PALMERSTON NORTH — A recent weekend of celebration marked 50 years of religious life for Dominican Sister Maureen O’Hanlon.
The deaf community of the lower North Island gathered in Palmerston North on the last weekend of September to honour a teacher and chaplain, a mentor and friend who has worked with the deaf since 1972.
Sr Maureen was joined by six members of her United States-based family, her sister Eileen and husband John, brother Patrick and his daughter Maureen with her husband Kenny and a niece Bernice, along with Dominican sisters from Auckland, Johnsonville, Christchurch and Dunedin, and the parish community.
The celebration began on Saturday afternoon with a gathering for “prayer, food and fun” hosted by the Te Awa Rongopai Community of which Sr Maureen is a member. This was followed by a fully-signed Sunday Eucharist for the deaf community the next morning in St Mary’s Church.
Sr Maureen was born in the US to Irish parents who returned to Ireland in 1939. She was educated by the Dominican Sisters in Dublin and her desire to be a missionary was fulfilled with her travel to New Zealand to enter religious life. She was based at St Dominic’s in Dunedin during her novitiate and study for her teacher’s certificate.
Sr Maureen taught at schools at Auckland, Queenstown and Invercargill before being posted to Feilding to teach at the St Dominic’s School for the Deaf. She says it was a busy time teaching, studying for the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf qualification, looking after the children and living the life of a religious sister.
In her work with the deaf, Sr Maureen taught at the Dominican sisters residential schools and in a unit class at St Joseph’s School in Feilding, where children were main-streamed, and with adult deaf as chaplain.
At the end of 2000 she returned to Ireland where she and two other sisters from New Zealand were based at a Carmelite monastery, a place of day retreat and prayer.
After a year away, Sr Maureen found that her vocation was New Zealand-based so she returned to the Manawatu in 2002.
She continues to work in the adult deaf ministry, supporting chaplain David Loving-Molloy, and doing some relieving work in Feilding parish.
She is one of the five members of the Dominican leadership team and, for recreation, enjoys gardening, handwork, shopping and travelling.
Photo caption: Sr Maureen, in the centre of the front row, is surrounded by members of the deaf community celebrating her jubilee.
