Sister Pauline O'Regan
Sister Pauline O'Regan was committed to serving communities in need and stood as an example of a strong female leader.
Her close friend, Sister Marie McCrea said O'Regan's main interest in life was people.
"She never forgot a name. Pauline was a gifted storyteller with a wonderful sense of humour.
"Pauline's long ministry has been one of affirmations, challenge, encouragement and empowerment – especially of women. She was truly a prophetic leader, a clear thinker, a good listener, with the ability to ask a disarming question at just the right time," McCrea said.
The dedicated community stalwart and religious figure died on May 2, 2019 aged 96.
O'Regan was born to parents John O'Regan and Mary Barry on the family farm in Cronadun, near Reefton, on June 28, 1922.
The youngest of three (her older brothers were Barry and Pat), she attended the local state primary school before boarding at St Mary's College in Greymouth. When she reached year 10, O'Regan decided she was not going back and spent the rest of the year helping her mother at home.
At just 16 years old, she got a job as an itinerant teacher at a school in Tutaki, near Murchison. She served two terms there before moving home to look after her father following her mother's death.
O'Regan then joined the Ngā Whaea Atawhai o Aotearoa, Sisters of Mercy New Zealand on January 23, 1942, in Timaru and was professed as a Sister of Mercy two years later.
O'Regan was passionate about teaching and spent about 30 years working at schools throughout the South Island, including in Greymouth, Timaru and Christchurch.
O'Regan dedicated her life to teaching and helping those in need.
MARY WOOD / SUPPLIED
One of her longest stints was at Villa Maria College in Christchurch, where she taught for 17 years. Her dedication and commitment to teaching there was rewarded when she ultimately became the school's principal.
While teaching at Villa Maria, she also studied at the University of Canterbury, completing a master of arts in history.
Villa Maria principal Deborah Brosnahan said in a school newsletter that O'Regan was an important part of the college's 101-year history.
O'Regan taught at Villa Maria College in Christchurch for 17 years.
MARTIN HUNTER / STUFF
"She was instructed to become principal at the tender age of 28, of a school with a roll of 48 girls, and very poor academic standards and results such that in her first few years here she thought it would be better to close the school.
"By the time she left 17 years later, we were a school of 450 and she had raised the academic, sporting and cultural standards and performance enormously."
Brosnahan said O'Regan was a passionate teacher who was highly regarded by both pupils and staff.
"She was known to be passionate, a gifted teacher, and a very strict disciplinarian. Whenever I visited with her in recent years, I rarely managed to spend much time without several past pupils of hers dropping in to visit her while I was there."
In 1973, alongside Sisters Helen Goggin and Teresa O'Connor , O'Regan left the school to form the Aranui Community of the Sisters of Mercy, where she lived and ministered for about 40 years. During that time she also taught history and English at Aranui High School for seven years.
In 1978, O'Regan received a grant from the Churchill Fellowship to study community development models in England. Once she returned to Christchurch, she implemented her newly learned skills to impoverished areas in Aranui, Burwood and Parklands.
She began writing her autobiography, A Changing Order, in 1986. She went on to write a further three books and co-authored another two.
As outlined within her autobiography, O'Regan said she wrote it to pay tribute and honour "the courage and the great changes" the women of the Christchurch Sisters of Mercy made in their lives to serve their communities.
"The people of the parish have worked with the wider community of Parklands and Burwood to challenge suburban problems and to build the kind of neighbourhood that is good for human beings to live in. If everyone did that, the problems of the world would be well on the way to being solved. To me, it's as simple as that – and as complex," she wrote.
McCrea said O'Regan was deeply loved by many people from all walks of life.
"It has been a privilege and joy for all of us to know Pauline and especially to share our lives with her. She has left behind a wonderful legacy and we thank her profoundly for all that she has taught us."
O'Regan taught at schools throughout the South Island from Greymouth to Timaru and Christchurch for about 30 years.
