Nga mihi atawhai – greetings to all in Mercy! It’s Matariki once again, the Maori new year, signalled by the presence of the Pleiades star cluster in the pre-dawn sky. In Maori tradition, Matariki is a fallow time, a chance to let the soil recover as we make plans for another spring. It’s also a time to learn about whanau or family, to remember our whakapapa or family history, to sit around the winter fires and tell the stories that keep the memory of our past alive.

Some of that has been happening in the Catholic parish of Rotorua in recent weeks, where after 56 years parishioners have been saying farewell to the Sisters of Mercy. The Congregation arrived in 1958 to open St Michael’s School.

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