Sister Maria Teresita Hogg
Sister Maria Teresita Hogg1941 – 2019
Born: 14th February 1941
Entered Religious Life: 14th October 1968
Died: 15th September 2019
The following is the reflection given at Sr Maria’s funeral Mass by Sr Una O’Neill, the Provincial Leader in Ireland
In the Gospel today Jesus tells us not to let our hearts be troubled, not to be afraid. And the reason is given in the opening hymn: Jesus is our wisdom, the Lord of our hearts, our light, our true word . . . And that was true of Maria – Mary as she was called by her family. She was not one to share her faith or feelings too much but her life was lived as best she could, in the sure belief that the Lord was her wisdom and her light.
Today we gather to celebrate the life of Maria – known to her family as Mary Margaret – who was born to John and Ann on the 14th February 1941. From her parents and family she received the gift of faith that eventually led to her decision to become a Sister of Charity. All of us here today have known Marie in one way or another: her community and the Sisters of the Congregation, her friends and neighbours; her extended family – but above all her sister Dolores and her brothers Tony and John. I am conscious today that the family have now lost three siblings in one year: Maria, Anna and Julie – it is a lot of sorrow for any family and we remember Anna and Julie especially at this Mass.
In the second reading St. John reminds us to think of the love that God has lavished on us – a love that is selfless, compassionate and forgiving – a love that challenges us to see light in the darkness, to know peace in the anguish, to find consolation even as we mourn, to hold fast to Jesus and to His promise of life, as Maria did. Many times we may feel like giving up. Many times our faith will be shaken. Many times we may wonder what life is all about. But if our hearts are set on Christ, then in the midst of the dark moments, the suffering, the anxiety, we will know that the Lord is with us and that we can depend on him because his love for us is without limit.
That was the story of Maria’s life. She gave herself with generosity to the many people whose lives she touched in her years in childcare and in the care of those who were unable to care for themselves in St. Patrick’s Kilkenny, in Benada, in Merrion, in St. Vincent’s Cork, in Lakelands and Temple Street. She was very much a Dubliner and that Dublin spirit and wit marked her years of ministry – she actually spent 22 years outside of Dublin. I wonder if it is providential that she died on the morning after Dublin football team did the 5 in a row and the day on which the Dublin camogie team did three in a row.
More importantly, she died on her feastday – Our Lady of Sorrows. While she had a great capacity for enjoyment, her life, like all our lives, was marked by suffering and sorrow. Our Lady had times of piercing sorrow but she never gave up – she never lost faith in or love for her beloved Son. Her choice of this feast is an indication of where Maria’s faith was centred – in the suffering heart of Mary who, as mother, suffered in and through the suffering of her Son. Her gift to him was her constant presence from birth to death as she stood beneath the Cross.
On the 27th August 1848, our Foundress Mary Aikenhead wrote: “Pray that I may be faithful to the end”. Maria suffered greatly – above all through her illness – these past few years – and all of us, family, community, friends were saddened as we watched her suffering and her struggle to cope and to hope. The Sisters and staff in Temple Street and St. Monica’s did all they could to ensure her comfort and care and her family were constant in their visits and in ensuring that her needs were met. In these last days she has been surrounded by those who cared for her – and in the end she let go gently and peacefully.
In the Gospel Jesus says: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. When everything seems to be falling apart – the love of God, the peace that He give us – remains true. May the constancy of that love reassure and encourage us as it did Maria. May we know, as she now does, that God’s love holds us close and calms our anxious hearts. Maria has now moved beyond the limits of this life and is complete in that love. May she rest in peace.
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.
