Reflecting on ministry that has been “fulfilling, exciting, challenging and joyful”
Sr Catherine O’Neill
I was born in County Wicklow in Ireland and was educated by the Presentation sisters. I have four sisters and three brothers. My parents had deep faith and there was a great consciousness of God’s love and presence in our family home. Every night we prayed the family rosary. Because of the strong faith and God consciousness we were aware of vocations in life. My mother would remind us that God calls people to religious life and might call one of us.
After joining the Presentation sisters I was assigned to our community in Bicester, Oxfordshire. I taught in the Primary school there for several years and was involved in supporting families in the local community. I was asked by the President of the YCW to help start a YCW group in the Parish. This proved to be very successful and began a new interest for me in ministry to young adults.
In our community in Bicester we took very seriously the teachings of Vatican II and the document Perfectae Caritatis on the renewal of religious life. We opened our community house to prayer groups, Alcoholic Anonymous groups, youth groups and we organised retreat and prayer experiences for people of all ages. We saw peoples’ lives being renewed. On Wednesday evenings we hosted an ecumenical prayer group which was often led by a Methodist minister or by one of us sisters and the room was packed with people of all ages and backgrounds. I believe only God could have brought these people together. There was an extraordinary sense of love and unity among us all.
I have been able to use the gifts and talents God had given me in amazing ways. I was appointed to leadership in our Province, to ministry in a very poor inner city parish, to ministry with refugees and asylum seekers, to retreat work in schools and to care of our elderly sisters. Strangely there have been openings to guide and lead young people, especially in prayer and spirituality running like a thread all through my life, most recently leading Lectio Divina with young people in Nechells, Birmingham – managing to send ten of them to World Youth Day in Panama in 2018.
Four years ago I was involved in opening our community house in Nechells to destitute asylum seekers including victims of modern slavery. I spend much time just listening, building up their hope and trying to encourage them.
As Presentation sisters we deepen our relationship with God through daily prayer, reflection, spiritual reading, retreat experiences and sharing life in community. I have found this life extremely fulfilling, exciting, challenging and joyful. Jesus said “I came that you may have life and have it to the full.” This is my experience. I think the charism given by the Holy Spirit to Nano Nagle in 1775 is very much alive today in our sisters across the world. It has grown from an acorn into a great oak tree.