Remembering Sister Mary Ann Zrust

August 27, 1929 – January 23, 2026

Funeral Wake & Mass Details

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

St. Edna Parish

2525 N. Arlington Hts. Road

Arlington Hts., Illinois 60004

Wake Service at 9:00 a.m.

Mass of the Resurrection 10:00 a.m.

Committal Service 1:00 p.m.

All Saints Cemetery

700 N. River Road

The Mass will be live-streamed. You can check this out on the St. Edna website: www.stedna.org

Biography of Sister Mary Ann Zrust, SLW

Before a recent stay in the hospital, Sister Mary Ann made the decision, at age 95, to give away her computer.  She said, with this symbolic action, that she believed “her work is finished.”

The following is a concise reflection by Mary Ann on her life and ministry:

I Shall Live and Recount the Deeds of the Lord

I am a Minnesotan by birth, a rural girl, born right at depression time. I come from a solid German/Czech background where family values were held in high regard. I am the oldest of a family of five.  Consequently, I often was the cook and housekeeper as my Mom shared farm duties with my father.

Having been taught by Sisters of Christian Charity, I received a good, solid education.  Even then I had a yen for the historical dimension of life.

While in high school, I responded to God’s invitation to enter religious life. Since teaching was the primary ministry of the Sisters of Christian Charity, I became a teacher and I think I did well in that role. Later I assumed a principalship in a Minneapolis middle school followed by the same role in New Ulm, Minnesota.  Here I was a principal of a middle school in a large consolidation where ministering in education was a real joy.

In 1975 I moved on to the Congregation of the Sisters of the Living Word and served the community in a role of leadership as Coordinator of Ministry. I have good organizational skills, which served this role well as we started on a new path as Sisters of the Living Word.

While I served the Community in this capacity, I witnessed superb ways in which sisters carried out their roles in ministry. Following these years of service, I took on the role of pastoral associate in a former Czech/Bohemian parish in Berwyn, Illinois.

I look upon this ministry as one of the most gratifying experiences of service as I initiated many parish services for the sick, elderly, divorced, separated, and bereaved. I had many opportunities to carry out the injunction of the SLW mission, to follow Jesus who frees the oppressed and brings new life.

After another term of SLW Leadership, where the call to new life touched service to our Sisters, I ministered at the Vicar for Priests Office in the Archdiocese of Chicago as Associate Director. I felt I could serve ordained ministers who experienced their own and others’ oppression and so spread the new life of Jesus in a variety of ways.

Leaving the Vicar for Priests Office, I reached a new juncture in life—retirement! One of the goals during those years was to write the history of the Sisters of the Living Word, reaching back to pre-Vatican II days and trace what it is that compelled women religious to take on the call of renewal. That was especially enticing for me since I did my higher education study in history.  I have to say, I love it and find myself interested in the daily newspaper accounts that reflect historical implications of what the present day reflects to our world. 

Life is moving so fast, but I think the historian stops and assesses what brought us to where we are and makes some crucial connections as to where we are heading . . . In addition to being involved in the history writing of SLW, I also was connected with Project IRENE in the state of Illinois. This grew out of a call to Illinois women religious to take on advocacy for women and children when it comes to legislation that can shift their lives for the better. In between I wrote a bi-weekly reflection column on Sunday Scriptures for a parish in Chicago . . . another way to “reflect and affirm the Word.”

This experience that Mary Ann shared with her community many years ago reflects a quality of her life, as one open to the Word of God:

SLW Story 1975-1997

 “I am aware that there were occasions in my life as a Sister of the Living Word when the power of the Word compelled me to respond to a situation. In retrospect I can name times that such power moved me.

I recall a Sunday evening a few years ago as a pastoral associate in a parish. I rethought my decision to attend the wake of a young man with whose family I was totally unfamiliar.

I came into the funeral home and encountered one of the most grief-stricken fathers I have ever seen. With sobbing and tears he threw himself into my arms. I was able to hold him and allow him to let his sorrow be received by me.

Witnessing his grief at the premature death of his son and being with him at this and subsequent moments, I now am aware of the healing presence of the Word in this father’s life. I feel it was the inner urge of the Word that compelled me to be present during this father’s time of mourning for his son’s early death.”