Suzanne Aubert

This article is about the French religious sister. For the American religious sister and nurse, see Julia Dempsey.

Venerable

Mary Joseph Aubert

DOLC
BornSuzanne Aubert
19 June 1835
St Symphorien-de-Lay, France
Died1 October 1926 (1926-11) (aged 91)
Wellington, New Zealand

Suzanne Aubert (19 June 1835 – 1 October 1926), better known to many by her religious name Mary Joseph or "Mother Aubert", was a religious sister who started a home for orphans and the under-privileged in Jerusalem, New Zealand on the Whanganui River in 1885.[1] Aubert first came to New Zealand in 1860 and formed the Congregation of the Holy Family to educate Māori children.[2] She founded a religious order, the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion in 1892. Aubert later started two hospitals in Wellington; the first, St Joseph's Home for the Incurables in 1900, and Our Lady's Home of Compassion in 1907.

Aubert devoted her life to helping others. Her work took her from France to Auckland then to Hawke’s Bay, to the Whanganui River and finally to Wellington. And along the way, she founded a new Catholic congregation, cared for children and the sick, by skilfully combining Māori medicine and Pākehā science, and wrote books in Māori, English and French adding significantly to a higher cultural understanding and literary heritage.

Aubert was actively engaged with the local Māori population and spoke Māori well. She wrote a book New and complete manual of Māori conversation : containing phrases and dialogues on a variety of useful and interesting topics : together with a few general rules of grammar : and a comprehensive vocabulary which was published in Wellington by Lyon and Blair in 1885.[3]

The process for Suzanne Aubert's beatification was commenced in 2010.

  1. ^ Beaglehole, Diana (20 March 2014). "Whanganui places - River settlements". Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
  2. ^ "Suzanne Aubert (Mother Mary Joseph)". Monumental Stories. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 24 April 2011.
  3. ^ "New and complete manual of Maori conversation". National Library of New Zealand. 2011. Retrieved 13 July 2011.