U.S.
Mary Catherine Bunting might be retired from her four-decade nursing career, but she still works at least 40 hours a week.
On a typical day, she’s up at sunrise. Weather permitting, she’ll take an early morning swim or work in the 17 gardens she cultivates at her Ruxton home. She grows flowers, but also fresh vegetables she donates to the dinner service for homeless people at St. Vincent de Paul Church, where she serves food every Friday night.
A former nun with the Sisters of Mercy, Bunting attends 8:30 a.m. Mass daily.
Then, she might be off for one of her twice-weekly shifts volunteering at Gilchrist Hospice Care. Or she’ll attend a choir rehearsal or a meeting of the church’s Women in Ministry group.
“I don’t think we’re in this world to just receive,” Bunting says. “Mahatma Gandhi said that wealth without work was one of the seven deadly sins. We’re here to give our talents, our knowledge, whatever else we have.”
Later in the day, she might meet with elected officials, as she has in the past to urge them to pass an inclusionary housing bill. Or, she could work on an environmental project involving solar panels or electric cars. Rain or shine, you could see her standing on a street corner with other volunteers holding signs expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Have we mentioned that Bunting is 86? Or that she has a bad back?
“Living saints are never recognized among us, except perhaps in an offhanded way,” says her longtime friend, Geri Sicola, 71, of Baltimore. “But, she truly is one. She doesn’t stop. There is this tenacity and strength and rigor about her that never fails. When I’m exhausted and don’t want to attend some activity, I’ll think: ‘I have to show up because Cathy will be there.’”
Bunting is the granddaughter of Dr. George Avery Bunting, who founded the Noxzema Chemical Co. and passed along his fortune to his children and grandchildren. She grew up on 36 acres in Green Spring Valley with horses and dogs. “I was always up in some tree,” she says.
Bunting’s mother was fiercely devout and raised her three children in the Roman Catholic faith.
“I never had doubts,” Bunting says. “Even as a teenager, I couldn’t imagine not believing in God.”
When Bunting was 16, she was in a serious car accident while a passenger in her boyfriend’s car.
“My head hit the dashboard,” she says. She broke bones in her face and spent 10 days in the hospital, her jaw wired together. The nurses worked hard to make their patient comfortable, and just like that, Bunting found her calling.
“I loved nursing from day one,” she says. “You got paid for trying to help people. I don’t know how you can learn about the human body and not believe in God.”