Miriam Therese Winter Inducted into the 
Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame

Miriam Therese Winter, a Medical Mission Sister and Professor of Liturgy, Worship, Spirituality and Feminist Studies at Hartford Seminary, has been specially honored this year, when she was chosen as a member of the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame.

Winter was inducted at a ceremony on April 11 at Aetna Inc.

In remarks introducing Winter, Heidi Hadsell, president of Hartford Seminary, asked, “How can I begin to describe Miriam Therese Winter? She is a nun and artist, an author and songwriter, a professor and scholar. She is a friend.”

“MT’s selfless giving of her spirit has made this world a much better place,” Hadsell said.

Winter joined the faculty of Hartford Seminary in 1980. She is the founder and director of the Seminary’s Women’s Leadership Institute.

M.T. (as she is familiarly known) is the composer of 15 recordings, including the gold record album “Joy is Like the Rain” and “Mass of a Pilgrim People.” Her most recent collections are “Hymns Re-Imagined,” 21 hymns with familiar tunes and new texts, and “SpiritSong,” 22 songs for 21^st century prayer and praise. 

She is the author of 12 books, among them Out of the Depths: The Story of Ludmila Javorova, Ordained Roman Catholic Priest; The Singer and the Song; An Autobiography of the Spirit; The Gospel According to Mary; A New Testament for Women; and WomanWisdom; WomanWitness; WomanWord; and WomanSong.

An advocate of feminist spirituality and the full liberation of women, which she considers essential to the liberation of all peoples, Winter has traveled widely, witnessing to the work of the Spirit. Through talks and workshop, in prayer and in song, she has addressed issues of justice and gender, peace, hunger, homelessness, poverty, liberation, and reconciliation, relating to realities of life to an integral understanding of liturgy and spirituality.

She has ministered to refugees in camps on the Thai-Cambodian border and to starving children in Ethiopia. For the past 14 years she has ministered to the women at York Correctional Institution in Niantic.

In 1967, she was invited to perform some of her works at Carnegie Hall. It was the first time in the hall’s 75 years that an ecumenical concern of modern sacred music was performed.

Winter was honored with two other women, Eileen Kraus, the first woman to head a major regional financial institution, and Florence Griswold, honored posthumously for fostering the Impressionist art movement in America.

The mission of Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame is to honor and give formal public recognition to Connecticut women, past and present, who have “broken new ground” or have emerged as leaders in their fields of endeavor. It now has 75 members.