Now 26, Elizabete joined the convent at the age of 17. Her social media presence has garnered over 163,000 followers since she started posting.

Her posts balance profound content with lighthearted clips. She emphasizes that prayer is the most crucial and all-encompassing aspect of a nun's daily routine, but they must also attend to their regular chores and studies. Read more

A church service was held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish Church at Mt. Vaea yesterday evening to commemorate her achievement, which was attended by members of the S.M.S.M. sisters, families and friends. Continue reading

Since the early 1970s they haven't worn a black and white habit, but what drives them is unchanged. Read more

Canadian-born, Cam McLaren spent six months documenting the lives of the contemplative nuns based at Mt Albert's Carmelite Monastery earlier this year. Continue reading

Last Thursday there was a Mass and blessing ceremony in Apia.

The Chairman of the Samoa Charity for the Carmelites Foundation, La'aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Fossie Schmidt, told Talamua that the money has already been sent to Tonga.

But they felt it was important to inform the public of how much they contributed through several fundraising activities held over the past months.

"We acknowledge everyone, especially our church members who supported our fundraising," he said.

Speaking for the Carmelites, Sister Antonina Maria thanked the committee for their generous support.

"We are very grateful for the donation, not only in Samoa but also in American Samoa, New Zealand and Australia. We continue to pray for God's blessings for our country."

The Foundation has branches in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch, all fundraising to assist the Carmelite Missions.

The first steps towards the construction of the new building began in March with a groundbreaking ceremony.

La'auli said some members of the committee will be travelling to Tonga this week to show their support for the completion of the first phase of the project.

The Carmelites first came to Tonga on 19th March 2011.

Since then they have been living in temporary accommodation at Fahefa.

The building is a leaky one. When it rains they have buckets all over the place.

There are seven sisters in the community; four from Tonga, two from Samoa and one from New Caledonia.

Source

• Talamua
• Samoa Observer
• Kavina Tonga
• Image: Talamua

The 296sq m, two-level building, on a large (1012sq m) site at 53 Wood St is for sale with vacant possession through Rod Grieve and Peter Migounoff of Bayleys South Auckland. It's to be auctioned on December 6, unless sold earlier. Continue reading

It chronicles the transformation of the Sisters from a closed order to a congregation of religious women who became integrated in the wider community.

The author, Susannah Grant, was commissioned by the Dominicans Sisters to write Windows on a Women's World.

Grant relates that five years ago she was approached, out of the blue, by a Dominican Sister to write the book.

"She was such an interesting, passionate woman. The more she talked, the more I felt the urge to write the story," says Grant.

Grant, who has a PhD in History from the University of Otago, has completed a large number of oral histories with the sisters.

She has a background in the study of New Zealand history, the history of ideas, religion and science.

Grant was given full access to the congregation's archives in order to write this book, from the point of view of an ‘outsider'.

The sisters wanted the book to be written to have their history chronicled but also to show the work they do in the community now as independent people who come from a strong women's culture.

"This moving and beautifully written book she chronicles the astonishing transformation of the New Zealand Dominican sisters from a strictly enclosed body of religious teachers to a congregation of religious women who are integrated in the wider community and engaged in a range of active ministries while still remaining deeply committed to shared Dominican ideals." one reviewer has written

Grant says the Sisters, are instilled with social conscience, and are now integrated with the communities they live in.

"They are true sisters. It's a very courageous thing. They face the future head-on."

Source

• gisborneherald.co.nz
• culturewaitaki.org.nz
• Image: dominicans.org.nz

The Mass of Thanksgiving was celebrated by Bishop Paul Mea MSC, the same bishop who originally invited the Good Samaritan Sisters to take up ministry in Kiribati to help with the educational and pastoral needs of the people of his diocese.

From small beginnings, with the arrival of just one sister, Veronica McCluskie, in 1991, there are today two communities of Good Samaritan Sisters, engaged in a variety of educational, pastoral and community development ministries in Kiribati.

These include running the Good Samaritan Early Childhood Learning Centre, teaching English at the local primary school, offering pastoral care to patients at the psychiatric hospital and those in prison, and supporting people with physical and intellectual disabilities.

Religious vocations from Kiribati have also been rich over the 25 years. There are currently six professed i-Kiribati sisters, three novices studying in Australia, and a number of inquirers who are exploring their interest in Good Samaritan life.

Among the contingent of Good Samaritan sisters who travelled to Kiribati was Sister Sonia Wagner, whose association with Kiribati goes back even before 1991.

Sonia was asked by the Congregational Leader, Sister Helen Lombard, to travel to Kiribati in 1989 to assess the feasibility of the Good Samaritans responding to Bishop Mea's repeated requests to establish a presence there.

"It was an amazing experience," she recalled, "landing on this coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific and meeting all these wonderful people."

Sonia said the 25th anniversary celebrations in Kiribati were a joyful, but emotional time.
"It was a time that gave me a real sense of the way that God has guided us and called us and also that there was a great sense of partnership in this," she said.

Source
goodsams.org.au
Image: goodsams.org.au

These young men and women are temporarily professed religious living and working in Fiji.

Watch the video

They come from a number of different congregations: Marist Sisters, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), Salesians, Sisters of Compassion, Sisters of Our Lady of Nazareth (SOLN), Columbans, Picpus Fathers (SS.CC) and Marist Fathers.

The idea was to have the practical experience of being with and working with people.

The following day they spent time reflecting and sharing about their experience before celebrating mass and playing some sports.

Housing Assistance and Relief Trust (HART Fiji) is an organisation that works to provide housing for poorer people.

