Lives celebrated

 

 

 

Sr Margaret Rogers MSS (on the right in the photo) died recently  in Lourdes Home, Toowoomba, after a long and debilitating illness.

 

Sr Margaret, herself, wrote for the MSS archives that she had a passionate love for Australia and "wanted to bring more of the love of God into the lives of people in Australia".

 

MSS Congregational Leader Sr Bernadette Wallis MSS, speaking at Sr Margaret's Mass of Christian Burial, in Toowoomba, said that she (Bernadette) and other Sisters at the funeral had been novices during the 1960s when Sr Margaret was the congregation's Novice Mistress.

 

"We can vouch for her absolute love for God's mission and her encouragement to us about life on the highways and byways of Australia."

 

Sister Margaret was born in Bundaberg, Queensland, and loved her Queensland roots, according to Sr Bernadette.  She was schooled at Oakwood Primary School, near Bundaberg, and for two years at All Hallows in Brisbane.

 

Then she worked in Brisbane for 13 years before venturing south to Hobart to join the MSS (then the Home Missionary Sisters of Our Lady), a congregation that had been founded in Tasmania only nine years previously (1944).  She was the second Queensland woman to join, after her friend (Sr) Joan Shannon, now living in Brisbane, had joined about six months earlier.

 

Sr Margaret was one of the pioneer group of Sisters who began the congregation's first mainland foundation - in Parkes, NSW (Diocese of Wilcannia-Forbes) in 1957.

 

She also worked in South Australia's Port Pirie Diocese (the foundation was at Whyalla) before moving back to Queensland where among the places she lived were Bargara, Gin Gin, Howard, Goondiwindi, Killarney and Stanthorpe before illness forced her into retirement in Toowoomba, about five years ago.

 

Among her interests were bushwalking, music, cricket, reading, crocheting and knitting.

 

Her death is the first within the congregation for 12 years (Sr Winifred Sharpe, Toowoomba, February 1996) and is only the tenth in the congregation's 64 year history.

 

A book which captures the heart and the spirit of the congregation, Around the Kitchen Table with the Missionary Sisters of Service, was launched in Toowoomba five weeks before Sr Margaret's death.  The many Sisters who travelled from various part of Australia for the lauch were able to visit her at the time.

 

Sr Margaret is survived by two sisters, Pat Woodward and Gaye Dunphy, and a brother, Laurie Rogers.

 

photo:  Sr Margaret Rogers (right) is with friend and fellow Queenslander, Sr Joan Shannon MSS, who lives in Brisbane.

 

 

 

 

Br Pat was born in Sydney and taught in a variety of locations in NSW and Papua New Guinea, devoting his life to teaching primary and secondary school students in woodwork, metalwork, technical drawing and religious education..  He became principal of the Christian Brothers school in Balmain at the age of 31 and was also a leader of Christian Brothers communities for many years.

 

He spent a number of years in Papua New Guinea, helping especially with rebuilding communities after the Rabaul tidal wave and at the Mt Sion school for the blind at Goroka.

 

On his return to Australia he spent some time working at a special school at Corrimal near Wollongong, established by the Christian Brothers to help young people who had been rejected from the school system.

 

He was a hard worker in the classroom and, because he worked in technical subjects, would turn his hand to helping others with carpentry and maintenance. He was a very careful organiser of bush walks with students, his family or friends, particularly around the beloved Goobragandra in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales.

 

The fullness of life also saw him involved with musical societies, training altar servers for church, listening to his music, collecting stamps and putting his many photos into albums which give a great history of his life, travels and relationships.

 

Being an enabler, he preferred to encourage others to take centre stage, yet Br Pat became the champion of the disabled, dispossessed and depressed youth in Papua New Guinea.

 

He was a loyal and an unashamedly Australian. Physically, he was well built. From this Australian image stemmed his spirituality, prayerfulness, love of family and his life as a Christian Brother.

 

He faced life's challenges with the quiet confidence of someone who has put his faith in Divine providence.  He was a most modest and humble man. He was one of nature's gentlemen with a great, big heart who did ordinary things extraordinarily well.