notre Dame Cristo Rey come from immigrant families in the Dominican Republic. Sister Maryalyce truly sees both the students and graduates from NDCR setting the world on fire with their love, perseverance and graciousness.
Constantly in Sister Maryalyce’s heart and on her lips are the words of St. Julie, “How Good is the Good God!” To date, Notre Dame Cristo Rey has graduated over 800 students. What a wonderful Notre Dame victory for God’s deserving children!
Sister Maryalyce’s favorite quote of St. Julie comes from the Letter of St. Julie No. 86:
“We exist for the poor, only the poor, absolutely only the poor”
Sister Maryalyce is, and shall forever be, grateful that the poor are God’s favored children as well as St. Julie’s, and it is her ongoing dream and hope that Notre Dame Cristo Rey students will go forth to enrich the lives of others. Sister Maryalyce’s love for Notre Dame and Cristo Rey enriched her Golden Jubilee in 2021 as she lovingly proclaimed, “How Good is the Good God!”
– Sister Mary McCue, SNDdeN
Updated 2025