It was founded in 1970 by the Fiji Council of Churches. It not only works to provide housing but also to advocate and support those in the community with the aim of assisting them to become more resourceful.

Source

• Supplied

The incident happened on Sunday May 8 between 9pm and 10pm in Bihute, several kilometres outside of Goroka town where the Catholic Sisters from the institute of PNG and Australia Sisters of Mercy Works reside.

They were in their house watching television when 12 armed men in police uniforms entered their premises after badly bashing up the two security guards at the gate.

Sister Maryanne Kolkia, the country program coordinator for Sisters of Mercy, said this was the fourth time criminals have attacked them.

Sister Maryanne, who received heavy blows to her nose, lips and other parts of her face said the criminals were after a safe, which the sisters had no idea of.

"There was a knock on the door and I opened the door and saw several policemen so I thought they were regular policemen".

Sister Maryanne opened the door and they came in and "demanded that I tell them where the safe for keeping the money was," Sister Maryanne said.

"I told them we are a non profiting NGO and we do not have any money or safe in our house but that explanation provoked them to really beat us up very badly."

"The two security guards, were beaten up and tied to a tree.

They wer taken to at the intensive care unit at the Goroka Hospital

Source

• tokstret.com
• Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com

The Brothers' Melanesia district covers Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Bougainville, and the Pacific district includes New Zealand, Samoa and Kiribati.

Almost 50 Brothers attended a gathering at Marist College Ashgrove, in Brisbane, from January 11-13, to consider the challenges and opportunities facing them in the Oceania region.

Pacific district provincial Br David McDonald said Br Turu, the order's superior general, in raising the need to reach out to the margins, had asked the Brothers: "If not you, then who? And if not now, then when?"

"And I think those are very pertinent questions for the Brothers," Br McDonald said.

"That's uppermost in my mind.

"I keep saying to them, ‘I know the answers to those questions - of course it's you and of course it's now'. "But they need to come to that realisation themselves as well."

"I think the reality for the Brothers is that we have always been very strongly associated with the schools," said Australian provincial Br Peter Carroll

But we're at a point now where we have very fine schools transmitting faith and teaching in the Catholic tradition, and the Brothers have contributed markedly to that in centuries previous but that's not where the need is now, so much."

"It can still be, and we still have Brothers in schools and they have particular gifts in terms of leadership and teaching, and we're not looking necessarily at moving them out of that."

"We're also aware that the need is probably less institutional now and more community-based and hopefully more allied with local parish communities so that there's a witness value which the Brothers give to the place where they minister but also to the local Catholic community."

"And I think it's very likely that we will be looking at more opportunities to move into non-institutional, community-based works."

Source

• catholicleader.com.au
• Image: catholicleader.com.au

Sister Christina plays the organ and looks after the church and grounds at St Joseph's Convent. She also helps out in the vege garden of the local school in Ranana, the last rural school left on the Whanganui River.

Sister Christina never dreamed she would become a nun, especially after a priest said she wouldn't cut it.

But almost 50 years later, she is having the last laugh, as she is about to celebrate her golden jubilee with the order. For her, life alongside the river is perfect.

"People come here to recharge their batteries. It's a real paradise."

This Town: A River Runs Through It screens on July 29, 8.30pm, TV One.

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: 4.bp.blogspot.com

The homestead was owned by the society for 67 years and for 64 of those it was the house of formation for novice priests and brothers.

The house was sold in 1990 but the society kept the farm.

The house and farm were run as separate enterprises, though the farm provided food and income to run the house.

Fr Craig Larkin, a former novice master, says at a conservative estimate an average of 10 trainee priests a year attended Highden over the 64 years.

He said the numbers peaked from the mid-1960s to the 1970s then began to drop off.

The novitiate year now takes place in a multi-cultural community in the Philippines.

At present there is one New Zealander there.

Source

• CountryWide
• Image:farm1.nzstatic.com

Not for one moment as she grew up did Helena Margaret Fouhy think she'd ever be wearing a habit. She dreamed of working to save to be able to travel the world. However God had a different plan for her.

She entered the Brigidine Sisters in 1942, taking her final vows 70 years ago, two months before she turned 21.Continue reading

She's been turning water into beer at Mallersdorf, a 12th-century abbey in the Bavarian highlands, for more than 40 years.

She's a certified master brewer.

She's also a Franciscan nun.

The local beer culture notwithstanding, Sister Doris is living proof that women are destined for a higher calling than simply serving beer and starring in Germany's retrograde beer ads. Read more

Respected Vatican journalist, Andrea Tornielli reports that while there was no public agenda, the meeting involved the leaders of the Roman Curia and covered

• the importance of maintaining separation between men's and women's religious communities
• the need to distinguish Religious Life from secular life
• the limits of lay leadership (especially over priests)
• the pitfalls of excessive devotion to the founder of a religious congregation or to an apostolic movement.

In discussing the excesses that should be avoided in religious communities, the dicastery leaders reportedly emphasised that the commitment to a religious congregation or movement should never work against the unity of the universal Church, the authority of the teaching magisterium, or the conscience of the individual member.

The conversation on excesses Religious Life should avoid appears to reflect the painful lessons learned from the crisis within the Legion of Christ. In addition to encouraging adulation of their founder, the late Father Marcial Maciel, the Legionaries also followed a rigid system of discipline that included a rigorous ban on any criticism of a superior.

The last meeting of this type was held on 12 November 2010 prior to the newborn Pontifical Council for the promotion of the new evangelisation.

Sources

• Summit at the Curia on Religious (translated from Italian by Google)
• Vertice in Curia sui religiosi
• Special Vatican meeting discussed problems of religious life - Catholic Culture
• Image: Reuters