BAL When Theresa Buck was still in high school at Mount de Sales Academy in the Baltimore suburb of Catonsville, she took a standardized assessment test meant to give some indication of the kind of career that would best suit her talents, personality and interests. Topping the list of potential careers, according to the assessment? Ministry as a woman religious.
An exercise completed more than two decades ago turned out to be more than prescient. Not only did the former parishioner of St Agnes Parish in Catonsville enter the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in rural Ala-bama, she recently was entrusted with leadership of the inter-nationally known monastery.
Today with the religious name of Mother Mary Paschal of the Lamb of God, she was elected abbess July 29, taking on the same post that was once held by Mother Angelica, founder of both the monastery and the glo-bal Catholic communications net-work known as EWTN.
The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration are a contemplative community of cloistered nuns whose charism is centered on adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Established in France in 1854, the religious community has monasteries that act autonomously.