Loyola Grehan

Deceased Sisters

Loyola Grehan - Fiji
27/12/1918 - 31/07/2019

Dear Friends, we are here to commend one of our dear sisters, Sr Loyola, to the Lord and to thank the Lord for the gift of her life and her vocation as a Marist Sister, praying for her eternal repose.

When we look back at Loyola’s life, we see that it coincided with significant events.

Loyola was called to heaven on her feast day, St Ignatius of Loyola. For her we can only rejoice that Jesus whom she loved so dearly came to get her as she had prayed for this for so long.

Loyola was born on 27^th December 1918, just a month after the end of World War One that lasted from 4^th August 1914 to 11^th November 1918. We can only imagine the life she led in post-war Europe.

She was born Kathleen Grehan in the village of Drummore, West Ireland. Loyola was the youngest in a family of eight children. She had three brothers and four sisters. She often spoke of her childhood as filled with a lot of love, she had a loving family – from whom she received much love and learnt to love others.

It was this love from her family that she in turn gave to those she taught and encountered and to those of us who were blessed to have lived with her in the final years of her life.

In September 1938, Sister Loyola joined the Marist Sisters in England at the age of 19. After her profession in October 1939, she was given the name Loyola. Sister went to University College in Dublin in 1940.

Here again we see her living in the era of another World War, WWII, that began on 1^st September 1939, ending on 2^nd September1945. Sister taught in schools in Ireland and England while that war raged in Europe and most parts of the world.

From1947 to 1962 Loyola taught in New Zealand and Australia, where she was Principal of Woolwich College in Australia.

In 1962 Sister came to Fiji and taught at Loreto High School and then at Saint John’s College. It is remembered that she taught with passion and an expectation of only the best from her students, both in the classroom and out of it.

In 1983, having retired from the Teaching ministry, Loyola worked as a librarian for the next three years at the Pacific Regional Seminary and later helped at the Prayer Centre and also in the Formation of young Sisters.

We will remember her for her gentleness, concern for others and how she prayed for their problems and made them her own. She was patient and appreciative and in her life as a Marist Sisters, she was compassionate, positive and a role model. I personally remember her as someone who was very deep and helped in drawing out our best because she gave her best.

What more can we say about Loyola, born at the end of World War I, professed as a young Marist at the beginning of World War II and professing her final vows towards the end of that war in August 1945.

She was a person of significance who began her life as a Marist Sister in a significant time of our world history.

With you all here present, we the Marist Sisters pray in thanksgiving for Loyola’s long and faithful Marist life.

For all of us, I pray that Loyola’s presence may become noticeable in new and surprising ways… that we will be comforted by her encouragement along the way.

After all, she is now one of our Heavenly companions, one of those “witnesses in the great cloud around us”, that cheering squad lining the way we have yet to walk.

Sr Margaret Sharma

Deceased Sisters

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