News

Sisters from the Ekukhanyeni Community participated in the Palm Sunday liturgy celebrated at Sacred Heart Parish at Oakford, neighbouring the former mother house of the Congregation. A group of parishioners gathered on Saturday evening for the beginning of the Holy Week celebrations.

The Sisters who live and work at Ekukhanyeni live within easy reach of Oakford and are periodic visitors at parish celebrations there.

Many parishioners at Sacred Heart Parish have a long association with Oakford and with the Sisters, many of them having completed their education at Sacred Heart Primary School, Sacred Heart Secondary School, and St Xavier’s.

Others worked at Oakford employed in the clinic, in one of the schools, at Kwa Gertrude home for the elderly and as domestic and garden workers. Most Sisters who died in South Africa are buried at Oakford, commemorated on a memorial built by the Department of Water Affairs at the time when the flood plain of the Umhloti River was extended because of the proposed raising of the Hazelmere Dam Wall, and when individual graves were secured against the dangers of flooding.

Text: Sr Alison Munro OP