Sister Rita Hayes
Sister Rita Hayes1935 – 2017
Born: 25th March 1931
Entered Religious Life: 2nd February 1953
Died: 10th August 2017
Margaret Hayes (Rita) was born in Ballina/Killaloe, Co. Tipperary on 25th March 1931. She entered the Religious Sisters of Charity on the 9th February 1953 and received the habit of the Congregation and the name Sr. Marie Lourdes on the 11th August 1953.
Before coming to the Novitiate in Mount St. Anne’s, Milltown she spent some time in Temple Street Hospital but before sitting her Preliminary Exam felt that nursing was not for her and decided to enter the Congregation. Her birthday on 25th March was always special for her and when she made her First Profession of Vows on 13th August 1955 she chose as her motto “Fiat” in imitation of Our Lady. This she loved and lived out in her readiness to go wherever she was sent and to take on any task no matter how daunting.
Sr. Rita lived in Ireland – in Donnybrook, Ballaghdereen and Merrion for short periods before being missioned to Walthamstow in England to study Domestic Science. She was obviously greatly loved by the children in Merrion as evidenced by the presence at her funeral Mass of three visually impaired women who were children in Merrion and had good memories of her care and kept up with her over the years.
On 8th August 1961 she was missioned to Zambia and spent seven years in the Chikuni Homecraft Centre. At that time the Government had set up an “Under a Badge scheme” which operated in several villages around Chikuni. Sr. Rita was in charge of these classes and visited each village on a weekly basis for classes. In January 1968 a new Domestic Science course for teachers was started at Charles Lwanga Teacher training College and Sr. Rita with Sr. Mary Gertrude Moore was responsible for this course.
She was present in Chikuni when Sr. Mary Charles Walker died and was present again when her remains were exhumed – even making the “white habit” in which the exhumed remains were laid out before being taken to Nigeria.
From 1968-1976 she continued to teach Domestic Science in Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College. Rita was a great homemaker and her spirit of hospitality did much to build long lasting bonds and to bring cheer to communities wherever she went. Many missionaries will remember the Saturday night card game in Charles Lwanga and most especially Rita’s cakes for the cuppa afterwards. If the game was getting too serious, Rita would playfully look into someone else’s hand and lighten everything.
From 1976 – 1982 she was Local Leader in Roma after which she returned to Ireland because of the illness of her mother. She spent some months in Temple Street before moving to Donnybrook to attend a course in Milltown Park. She returned to Zambia to the Kabwata Homecraft Centre before finally returning to Ireland in 1985.
In 1986 she was appointed as Ministress in Milltown, a position she held until the house closed in 1995. She and Sr. Magdalen Butler oversaw the disposal of furniture, linen and property of all kinds – a mammoth task which they carried out ably and with no fuss. After a well-earned sabbatical which she embarked upon wholeheartedly she went as Local Leader to Howth from 1996 – 2002, a house she always spoke of with great affection. From November 2003 to April 2006 she worked as sacristan in Cappagh and loved in particular to bring Holy Communion to the patients. Her last move in April of 2006 was to Naomh Brid community where she remained until the end of March 2017 when it was felt she needed more care which she received in St. Monica’s Nursing Home. During these years she was a welcoming presence in the Community especially to the many visitors who came and more particularly she had a very special welcome for the younger Sisters coming from Nigeria and Zambia for the preparation for Final Vows. She carried out housekeeping duties for as long as she was able.
Her last years were marked by the deaths in quite close succession of two of her sisters and two brothers. She was faithful to visiting them even when it became difficult for her. Her remaining sister, Nora, was a constant friend and support to her as were her devoted nieces and nephews. She was very gracious in accepting the care given her by the staff in St. Monica’s and endeared herself to them during her stay there. She was admitted to the Mater Hospital on Saturday morning 5th August and did not regain consciousness. During the five days of her stay there she was constantly surrounded by her loving family and community as well as other sisters including Sr. Marcella Callanan who had known her since her early days in Temple Street. She died peacefully in the early hours of the 10th August. She will be greatly missed. The celebrant at her Funeral Mass was Fr. Fergus O’ Donoghue S.J. with whom she had a special bond since her days in Milltown.
May she rest in peace.
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.
