"May we look for Life at the center of our ordinary, everyday life. May we embrace change in all life’s mysterious ways. May we let go of what life was for us and reach out to what life can be for us. May we be partners with each other, helping and nourishing each other as we open ourselves to the new life already forming in us. We are in labor - a labor of love and life. May we soon give birth to the future that awaits us."

Sister Ann has had a wide and varied career as a Maryknoll Sister that has taken her from Kentucky to St.Louis, to Korea, to the Sudan, to Nicaragua, back to Maryknoll in New York.

Sister Ann Hayden, of Louisville, Kentucky, attended Catherine Spaulding College for two years in the Medical Technology Program. After entering the Maryknoll Sisters’ Congregation in 1968 she changed her major to Nursing and attended Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri where she earned her B.S. in Nursing and became a Registered Nurse in 1972. She worked with the Visiting Nurse Association in East Saint Louis for 6 months before being missioned to Korea later in 1972. After a year of language study Sister was assigned to Jeong Pyong in 1973 for a work-study period as part-time clinic nurse in the Maryknoll Clinic of Jeong Pyong. After a 2nd year of language study Sister was re-assigned to Jeong Pyong in 1975 as Staff Nurse in the clinic and as Public Health Nurse in the Clinic’s Community Outreach Health Programs especially in Maternal/Child Care.

At the end of 1977 Sister returned to Maryknoll Sisters’ Center in New York for a year of reflection and study in preparation for final vows. During that time she studied in the Core Theology Program at Maryknoll School of Theology. When Sister returned to Korea in January of 1979 she became a team member of the joint Maryknoll Society and Maryknoll Sisters’ Labor Apostolate. The team worked with young women factory workers giving workshops and offering a safe place and listening ears for them to share their experiences in what was often an abusive workplace.  In 1981 Sister was called home for Family Ministry and in 1984 returned to the Center to serve as the out-patient clinic nurse in the Maryknoll Sisters’ Center in New York.  In 1985 Sister answered a call to volunteer with another Maryknoll Sister for a six month period in refugee work with the organization Save the Children. She contributed much needed health service in response to the Ethiopian refugee crisis in Sudan.

In 1986 she was assigned to Nicaragua. After language study she began work in Villanueva, Nicaragua, where she helped develop a Community Based Volunteer Health Promoter Program in the rural communities around the town of Villanueva. She also helped to start a low cost Pharmacy in the community; a Community Development Organization, to provide small loans for family economic projects; and a Women’s Center to promote adult education and skills training for women in the area. In 1997 she transferred to Jinotepe, Nicaragua, and became a member of a mobile, skills training team that gave adult education workshops on community development skills in communities all over Nicaragua.

In 2001, Sister Ann became the Director of Nursing Services in our Residential Care Unit at Maryknoll, New York where she ministers to our elder, frail and infirm Sisters. Sr. Ann has many talents not the least of which is her prowess as a poetess, and as a member of the Community Choir, enhancing our many liturgies with her beautiful singing voice.

At a meeting of the Maryknoll Sisters' General Assembly in 2008, Sister Ann was elected to the Congregational Leadership Team for a six-year-yerm.  Read the Congregational Leadership Blog.