Sister Mary James Clines, of Brentwood, worked with troubled girls and impoverished women, dies at 88

Most who are called to serve the Catholic faith take vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd take a fourth: zeal, reflecting the strength of their mission to address "great disparities in health care, housing, food security [and] employment and the rampant discrimination against marginalized persons and groups," as the congregation’s direction statement reads.

Sister Mary James Clines embodied that zeal, both as executive director of Dix Hills’ 56-acre Madonna Heights sanctuary for troubled adolescent girls and, later, as administrator of a training center for impoverished women in Ethiopia.

"She was a real go-getter," said her niece, Anne Triece, of Garden City. "She was busy and scurrying around all the time and fostered wonderful relationships. She was great at fundraising — she had so many connections. She was something."

"She was drawn to the values of working with women and children in need," said Sister Maureen McGowan, leader of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd’s New York-Toronto province, headquartered in Astoria, Queens. "She was a woman for others, her life framed by her ministries and her mission of mercy for all those she served."

She was also a fervent Mets fan. "I mean, she had a Mets blanket on her bed," Triece said. "And I'm a big Mets fan, too, so we would watch on TV together — and honestly, if there wasn't a new game or it was the offseason, we'd watch reruns."

Clines died July 24 of natural causes at age 88, at the Maria Regina nursing home  in Brentwood, said her niece. She had lived there six years.

Born Oct. 26, 1935, as Eleanor Ruth Clines, she was the sixth of seven children of Brooklynites James Henry "Harry" Clines and Angela Seifert Clines. After graduating in 1953 from the now-defunct all-girls Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School in Brooklyn, she attended the borough’s St. Joseph’s College, now St. Joseph’s University, New York.

She stayed only a year, choosing to enter Mount St. Florence, a no longer extant novitiate in Peekskill. An older sister, Margaret Clines, had become a nun in the Dominican Order, which emphasizes preaching. Eleanor Clines found herself drawn to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, which stress service. She took her final vows, becoming Sister Mary James, in the early 1960s, McGowan said.

By then she had begun studying at Fordham University in the Bronx, eventually earning a master’s degree in social work. In 1965, Clines joined Madonna Heights as director of social services. Five years later, she became the organization's executive director.

"She was a compassionate person with a passion for providing life-changing opportunities to young women," said Douglas O’Dell, chief operating officer of SCO Family of Services, which merged with Madonna Heights in 1996. His first job out of college had been working for Clines there. "I was witness to her putting new programs together that changed hundreds of lives," he said. "She was a great innovator."

She left in 1994, determined to do missionary work. After completing a cross-cultural training course with the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation, she was named administrator of the Bethlehem Training Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in November 1995.

There, she ran "economic justice programs, helping women use their sewing skills to make beautiful tablecloths and bags and so on," McGowan said. The goods were exported for fair-trade sale so "the women could get a fair and honest wage for their work" while learning business skills and having on-site daycare. Clines remained there 17 years before retiring to a convent in Massachusetts.

She is survived by her sister, Virginia Clines, of Brooklyn, and her brother, Joseph Clines, of Commack, and by extended family including several nieces and nephews.

Visitation was held Monday at Michael J. Grant Funeral Home in Brentwood. A Mass of Christian Burial took place at the Sisters of St. Joseph’s Sacred Heart Chapel, Brentwood. Following a procession, she was interred at the Madonna Heights Convent Grounds in Dix Hills.