By Florida Catholic staff - Florida Catholic
MIAMI | Funeral services will be livestreamed tonight and tomorrow for Sister St. Margaret Zapf, a Sister of St. Joseph of St. Augustine who ministered at Miami’s Mercy Hospital for many years. Sister St. Margaret died April 25, 2020, at Our Lady of Lourdes Convent in St. Augustine. She was 102 years old and had marked 86 years in religious life.
Photographer: Via Facebook
Sister St. Margaret Zapf, Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, died April 25, 2020, at 102 years of age and 86 years of religious profession.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the sisters will hold a private vigil at the motherhouse on Tuesday, April 28, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The funeral Mass will take place Wednesday, April 29, at 10 a.m. Both will be livestreamed on their Facebook page.
Sister St. Margaret was born in Miami, on July 15, 1917, to Max Zapf and Elva Laura Kilgore Zapf. She was baptized Helen Florence Henrica and was the fourth oldest of eight children — four girls and four boys. She entered the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Augustine right out of high school in 1934, noting on her 70th anniversary in the community that she did so “with great joy and was totally happy and grateful to God for this calling to service.”
Sister St. Margaret earned a bachelor’s degree at Barry University in Miami Shores. She also acquired the equivalent of a master's degree in religion from Incarnate Word College in San Antonio, Texas, and St. Thomas Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
She taught grade school and music in Puerto Rico from 1958 to 1965, then returned to the United States and continued teaching in schools throughout Florida, including at Sts. Peter and Paul School in Miami. She stopped teaching well into her 70s but took on a new ministry as a hospital chaplain at Mercy Hospital, where she remained for the next 21 years.
“When I was 94, I said to my general superior, I think it’s time for me to go to St. Augustine,” she recalled in a video biography filmed for the Sisters of St. Joseph (see below). That’s when she started her retirement. Sort of. Having been involved in a centering prayer group in Miami, Sister St. Margaret started a similar group at the motherhouse in St. Augustine.
“Centering prayer is a different type of meditation, so I do that every day too,” she said in that video, which was filmed in June 2015, just before her 98th birthday. “And I pray for the priests every day and for all the sisters that are sick. I have time for this, you know, so I’m grateful to God for that. So I’m really ready. I don’t fear death. I’m ready. Whenever he wants to call me, that’s the time. It’s going to be a wonderful moment.”
In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be sent to the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, P.O. Box 3506, St. Augustine, FL 32085; or online by clicking here.
