| Monica was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early 1950’s, the third of four children. She grew up with devout parents and a large extended Catholic family in a Catholic neighborhood. Her parents loved the Lord and Our Lady, and modeled the practice of the faith for their children. Monica attended Catholic School from 1st grade through High School except for grades 6 and 7. After graduating from a very small all girls’ High School with 69 students in her Senior class, she attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, which had 35,000 students. The challenge of this change pulled Monica into a very secular environment where she temporarily left behind her Catholic values.
With a failed marriage by the age of 23, the relocation of her parents from Wisconsin to South Carolina and the death of her mother, Monica’s early twenties were tumultuous. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and later received a Master’s in Nursing from the University of South Carolina. This allowed her to discover her two professional passions, teaching and caring for the poor and vulnerable in a community setting.
At the end of her twenties, she was blessed to meet and marry the love of her life, Jeffrey Donohue. They had three children together, Erin, Shannon and Patrick, and were married for thirty-two years. At the age of 31, Monica experienced a profound conversion which changed her life. She was infused with the Holy Spirit and began an intimate relationship with Jesus, and she began to follow the Lord on her unique journey of life as He made straight her paths. Through marriage, parenting, her nursing profession, a lifetime commitment as a Lay Cistercian of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, along with various ministries with Magnificat, and more recently with the Encounter School of Ministry, God has taken her by the hand to teach her to know him, to love him, to serve him and to trust him with all her heart. |
