Sister Kathleen Newell
1920 – 2021
Born: 13 December 1920
Entered Religious Life: 2nd October 1939
Died: 9th December 2021
Kathleen Christina Newell, born December 13, 1920, daughter of Thomas Newell and Norah Brett was the third child of ten children, three sisters and six brothers.
1920 saw the War of Independence begin in earnest in Ireland with an escalation in violence. A few months after Kathleen was born, Ireland was partitioned and Northern Ireland was created and remains within the United Kingdom to this day. Ireland was in turmoil and in the throes of civil war and although an uneasy peace followed in 1922, a period of great economic uncertainty and austerity had to be endured in the years to come. This was the external backdrop to Kathleen’s childhood.
Having been born into a rural farming family in Headford, Co. Galway, Kathleen attended the local school there and while finishing secondary school in Dublin She was drawn to religious life. She entered the Religious Sisters o Charity on October 2, 1939. This was not surprising coming from a family with a long history of vocations to religious life. Two of her brothers were Carmelites and one sister a Presentation sister. Kathleen received the name Francis Paul when she was accept into the Novitiate in 1940. After Sister’s First Profession in 1942 she was assigned to Mountjoy Street and later to St. Vincent’ s Cork.
Sr. Kathleen made her Final Profession on May 6 1945 and having had an adventurous and missionary spirit from a young age it came as no surprise when she volunteered to be one of the pioneering sisters to come to Los Angeles, California. This took place on September 22, 1953. St Cornelius was our first foundation in the US and Kathleen was assigned to teach there, which she did until 1957 when she was missioned to St. Bridget of Sweden as their first Principal.
Sr. Kathleen continued her role as an exceptional educator dedicating herself to Special Needs children She also served in St. Columbian, Garden Grove, St. Hedwig Los Alamito, Our Lady of Fatima, San Clemente and was beloved by all who were privileged to know her.
When Sr. Kathleen retired from teaching she ministered in Pastoral care in Marycrest Manor until she transferred to Huron Ave in 2002. While in Huron Ave she volunteered in many ministries including but not limited to Eucharistic ministry to the homebound, prisoners, part-time remedial. She took great delight in the beauty of nature and caring for God’s creation. There she remained until her health failed, when she expressed a desire to be cared for by the Carmelites Sisters in Marycrest Manor.
Sr. Kathleen was a fountain of sound advice and of course her sense of fun and good humor would give a lift to the saddest of hearts. Sr. Kathleen was above all else religious. She had a deep humility and an enduring shyness. She used all sorts of machinations to evade any spotlight being put on her.
She died peaceful surrounded by our sisters on December 9, 2021 four days short of her 101 birthday.
We are standing this morning on holy ground: the place where Mary Aikenhead spent the last years of her life as an invalid – a woman whose vision, courage and practical common-sense gave birth to our Congregation and to our long and graced history of service of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable.Today we are celebrating the life of Sr. Joseph Helen, a woman who cherished that charism, serving those in need with fidelity and generosity, and who also spent the last years of her life here in the Hospice.
The readings this morning are both comforting and challenging.In the Gospel Jesus speaks of himself as the Way, the Truth and the Life.He invites us to put our hope and our trust in Him and in His promise to be with us, steadily and constantly as we try each day to walk his way, to speak his truth, to live his life.It is an apt description of the life and commitment of the woman whom we are remembering here.
In her 103 years of life, Sr. Joseph Helen lived through historical and global changes that are impossible for us to imagine.She experienced seismic shifts in Church and state.She witnessed wars and famines on a world scale.Through all of those yearsshe remained steadfastly faithful to the constant core of who she was as an RSC.She was born Dorothy Cunningham in Ballacolla in Portlaoise on 1st July 1908. She was an only girl, with one brother, and was much loved by all.Her childhood and youth reflected the calm ordinariness of children’s lives at that time.Following her degree studies she spent some months caring for her mother who was ill and then secured a job teaching in Mountjoy St. School in Dublin.Her father was not impressed!His comment on hearing of that place was:“It doesn’t sound like much of a job but you like working for the poor and you’ve always been good at it”.She remained there until she entered the Sisters of Charity on 5th October 1931.
