Mary Boulding

Mary Boulding (3 May 1929 – 11 November 2009) was a British nun, theologian, writer and translator.

The oldest of three daughters, she declined a scholarship to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and went to Stanbrook Abbey to become a nun. Boulding took her solemn vows in April 1952 after expressing her wish to delay her profession of vows, but this was remedied by the abbess Elizabeth Sumner who challenged her to theological endeavors. Her first book was published in 1973, and she joined the theological commission of the English Benedictine Congregation in the late 1970s.

Boulding later undertook a six-month tour of the Holy Land, Australia, and Japan in preparation for the marking the fifteenth centenary of Benedict of Nursia's birth in 1980, where she addressed mixed audiences. She spent the years 1985 to 2004 living as a hermit before returning to Stanbrook in early 2004 and spending the final years of her life translating, revising, and travelling.

Biography Early life and career Boulding was born on 3 May 1929 at 94 Kenilworth Avenue in Wimbledon in Surrey and was baptised as Mary. She was the oldest of three daughters of the Roman Catholic convert Reginald Boulding, who was an electrical engineer and radar specialist, and his second wife Josephine, née Branney. The death of Boulding's mother when she was sixteen made her responsible for her younger siblings. She excelled at Ursuline school but declined to take up a scholarship at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, On 1 April 1948 she was clothed in the habit and given the religious name of Ethelburga. Boulding experienced a minor earthquake during her visit to Japan and reflected that: "If I had only a few more minutes to live, I didn't want to waste them talking to God about my sins. I wanted to thank him for all the love, all the joy." Boulding then served a second term as sub-abbess from 2006 to 2008, and then abbess between 2008 and 2009. During this period she became a member of the Roman missal editorial committee and spent her final days translating, revising and travelling. Her work for the committee led to the Vatican appointing her to a committee to look over the prayers of the Liturgy of Hours in 2008. She was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in Lent 2009 and refused most treatment apart from palliative measures. Three days before her death, she completed Journey to Easter, a series of meditations detailing her experiences of the Resurrection through pain and suffering. The book was published by Continuum posthumously. She died at the new Stanbrook on 11 November 2009, having insisted that no Latin be read at her funeral at Ampleforth Abbey.