MEET A SISTER

Meet Sister Pat Cavanagh, A Sister of St. Joseph of Peterborough

Sister Pat Cavanagh (on the right) and friends, in Fort Chipewan, AB.

I grew up in the Ontario farming community of Ennismore, the eldest of six children. I had a lot of contact with Sisters during those years, having many in my extended family and having been taught by them in high school. After spending a summer doing volunteer mission work with children in two First Nation communities in the Georgian Bay area, I entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peterborough in 1967.

Upon obtaining a teaching certificate, I taught at the elementary level in Almonte, Honey Harbour, Cobourg and Campbellford, ON. While teaching, I tried to stay involved at the parish level helping with youth activities, catechetical programming for various ages, Bible Study groups and Development and Peace.

In 1994 I ventured northwest to teach in a fly-in First Nation community in northern Saskatchewan. The people and the land touched my heart. While there, I became very involved with pastoral ministry. After five years, I finished my classroom teaching career and studied for two years at Regis College in Toronto to up-date myself at a theological level.

Since 2001, I have been employed as the Co-ordinator of Adult Education for the Diocese of MacKenzie-Fort Smith. The Diocese covers an extensive area including northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan, as well as the whole NWT and parts of Nunivut. My work requires me to encourage and train people at the local level to take leadership in various ministries in their local Church. I try to accomplish this by offering on-site training sessions in small remote communities as well as longer workshops at Trapper's Lake Spirituality Centre outside of Yellowknife.

At the present time, I live in Yellowknife where I also try to keep involved at the local parish level, helping with ministry to the prison and the hospital as well as assisting in the co-ordination of the ALPHA program in the city.

I find my work challenging and energizing. Those I journey with, call me to very deeper levels of trust and letting go, as well as the dynamics of trying something new and creating new paths of learning and ministry in the northern Canadian Church. Every day offers something new and exciting.

Submitted by
Pat Cavanagh
Peterborough CSJ

Due to a recent diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, Sister Patricia Cavanagh has had to leave Yellowknife, and is now in our infirmary at Mount St. Joseph, Peterborough.

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