Sister Teresina Grasso

Born and raised in Chicago, Sister Teresina attended St. Leo Parish where the sisters ministered at the elementary school. After attending Mercy High School with the Sisters of Mercy, she entered the Sisters of Providence Congregation on February 2, 1960.

Her first vows took place on August 15, 1962, and her final vows took place on August 15, 1967.

She graduated from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College with a bachelor’s degree in education.

Of her ministries, Sister Teresina has taught in Oklahoma City and Chicago, where she was a seventh grade teacher at Our Lady of Sorrows when the riots broke out after Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

She has also ministered in Clinical Pastoral Education, Hospital Chaplaincy, as a pastoral associate, a counselor at a homeless shelter, a rental manager and resident services coordinator for a housing management company in Massachusetts, and as a certified Reiki Master, providing treatments to clients at a clinic in Massachusetts.

Sister Teresina also ministered as the Dean of Admissions at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College for two years.

In 2006, she returned to Chicago to continue her practice of Reiki and began a ministry as an assistant and co-director for the Hesburgh Sabbatical Program and the Institute for Religious Formation held at Catholic Theological Union.

She “retired” in 2016, but continued to volunteer at the Special Religious Development office in Chicago and also shares healing treatments at a wellness clinic in Elmwood Park, Illinois. Her current ministry is as a coordinator and practitioner for the Reiki Wellness Center in Elmwood Park.

Sister Teresina said she loves to garden and is a die-hard Cubs fan. She also tinkers with the harmonica.