Sister Marcella Hyland
1935 – 2017
Born: 29th March 1935
Entered Religious Life: 15th July 1957
Died: 21st November 2017
The following is the ‘Welcome’ given at Sr Marcella’s Funeral Mass by Sr Ann Marie McGeever, the Local Leader in Stanhope Street community.
“Good morning. On behalf of Stanhope St Community and our Congregation of the Religious Sisters of Charity, I welcome all of you who have joined us in celebrating Eucharist (thanksgiving) for the life of Sr Marcella. A special welcome to her brother Bill, her sisters Eileen and Kathleen, her sister-in-law Anne, extended family, friends and sisters.
Our celebrant today is Monsignor Paul Callan, Vicar General, who is chaplain to our community, and with him are Fr Brian Gough, Chaplain to St James Hospital, and Canon Damian O’Reilly, recently appointed chaplain to St Vincent’s who attended Marcella during her final illness. Fr Paddy Madden, our Parish Priest here in Aughrim St has welcomed us using the church, together with Fr Cori. We appreciate that you are able to be with us today.
Marcella was born in Mountmellick in 1935. Sometime later the family moved to Dublin, and in 1957 Marcella, in response to God’s call entered our Congregation in Mount St Anne’s, Milltown. July this year was the 60th anniversary of her entrance.
At her reception into the novitiate she was given the name Sr Joseph Thechla and was known by that name for many years until the opportunity arose and she was able to reclaim her baptismal name chosen by her parents.
She was professed in 1960 and apart from three years spent in Airdrie, Scotland and some sabbatical time in Rome, all her religious life has been in the Irish Province. For many years her main ministry was in the area of hospitality, in 19998 she began studies in Pastoral Ministry in Milltown Park. When her studies were completed she was missioned to St James Hospital where she made a contribution to the pastoral care of the frail elderly in Hospital 4. This continued until 2015 when she retired from Ministry but very much kept in contact with the Pastoral Care Team members.
Marcella was a very private person, sharing did not come easy to her so sometimes it was difficult to get the full picture, a bit like a jigsaw that has missing pieces!!!
She had many interests in life, for example, reading, listening to music, arts and crafts and in recent times joined a local knitting group. She enjoyed television, especially nature programmes, quizzes and anything to do with antiques.
Time spent with family was enjoyed and appreciated by her, and she loved to hear how everyone was doing. In September of this year she travelled to Lourdes with the Dublin Diocesan Pilgrimage. It was a wonderful experience for her, so much so that she hoped to repeat it next year.
Times of quiet and reflection were important to her, and it was with great disappointment only two weeks ago she cancelled her Advent Triduum in Ballyvaloo.
Marcella had poor health most of her life, but she kept going and her last hospital appointment was basically a routine check-up, so her passing from life came as a huge shock to everyone; it happened so quickly.
Her work here on earth is now complete; her suffering is over.
May she rest in peace with God.”
Sr. Joseph Helen Cunningham.
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.