Background
Gormley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of 13 children.
Gormley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of 13 children.
She attended Trinity College in Washington, District of Columbia, after which she earned a Masters of Arts in Classics from Harvard University.
She was a professor in the Department of Sacred Scripture at Mount Saint Mary"s Seminary. She translated and produced a number of works by leading Catholic mystics, such as Saints Edith Stein and John of Avila. She then went on to receive a doctorate in New Testament Studies from Fordham University in New York City.
After receiving her doctorate, Gormley returned to her alma mater, Trinity College, where she taught classics and theology.
During this time, she did post-doctoral studies at the École Biblique in Jerusalem. She did extensive research on the life and writings of Saint Therese of Lisieux, to whom she had a strong devotion, at the Theresian Documentation Center in Lisieux, France, as well as her work on that of the German-Jewish convert, Saint Edith Stein.
In 1988 Gormley joined the faculty of Mount Saint Mary"s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she taught Scripture to the seminarians. She spent the Fall semester of 2003 on a sabbatical.
During this time, she researched the life and writings of the Spanish priest, Saint John of Avila, patron saint of the Spanish clergy, who had recently been declared a Doctor of the Church.
Her work resulted in a modern translation of his best known work, Audi, filia (Listen, O Daughter). She was promoted to professor in the department in 2004. An active participant in a number of theological associations, she published a commentary on Dei verbum (the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation), issued by the Second Vatican Council, for Catholic Distance University.
Gormley died in 2007.
Her remains were buried in Calvary Cemetery in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.