Moira Teresa Byrnes was the first daughter and second child of Percy and Ellen Byrnes. Moira was born in and grew up in Burra.
She was a good sister to her two brothers, John and Desmond, a wonderful aunt to her nieces and nephews and in later years also to her grand nieces and nephews. They loved her dearly.
Moira entered the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart on St Joseph’s Day in 1979 and was professed in January 1982. She made her final profession in 1988 in the Church of the Nativity at Aberfoyle Park where the Sisters of St Joseph, family members and the people of the parish celebrated with her.
Moira spent the first year of her Josephite ministry in Nuriootpa. She then engaged in part time studies in preparation for parish ministry in Aberfoyle Park and then in Port Lincoln.
In 1990 Moira moved to NSW where she did clinical pastoral studies at Royal North Shore Hospital. For the next nine years she was chaplain at the Westmead Hospital located in the western suburbs of Sydney. Her work here with patients and their families was varied, challenging at times and always lifegiving.
She was a member of the inter-denominational team of chaplains, a valued colleague and involved in education and support programs for students and volunteers.
Moira was chaplain at the Royal North Shore Hospital for two years before she returned ‘home’ to SA.
In 2003 Moira moved to Croydon and became a volunteer at the Southern Cross Aged Care Hostel in Pennington until 2018.
Moira then moved to Kensington where her ministry of listening, supporting and praying continued in her gentle and unassuming way. She read widely, and kept up her interest in sport, politics, world affairs and ecology.
Moira moved to Calvary Flora McDonald Retirement Community, Cowandilla, only three weeks before her death. Here, yet again, she continued to reach out to others – in the dining room, to staff who cared for her, to her visitors. In turn she was surrounded with love by the Sisters of St Joseph and members of her family and by the staff at Calvary Flora.
Her Mass of Christian burial was celebrated at St Joseph’s Chapel Kensington on April 22.
Vale, Moira. Live on now in the fullness of the great mystery of love.
– Sr Pauline Morgan rsj
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