She was formerly congregational leader of the worldwide Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions for 12 years (RNDM) Continue reading

However, an adjoining building, St Mary's Chapel, will be preserved and strengthen.

The chapel was built for the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, a congregation of mission and teaching nuns. The sisters lived in Euphrasie House.

With a budget of $1 million, the conservation comprises two stages.

First Stage

The first stages will cost $6000.00. It will by funded by donations:

• The corridor connecting the chapel to Euphrasie House will be demolished
• The chapel earthquake strengthened
• External architectural work will be carried out
• A new electrical power supply installed.
• The statues in the chapel will be restored

Second Stage

The remaining $400,000 is dependent on ongoing fund-raising, with a suggested time frame for stage two to begin in October and completed by December 2016.

So far the corridor link has been disconnected and excavation work is completed.

Construction of new concrete foundations have begun and the outer skin of existing brick-wall panels has been removed, ready for new reinforced concrete wall panels.

Sister Mary-Ellen O'Sullivan, Sister Barbara Cameron, Sister Colleen Morey and Sister Raewyn Hogan all still live nearby and have fond memories of the chapel.

They are all glad to see the chapel restored.

"Especially for the purpose for which they are going to renovate it: to keep it traditional but to give people a contemplative space in the city," Sister Barbara said.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

What that moniker frequently amounts to is simply the blatant destruction of buildings which often possess heritage value, history and old world charm. Knock it down and put up something cheap and nasty in its place epitomises all that's mercenary, base and soulless in the New Zealand psyche.

One can speculate as to why so much architectural beauty and buildings of historical character in this country have simply been destroyed by the careless swipe of a swing-ball or bulldozer blade. Some have suggested it's to do with the fact that New Zealand is a young country. We're mere adolescents in historical terms and thus behave accordingly. Unlike other more established European nations, Pakeha culture adds up to a paltry 170 years. We are shallow in the soil, as New Zealand commentator Monte Holcroft once observed, the consequences of which are we haven't grown up, matured or developed a strong sense of time and place and its importance to us as a people. We're opportunists, incapable, like teenagers, of either looking forward too far or back.

Others, in an attempt to explain our cavalier attitude to heritage, point to our rough and gruff nature, the "she'll be right" attitude that goes with a certain careless stance or the more brutal, "put the boot in" call. Continue reading

Sources

• Peter Dornauf in The Waikato Times
• Image: Stuff / The Waikato Times

Peter Dornauf is a Hamilton artist, writer and teacher.

The celebrations started with a mass, followed by a lunch. A PowerPoint presentation of photos of the Nelson mission including historical photos up to the present day was also put together.

Ou Lady of the Missions province leader Sister Josephine Kane said Father Garin arrived in Nelson in 1850 and there was a presbytery and church at the Manuka St site when the sisters arrived.

Records show that when the sisters started teaching at the school in 1871 there were 117 pupils, four of whom were boarders. Only one of the sisters spoke English, she said.

Continue reading

She celebrated her 60th anniversary as a nun earlier this month. The occasion was marked after several church meetings. "It was a very little celebration," she says.

Sister Martha says there were a lot of reasons she decided to become a nun. "The main reason would be that I was such a wayward kind of person