A Priest Who Made Others Happy
Father Michael McGee, a retired priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, died on Feb. 6 at age 74.
Father McGee, who was born May 7, 1951, and ordained to the priesthood on April 30, 1977, was parochial vicar for the following parishes: St. Mary Gate of Heaven (South Ozone Park), Holy Family-St. Laurence (Canarsie), Holy Family (Flatlands), Good Shepherd (Marine Park), St. Joseph (Astoria), Blessed Sacrament (Jackson Heights), St. Gerard Majella (Hollis), Holy Family 14th Street (Park Slope), Holy Name (Windsor Terrace), and St. Andrew Avellino (Flushing).
He retired in residence at Immaculate Conception Church (Astoria).
Father McGee was born in New York, the fifth of 11 children of Robert and Florence McGee.
Msgr. Sean Ogle, vicar for clergy and consecrated life for the Diocese of Brooklyn, was the homilist at Father McGee’s funeral Mass.
Msgr. Ogle, who started college seminary with Father McGee, said that “even early in life,” Father McGee “was motivated by a faith that expressed itself in service” and that he lived for making “other people happy.”
He added that Father McGee “was the life of every party … and every Communion breakfast, and every rosary luncheon, and every potluck supper, and every Christmas party, and any other kind of gala event that needed a singalong or a conga line.”
The funeral Mass for Father McGee was celebrated on Feb. 10 at Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria. Bishop Robert Brennan was the principal celebrant, and Auxiliary Bishop James Massa concelebrated.
Burial followed at St. John Cemetery in Middle Village.
Sister Jeanne Monahan, formerly Sister Esther Regis, who served for 72 years as a Sister of St. Dominic, died on Jan. 24 at the age of 98.
George and Agnes Connolly Monahan welcomed their eldest child, Jeanne, on July 8, 1927.
Sister Jeanne and her brothers, George and John, and her sister, Virginia, were raised in St. Albans, New York, and attended the parish school, St. Catherine of Sienna.
After graduating from The Mary Louis Academy in Jamaica Estates, Sister Jeanne continued her education at the College of St. Elizabeth (later St. Elizabeth University), earning a B.A. degree. She received her M.A. degree from Hunter College, New York, and her Ph.D. from Fordham University, Bronx.
After teaching for a few years, Sister Jeanne entered the Novitiate at Amityville on Sept. 5, 1952. On Aug. 4, 1953, she was invested in the Dominican habit and received her religious name, Sister Esther Regis. She pronounced her first vows on Aug. 7, 1954, and her final vows on Aug. 7, 1957.
Sister Jeanne’s many years of dedicated ministry varied. She taught elementary grades at American Martyrs in Bayside and at Our Lady of Sorrows in Elmhurst.
Her years in religious education and pastoral ministry spanned both the Dioceses of Rockville Centre and Brooklyn, including the areas of Amityville, Copiague, Melville, and Elmhurst, and later in Rockville, Maryland.
From 1992 until her retirement in 2005, her ministerial focus was spirituality through workshops, retreats, and days of prayer.
She is survived by her brothers, George and John, her sister-in-law, Carol, and her nieces and nephews: John, Barbara, Mary Ellen, Jeanne, and Christopher, and their families.
All services for Sister Jeanne were celebrated in St. Albert Chapel at Queen of the Rosary Motherhouse.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Feb. 5. Interment followed at St. Dominic Cemetery located on the Motherhouse grounds.