May 2015
Feature
Mike Wooller sm
The Society of Mary New Zealand (SMNZ) has four Communities in the Hawkes Bay.
The Wairoa Community of three men serves a wide rural area, and has a special outreach to Māori, to youth at risk, as well as regular parish ministry.
The St Mary’s Community serves the new Catholic Parish of Napier – Te Parihi Katorika ki Ahuriri. This new Parish, established 1 April 2015, covers the area once served by St Patrick’s Napier, established by the Marists in 1859. St Mary’s Taradale, is the present-day incarnation of the old Meeanee Parish established by the Marists in 1850. St Thomas More in Napier South was established in 1969.
The Windsor Terrace Community serves as home for a number of retired men.
A priest from the Community ministers with the Māori community across a wide area, and the other men witness to their commitment to the Society through their life, prayer, and fraternal support.
Maryknoll, a Community established in 2013 on the Mission property in a refurbished Novitiate building, started with the intention it be a turangawaewae for Marists. This was recognising the part the early Mission in the Hawkes Bay and Mt St Mary’s Seminary played in the establishment of the Church in this area and in the growth of the SMNZ Province in New Zealand and the Pacific.
Maryknoll serves as a house of hospitality for Marists passing through the area, and hosts gatherings for the local Deanery and religious.
The Community helps out in the parish. We try to follow Mary’s advice given at Cana, indicating her Son she said, ‘Do whatever he tells you’.
Fr Mike Wooller SM is a Society of Mary (Marist) at the Napier Pastoral Area Parish, Taradale.
Read more about the Marist Family in our Year of Consecrated Life feature.