LONG-SERVING IRISH NUN AT MASS
Hundreds of Catholics joined in the resurrection mass to farewell the last Irish Missionary nun in Fiji, Sister Loyola Grehan.
The service was held yesterday at Mount St Mary’s Catholic Church in Nadi yesterday. Sister Loyola, who served under the Marist Sisters, is remembered by many for her work in her teaching career while being a nun in Fiji. She was called to rest on July 31 at the age of 100.
Her resurrection mass was led by the Head of the Catholic Church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter
Loy Chong.
Sister Loyola served as a teacher at the Loreto Secondary School in Levuka, which was an allgirls school. It was located next to the St John’s College in Cawaci, Levuka, when it was an allboys school in the 1950s.
Joyce Giblin, a former student of Sister Loyola, said: “I respected her from the days in Loreto where I had the good fortune of being one of her pupils.
“Plus over the years I kept in close contact with her, my admiration of her disciplined prayer life joined as I joined the prayer groups she and other Sisters had started.
“Sister Loyola was a person who would have profound impact on many, many lives over the last years.
“From the students she taught all through her teaching years, to the friends she made at the different groups.
“She took an active interest in all. Our family, our friends, our sufferings, our problems, people who needed God and even prayer requests were taken up to her.”
Ms Giblin said Sister Loyola would be remembered in the way she lived, which was a life of prayer and the charitable works she was a part of.
She was buried at the Balawa Cemetery in Lautoka.