In the first reading we are told that God gives strength to the wearied; that those who hope in Yahweh will soar like eagles, run and no grow weary, walk and never tire.That was so true of J. Helen throughout her active life.She was missioned back to Mountjoy St. after her religious profession and taught there for 12 years.Following a year’s further study in Scotland, she went to teach in a Secondary Modern school inWalthamstow in England for a year.And then came the call to be one of our three founding Sisters of the Zambian Region, or Northern Rhodesia as it then was.
In 1948 they set sail, travelling for four weeks by boat – The Athlone Castle -rail, bus and lorry before arriving in Chisekesi Siding on a dark morning on 28th October 1948. Sr. Helen kept a diary of the journey which was printed for the 50th anniversary and which gives a fascinating insight into their journey and how they coped with, what was for them, such a strange and almost ‘alien’ environment.
One can only imagine the anticipation and anxiety, the challenge and the loneliness, the wonder and the doubts that marked that journey and her first months in Zambia.It was a place and people that she came to love and cherish.She committed herself to the education of girls and brought the gift of knowledge and freedom to countless women who still remember her with gratitude and appreciation.There are many past pupils with sad hearts in Zambia at the moment – their sadness at her passing tempered only by their gratitude that she is free from the debilities of her age.And that mourning is echoed this morning among our sisters there in the Region and here in this Chapel in the sisters who lived with her and shared her life for those 30 years.
Her first 15 years in Zambia were spent in the Teacher training college run by the Jesuits and began her work in promoting the education of girls – beginning with the setting up of a girls secondary boarding school in Roma in Lusaka.Nine years later she was appointed Regional Leader and on Independence day 1978she was conferred with the Order of Distinguished Service for 30 years of outstanding service to the people of Zambia in the fields of Education and Social work.
While she was a formidable woman in many ways, with high standards and expectations, her devotion to her religious life and her commitment to education was recognized and appreciated by all who knew her.She was a strict disciplinarian, spoke the truth without apology and demanded very high standards.At the same time her heart was compassionate and her generosity and hospitality were known and appreciated by all.
Like all of us, Helen has known suffering and joy, tears and laughter, pain and happiness, loneliness and friendship.And she had strong relationships with herfriends – too numerous to mention – but exemplified in the love and devotion of Sr. Mary Bernadette Collins and Catherine Fallon.Up to the end she valued and enjoyed her relationships with her nieces, nephews and other family members and followed their lives with interest, with love and with prayer.
In 1978 she was missioned to Ireland and worked on our Constitutions.Subsequently she was appointed as local leader to our community in Crumlin before her appointment to our Provincial Leadership team and consequent arrival here in Our Lady’s Mount in 1981.
Sr. J. Helen’s commitment to Mary Aikenhead’s charism was single-minded and she never compromised on that.The second reading confirms her attitude to life:nothing outweighs the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus. It is only through Him, with Him and in Him that we can find life and happiness and fulfilment.Rooted in that conviction, she endorsed and embraced anything that served the people for whom she cared in a better, more dignified or respectful way.
She suffered in her growing debility and weakness these last years and all of us – family, community, friends and colleagues – were saddened as we watched her suffering and her struggle to cope.In spite of the wonderful, caring staff who surrounded her and the sisters and friends who were her constant support,she had difficult and dispiriting days.Yet she never gave up .Her faith in Providence was the touchstone of her life.In the midst of all her pain and letting-go she was confident that he was with her, holding her, comforting her and in the end, calling her to himself.And when that call came, sheyielded her spirit to the Lord, peace-filled, calm and trusting – blest with a death that had no struggle, no pain, no fear.And perhaps I can end with some words of hers, written in the diary of which I spoke, on her arrival in Chikuni:“Now that we have reached our Promised Land we must thank God and Our Lady for our very pleasant and on the whole easy journey which we have had . . . . “Those words echo, not only the journey to Chikuni, but her life journey, now at its end as she moves, we believe, into the fullness of the Promised land of God’s life and love.
