Dominican Sister Mary Paul of Christ Murphy died June 18, 2026, at age 84 at St. Dominic’s Monastery in Linden in her 57th year of religious life.
She was born Carol Jean Murphy to Paul J. Murphy and Lois (Wilsea) Murphy Nov. 3, 1941, and grew up in Rochester, N.Y.
Prioress Sister Mary Magdalene said that as a child, Carol was “contemplative by nature.” She frequently sought out the privacy of her childhood treehouse, where she would read spiritual books, including “The Story of a Soul” by St. Thérèse of Lisieux and “The Seven Storey Mountain” by Trappist monk and priest Thomas Merton.
She entered the Sisters of Mercy shortly after high school but discerned out of the order. She subsequently worked as a bank teller and was engaged to be married but ended the engagement after still feeling the call to religious life. According to Dominican Father Gabriel O’Donnell, Sister Mary Paul’s spiritual director, she had said she ended the engagement “because God just wouldn’t go away — and I didn’t want him to.”
At 26, she became a novice with the cloistered Dominican sisters Dec. 10, 1967, at Dominican Monastery of Mary the Queen in Elmira, N.Y. A year later, she made her first profession Jan. 25, 1969. In 1977, she transferred to St. Dominic’s Monastery in the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wis. The monastery eventually relocated to Washington in 1984 before moving to Linden in 2008.
The contemplative nuns spend their hidden lives in silence, study, penance and prayer. According to the community’s website, “the nuns witness to the reality of the Word of God while their brothers, the Dominican Friars, proclaim the Word in the pulpit, in the classroom and in the many parts of the world where they are sent to evangelize.”
“She radiated Christ. She wanted only to live a hidden life in Christ but, as God would ironically have it, she was put in positions of leadership almost throughout her entire monastic life,” Sister Mary Magdalene said. Sister Mary Paul served as novice mistress, sub-prioress and eventually as prioress for 25 years.
In the years following Vatican II, Sister Mary Paul, along with fellow Dominican Sister Mary Martin Riesner, was instrumental in protecting the community from misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council’s directives, Sister Mary Magdalene said. “Their wisdom and vision has shaped the reappropriation of customs and values that were in danger of being lost.”
During her monastic life, Sister Mary Paul continued to foster her childhood love of books. “She was an avid reader with a keen mind so study came naturally to her,” Sister Mary Magdalene said. She was known throughout her community for her elegant handwriting and wise counsel.
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge offered a Mass of Christian Burial at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington June 27, followed by interment at the monastery cemetery in Linden.
