Jenny Collins asks what we need to bring to the Synod for the transformation of the Church for God's mission now.

A small group of us have been gathering, mostly online, to ask ourselves what our dreams are for the Church and how we might renew hope, heal wounds and create deeper relationships.
Many of us were present almost 60 years ago when the Second Vatican Council asked critical questions about our role as a people of God and the Church’s place in the world. Then we listened to our priests and religious as the Church changed the way it related to other religions and the way we worshipped. Some tried to block any change. Others, disappointed that the Council did not go far enough, left the Church.

Now we who are present are being asked to reflect on the journey so far as we seek to heal the wounds of division and abuse and reshape mission in today’s challenging times.

Early Memories of Parish and SchooI

Recently I have been reflecting on my own life during the Vatican II years. I was the eldest of seven children — five girls and two boys. We grew up in Dunedin and attended Catholic schools.
In the early years we lived in North East Valley. There I met the Dominican Sisters who ran Sacred Heart School. We would often walk through the beautiful Santa Sabina convent grounds on our way home.

Later as our family grew we moved to a bigger house in Wakari. Each day Dad drove to work at the bank and we walked to St Mary’s School, coming home at lunchtime to a cooked dinner. Mum, a registered nurse, worked on the weekends at the hospital to help pay for our music lessons and support Dad’s passion for flying.

Movie Record of Family Life

In 1961, the year the twins were born, Dad bought a movie camera. A collection of 8mm “silent” films record family milestones, liturgies and school events: Baptisms, first Holy Communions, school break-ups and jubilees.

Watching them now, I see that our lives revolved around parish and school in a Church characterised by Irish cultural traditions and the rightness of the Catholic faith. Latin was the language of liturgy, hymns like “Faith of our Fathers” and “Immaculate Mary” were sung with gusto and the parish priest was a moral authority we turned to in times of crisis.

Our film story begins with the twins’ Baptism, an ancient ritual anchored in a biblical story of prophecy, healing and welcome. It is a Sunday afternoon in June 1961. Father Tom Fahey, our well-loved parish priest stands in a white surplice in the winter sunshine outside St Mary’s Kaikorai, our small parish church — welcoming our extended family and friends.

Everyone is dressed in their best. In an age when women covered their hair in church Mum wears a green coat with matching hat while we older girls are in berets and warm jackets. Dad — a youthful 40-something with “short back and sides” — wears a dark tie, white shirt and formal suit. He must have asked someone else to film the gathering because this is one of the few movies in which he features.
Afterwards we assemble on the church steps for a group photo followed by food — a spread of orange cordial, lollies and cream buns which we termed a “bun fight”. Mum’s best friend Elizabeth O’Neill, one of the godparents, offers my six-year-old brother Chris a chance to hold six-week-old Margaret. Martin’s godparents, who owned the Catholic shop in Moray Place, proudly hold their charge.

Sisters and School

Our teachers were Dominican Sisters. They wore white habits, black veils and black cloaks that flapped in the wind as they walked to school from the convent next door.

Sister Mannes Lister, who taught me piano, took us for Christian Doctrine, sometimes in the sunny alcove outside the kitchen area of the convent.

Sister Saint Rock Rogers, the lay sister who looked after the teaching sisters, treated us with scones liberally spread with butter and jam. She told us with a twinkle in her eye that she was “the only saint in the convent”.

We learned the parts of the Mass in Latin and were offered prizes for the best Pater Noster — which encouraged my competitive side.
At the end of each day we used to clean the school. My favourite job was cleaning the windows with newspaper and vinegar. I remember the principal Sister Clare Timpany, the principal, pinning her veil behind her head and tucking up the layers of her habit with safety pins to do the cleaning. At the end of term we were allowed to wear old socks so that we could skid up and down the corridors to polish the wooden floors.

School the Heart of Parish Life

Our community was small and supportive. The school was at the heart of parish life. Catholic schools were self-funding and school bazaars raised money for books and resources. We were asked to pray for the success of the bazaar and for a sunny day — it seemed to work.

The Dominican Sisters taught piano and speech to put food on the convent table. As my mother put it, they “lived off the smell of an oily rag”. In the years before Catholic schools were integrated into the state system Catholic sisters were seen as the teachers who could best pass on the faith. Our focus was on preserving Catholic values but the future beckoned.

Influence of Vatican II

I was 9 years old in 1962. I remember the drama and excitement as our parish community experienced the changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council.

From 1964 we started to hear the Epistle and Gospel in English. The priest turned to face the people, lay people did the readings and we sang exciting new hymns in English. Women no longer had to cover their hair in church. As Father Fahey explained it, we were part of a new Church that was learning to live in the modern world. It was an exciting time.

But some people found it very worrying. What might the future bring? I remember my grandmother asking the parish priest: “What is the Church coming to?”

Chance to Discuss Renewal

That question is still relevant for us now as we discuss how we might help shape our synodal journey at this critical point in our Church’s history.

When I was growing up we lived in an all-encompassing Catholic community and accepted a clerical model of leadership with its hierarchical structures of power and a shadow side of abuse.
Today we hear a radical new call to transform the Church, one that encourages all of us, not just the clergy and religious, to search for new ways of journeying together with God. In the 1960s we were asked to move out of our comfort zone and engage with the world.
Today we seek to discover what the questions are for us as the people of God in a rapidly changing Church.

For me it’s about sharing the blessings of our past, learning to encounter Christ deeply in the present and cherishing life in Earth for our shared future.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 267 February 2022: 12-13