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Large crowds gathered on Saturday 18 February to join Bishops Patrick Dunn, Robin Leamy and Stuart O’Connell, along with a large number of clergy, to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving for the Carmelites sisters’ 75 years in the city. Marquees were erected on the lawn in front of the chapel, and closed circuit television screens relayed the proceedings to the large numbers who could not fit into the chapel.
In his homily, Bishop Dunn paid tribute to all the sisters, both past and present, who have graced the Auckland Carmel. He described their Carmel as a place within the diocese where day and night prayers are offered to God. “Their lives are a great gift to the Church in Auckland and New Zealand. We want you to know how much we appreciate your presence, your prayers, your example and your faithfulness,” he said to the sisters.
The founding group of seven Carmelite sisters left their Sydney Carmelite monastery on Friday 12 February, 1937, and boarded the Awatea which sailed to Auckland, arriving on Monday 15th. The Bishop of Auckland, Bishop James Liston, was on the wharf to greet them, accompanied by several priests of the diocese.
Representing the oldest Religious Order in the Catholic Church these sisters, led by Mother Mary of Carmel, came to begin a foundation in Auckland, at the invitation of Bishop (later Archbishop) Liston. Their first-class passage on the Awatea was paid for by him and he remained a lifelong, devoted friend and adviser to the community.
They stayed at first with the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at Waikowhai while they searched for a suitable convent in which to begin their life of prayer and penance. Theirs was to the second Carmel in New Zealand as the Carmelite sisters in Christchurch had established a Foundation four years earlier.
One of the founding sisters, Sister Mary Francis of the Angels, was only 19 at the time and now aged 95 is living at the Varroville Carmel in New South Wales. She recalls that the Awatea had a rough crossing, and all of sisters were sick except for their prioress, Mother Mary of Carmel.
Sister Francis writes that they spent most of the day of arrival on the deck, watching the coast. At 3pm they steamed into the Waitemata Harbour. “People were calling ‘Welcome to Auckland’ and as we came off the gangway they made a passage way for us and we had to walk through single file and listen to comments like, ‘They must fast a lot, look how white they are!’. Yes, we had fasted two whole days from seasickness!”
A few weeks later, on April 20th, the sisters moved from Waikowhai into their new home at 636 Mt Albert Road, Epsom, and so began their Carmelite monastic life in Auckland under the patronage of the Holy Family. The following year the chapel was built and dedicated to St Thomas the Apostle.
Source
- Lyndsay Freer: Media & Communications Catholic Diocese of Auckland
- Image: Lyndsay Freer
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