MARY WOOD / SUPPLIED
O'Regan's extensive work within east Christchurch was recognised when she was awarded the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1995 and the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2001.
Her niece, Mary O'Regan, said she was a devoted aunt, a mentor to many, and the "glue" for her family.
"We have experienced her unconditional love and her enormous pride in our achievements. She was always interested in, and affirming of, what we were doing and she kept the two branches of the family up to date.
"We will miss you terribly. Our world will never be the same."
O'Regan was a keen writer. She wrote four books and co-authored another two.
MARY WOOD / SUPPLIED
She was known to be passionate, a gifted teacher, and a very strict disciplinarian. Whenever I visited with her in recent years, I rarely managed to spend much time without several past pupils of hers dropping in to visit her while I was there. I did manage to have a wonderful visit with her just before Christmas, when no one else arrived. She had asked me for an art work from a Villa student and I was able to deliver her a lovely painting from a former student which she loved receiving. We had such a lovely chat, and even at 96, she was extremely sharp, and always a great person for me to talk to as she understood so well the demands of my role. She continued to live out her commitment to mercy to the end of her days. Please pray for her.
Deborah Brosnahan
Principal - Villa Maria College
Sr Pauline O’Regan, formerly known as Sr Jerome
Comments
John Rosanowski
Pauline was a pupil-teacher at the Cronadun school on the West Coast in her teens.She was gifted writer and broadcaster, along with her lifelong dedication to education, humanitarian service and her faith.
I taught history with Pauline at Aranui HS for several years. A most inspiring person.
Jonathan Guildford
Richard Howe
Sister Pauline O'Regan was born in Cronadun, in 1922, and died in Christchurch in 2019.
She was my next door neighbor in Christchurch, and was a much loved and respected friend, along with her three Nun companions. She knew my Grandmother's cousin, Monsignor Aloysius Kennedy, and gave me a photo of him taken at Christchurch many years ago. He and my Grandmother looked almost identical in facial features.
Pauline and her companions moved to Linwood, and i missed them very much. I managed to visit her before i left Christchurch, and she was as bubbly as ever. I will always remember her with fond memories.
Roger O'Regan
A wonderful woman who lived her faith, and the command of Jesus, that you love all people. So sprightly to the end, even when practically blind.
In this charming book, Pauline O’Regan, the author of A Changing Order, turns her characteristic warmth and wit onto the world of her childhood.
Accounts of climbing windmills and other adventures growing up in a West Coast farming community are interspersed with meditations on the religious faith that led her to become an activist nun working in the Christchurch community. By turns exuberant and contemplative, it paints a touching portrait of a child discovering the delights of life and the mysteries of adulthood.
Pauline O'Regan entered a convent at the age of 21. Thirty years later, in 1973, she and two other nuns moved into a house in a raw suburban development in Christchurch to create a new form of vocational community. A Changing Order tells the story of O'Regan's life: her childhood on a remote farm, her education, and her years in a dedicated religious order. It also documents the ways in which community work changed her views and led her to public protest and activism. A remarkable story, told with warmth and honesty.
In There Is Hope For A Tree Pauline O'Regan demonstrates the gift, already familiar to readers, of taking a particular event in her life and describing it with such flair and colour that the reader begins to share the experience with her. nHer starting-point is the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979. Pauline O'Regan was one of a million people in Phoenix Park to greet him. Reflecting on this remarkable occasion, she moves on to tackle controversial issues affecting the Catholic church today. Papal infallibility, the deeply divisive liturgical changes introduced by the Second Vatican Council, the impact on Catholics of the encyclical on contraception, the movement of women within the church as they battle centuries of repression - all these and more are dealt with lucidly and courageously by a woman who loves the Catholic church and cares deeply about its future. nThis refreshingly honest book will be of enormous interest and value to those who have left the church, to those who have remained members, and to those who may simply be pondering the place of the Christian faith in the modern world."