Education and outreach to those on the peripheries

Sr Bernadette Healy

The seed of my vocation and faith journey were nurtured within my family home in the west of Ireland from a young age, through my mother’s kindness and compassion in reaching out to others around her.  

 At the age of seventeen, I started to feel a call to Religious Life through my involvement in a weekly prayer group at school. During this time, I started to experience a deeper desire to pray in different ways and had a thirst to read and pray the Bible with a deeper meaning. 

Later, during teacher training, the call to Religious Life was becoming clearer. Having read the story of Nano Nagle’s life and her total self-giving love for the poor I was inspired to explore the calling to be a Presentation Sister, entering into a deeper dialogue and discernment.

After two years of formation, I returned to my ministry as a Primary Teacher in Bicester, Huddersfield and Birmingham. I loved this work and especially working among different cultures in Huddersfield and Birmingham, mainly African Caribbean, Muslim, Hindu, Sikhs, African and Vietnamese families who all enriched my life with their deep experience of culture.

At present, I am involved in pastoral ministry with Travellers and Gypsies which is outreach work to those on the peripheries.  Supporting the sick, elderly and needy is also important to me in my life.

Being a Presentation Sister at this time gives me the opportunity to be part of many people’s journey in life and I am enriched each day by the many encounters I have with people as I am called to live out in my life the charism and vision of Nano Nagle.