Wherever Sr. Pat goes, she brings a cheerful, buoyant spirit. This spirit has carried her to parts of the U.S. few Sisters of the Holy Child have known or visited.

After professing her vows as a Sister of the Holy Child in 1954, Sr. Pat taught at schools in New York and Philadelphia. For the next 10 years, she served in California and Oregon as a teacher, principal, and Archdiocesan Education Supervisor.

After a rejuvenating sabbatical year in Berkeley, Calif., followed by eight years as principal at St. Elizabeth’s School in New York City, Sr. Pat served as principal at Holy Family in Natchez, Miss.; St. Anthony Indian Mission in Zuni, N.M.; and Catholic Academy in Farmington, N.M.

In 1996, she began serving as the Director of Religious Education and parish minister at Our Lady of Hope, a merger of three North Philadelphia parishes: St. Stephen’s, Holy Souls, and Holy Child. In 2001, Sr. Pat moved to Our Lady of the Rosary as the Director of Religious Education and helped prepare that parish for its merger with Our Lady of Victory.

While the new parish, named, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, took shape, Sr. Pat spent a year teaching reading at St. Ignatius School in Philadelphia, Pa. In 2005, at the request of parishioners, Sr. Pat returned to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. As a volunteer now, Sr. Pat can be found at the parish almost every day of the week assisting the Capuchin pastor in a variety of ways: preparing adults for the sacraments, organizing the seasonal decorations of the Church, and encouraging the lay volunteers as they work to form one community from two separate groups.

Through these many challenges, Sr. Pat has never lost her buoyancy. Her secret? With Cornelia Connelly, the Foundress of the Society of the Holy Child, Sr. Pat says, “Be yourself, but make that self all that God wants it to be.”