YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH! - Sister Patricia's new order

SHE’S TAKEN A SPECIAL VOW NOT TO SQUABBLE WITH HER SISTERS!

- Fleur Guthrie

Positioned in a quiet neighbourhood in South Auckland’s Mangere Bridge sits an understated 1960s brown weatherboard home. A wooden sign by the front door reads ‘Ashirvaad’ (Sanskrit for ‘blessing’), offering a small hint about the group who has lived inside for the past 17 years.

Author and Catholic sister Patricia Williams – along with three other vowed women from various international orders – decided to leave the convent and set up their own community, while still committed to their vows and serving others through spiritual support, counselling and social services.

Dressed in a bright blue blouse and white slacks, with no veil in sight, Patricia warmly welcomes the Weekly team inside and quickly dispels any myth that there is a ‘mystique’ surrounding vowed sisters.

In the quest to name their new community, the sprightly 86-year-old recalls ringing the local synagogue and telling the rabbi they wanted a word to express ordinariness and those without power or privilege. He gave her the word ‘anashim’, which simply means people.

“We are just ordinary people trying to do the gospel,” says Patricia. “There’s no mystique in coming to live in an ordinary house, wearing ordinary clothes in an ordinary suburb.

“Although, in the 1980s the model of community living we chose was innovative, it’s now become a common practice in the communities of sisters in Aotearoa.”