Jubilee Celebrations

Welcome Address by Sr. Kathleen Mc Garvey, OLA Provincial Leader, on the occasion of the Jubilees of Srs. Maricana O'Keefe, Catherine Buckley, Bernadette Flynn and Mary Taylor.

Sr. Kathleen Mc Garvey, OLA Provincial Leader.

Good morning. You are all very welcome. Thank you for coming to join us on this very joyful day. Cead mile failte to our Jubilarians, these four great women whose lives we are gathered today to celebrate: Srs. Marciana who is joining us from the infirmary, and Catherine, Bernadette and Mary who are all here with us.  

Failte to the family and friends of our Jubilarians: many of you have travelled far to be here: from England, Tipperary, Belfast, Cork, Dublin and even Donegal; you are all welcome to Ardfoyle and to this celebration. Failte to Fr Eddie Deeney SMA, our celebrant today, and thank you Eddie for your friendship. Failte to all our OLA Sisters, especially you who have come from our other communities to celebrate with us today.

We are gathered here for a Jubilee, to celebrate the anniversary of something significant for which we are all grateful. Today we commemorate and celebrate the fact that these four great women professed their lives to God, in the service of God’s Kingdom, seventy, sixty and fifty years ago. Through these years,  they have lived the ups and downs of their life journey, they have travelled many miles and touched many lives, have known joys and sorrows, have grown in wisdom, and they are still here with us, still faithful to what they professed, still journeying with the Lord. Sisters Marciana, Catherine, Bernadette and Mary: Today, we thank God who called you, and we thank you for your generous response to that call.

Each of you professed, here in Ardfoyle, the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, according to the Constitutions of the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles. You knew you were consecrating your life to God for God’s service, to spread the Good News, particularly in Africa. I imagine that on the day of your Religious Profession, fifty or more years ago, you had your dreams about what lay ahead.

The four women we are celebrating today took the same vows in the same congregation and so they must have had common elements in their respective dreams. However, their lives have been very varied. Undoubtedly, a book could be written on each one. But in brief:

Sr. Marciana, who turned ninety in January this year, made her religious profession seventy years ago, went straight to college after profession, did a BSc in UCC and her HDip in Cavendish Square; then went to Kaduna, Nigeria, and spent fourteen years teaching there; then into leadership in the congregation for twenty-three years (!) first as local superior here in Ardfoyle, then on the Provincial Council and then as Superior General, the first Irish OLA to hold this post; after this she was commissioned by Propaganda Fide to a two year mission of assisting indigenous religious congregations in Nigeria. She then served for four years in the novitiate in Ibadan; followed by ten years in the archives here in Ireland; until health caused her to retire in 2007. Marciana is indeed a great lady and has contributed at international level to the OLA, to other religious and to the Church at large and this of course was recognised when she received the Papal award Pro Ecclesia et Pontifica in 1991.

Sr. Catherine, celebrating seventy years of religious profession today, qualified as a teacher in London and later in life also qualified in Catechetics; She spent forty three years in Ghana, between Cape Coast, Sekondi, Asikuma, Keta and Elmina, teaching in primary and secondary schools, in the teacher trainer college, and in the major seminary as well as working in the area of Catechetics at archdiocesan and national levels. I found a newspaper article speaking of Sr Catherine as she was being sent off from Ghana in 1996 and it makes me proud to be an OLA when I read it. After Ghana she missioned in London for another eight years, working in the parish there, before coming back to Ireland in 2004 and gradually being slowed down by health.

Sr. Bernadette, our Diamond Woman, we are indeed happy that you are here today to celebrate with us your sixty years of religious profession, instead of us having to visit you in hospital as it looked like we might have to do! Mungode Allah! Bernadette did her BA and HDip in UCC. Over the last sixty years she has spent many years in Nigeria and many years in Ireland, always in mission, whether in teaching, in formation, in leadership, or in community service, even up until maybe last year when a hip surgery cautioned her to take things a bit easier. Many OLF Sisters in Northern Nigeria remember Bernadette very fondly as their mother as indeed do so many Nigerian OLA Sisters with whom she walked the journey of formation as well.

Sr. Mary, our Golden Jubilarian, celebrating fifty years of religious profession,  first spent some years in Vroom in Ghana, then qualified in Belfast as a nurse and a midwife, and then worked for about nineteen years in Nigeria, first in Oke Offa in Ibadan and then in formation in Kaduna. Like Bernie, Mary Taylor will never be forgotten in Northern Nigeria where she was so instrumental in accompanying and preparing young women from the north in their first years of religious life as OLAs. From Nigeria Mary went to Tanzania in 1997 for two years before being called back to Ireland for leadership. Since 2003, Mary has been living in Rostrevor, from where she was able to be near her mother and care for her when she was needed, and from where she still continues her missionary apostolate to people who suffer from HIV/Aids.

Missionary service in Ireland, England, Ghana, Nigeria, Rome and beyond; Serving in schools, hospitals, teacher training colleges, novitiates, seminaries, parishes and dioceses; Service through teaching, nursing, religious formation, pastoral care, administration, bursar, leadership…. During the past few days I have taken time to read through some of the files to try to glimpse the life of each of these wonderful women.  Their stories are varied, but aspects of what we call OLA charism and spirituality abound from each one of them: whether it was in Africa, England or in Ireland, each of our jubiliarians worked energetically, generously, with audacity, with great love and self-sacrifice in the field to which she was sent. They worked for and in OLA mission, each in a different way, and they continue to do so today.

Thank you, Sisters, for your life of witness. I am happy we have this opportunity to celebrate you and your life today, while you are still very much alive and well. We pray that God may grant each one of you your heart’s desire. We also pray that young people may be inspired by you and may learn to dream generous dreams of giving oneself totally to the service of God and of others through the religious missionary life.

Again welcome and may we all enjoy our day!

I now hand you over to our main celebrant, Fr Eddie Deeney SMA, to begin our Eucharistic celebration.

Kathleen McGarvey

Provincial Leader