When you look back into the 400-year-old history of Daughters of Charity you will find thousands of inspiring women to look up to. Starting with St Louise de Marillac, co-founder of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, to the Daughters of Charity today who are on the front-line serving our most vulnerable people.

This International Women’s Day, we sat down with Sr Maureen Tinkler to find out what life has been like as a Daughter of Charity and her experiences.

This week on March 12th, 2021, Sr Maureen celebrates her 50-year anniversary as a Daughters of Charity. She was just 18 years old when she first came to Provincial House in London’s Mill Hill as a postulant. But what inspired her to join this community of Catholic women living such extraordinary lives?

Sr Maureen came from a loving family with a very ordinary background. Her father, who was a Roman Catholic, worked at the ICI Chemical Works in Billingham. Her mother, who came from Anglican roots but later converted to Catholicism, was a housewife.

“I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I was lucky to have two very loving parents.”

At the young age of 11, after passing her eleven plus Exam, Sr Maureen went off to school in Darlington; a secondary school opened by the Daughters of Charity specifically for the girls of working-class families. Sr Maureen says her secondary school years were fun - she was part of a pop band, wrote poetry, was a whiz at science, and even went through her fair share of boyfriends! But aside from normal teenage life, Sr Maureen was heavily involved with her local parish. One of the groups she belonged to supported Travellers and she would read to children who lived on travel sites and did a lot of work in the Parish.

Around aged 13, Sr Maureen recalls she how her faith began to make a transition from sharing her parents faith to “owning” it  herself. Given a copy of the Jerusalem Bible, she stopped looking at the Bible as a history book and it became a series of love letters from God who was speaking directly to her through them. She began to pray more.

Nearing the end of Sixth Form, Sr Maureen applied to university to study Biochemistry and was offered a place at Liverpool University. However, something deep inside her was moving her towards the Sisters:

“There was something pulling me towards giving my life to God to serve people in need. I wanted to help.”

Although her parents wanted her to get a degree first, they saw how desperate she was and agreed to let her join the Sisters as a Postulant. So, in September 1970, she did just that.

During her time as a Postulant, Sr Maureen experienced life as it would be as a Daughter of Charity. She saw how the Sisters lived together in community, how they prayed together, and she got a taster for the type of ministry they did. She learnt about the congregation and how to pray and become reflective. She reveals:

“When I first entered, I didn’t know if it was the right place for me, I just knew I had to try.”

During postulancy Sr Maureen enjoyed the experience of working with disadvantaged children in care, alongside the Sisters and lay staff. Afterwards, for two years, she became a Seminary Sister (novice) in Provincial House. Here she studied philosophy, theology, the Scriptures, Vincentian Spirituality and what it meant to be a Daughter of Charity. This was interspersed by two great periods of Apostolic Work with children in Enfield and in a school for hearing impaired children in Glasgow. These were also opportunities to live in two different local communities of the Daughters of Charity.

On 12th March, 1971, Sr Maureen received the habit of a Daughter of Charity and was “Sent on Mission”. She had officially become a Daughter of Charity.

“My life had 1000s of possibilities, but this one seemed to fit.”

Sr Maureen spent the first 12 months as a Sister in a Nursing Home Edmonton in North London. Under the supervision of the Sisters and lay staff she learnt how to best care for a person with the love and dignity. It was a very happy year and this experience would become invaluable to her when she came to care for her own elderly mother later in life.

The role as a Daughters of Charity entails being available to respond to any kind of poverty at any given time and you must be willing to travel where service is needed. In 1972, Sr Maureen was relocated to St John’s, Boston Spa, a Catholic residential school for deaf children, where she worked as a House Mother for three years with children ranging from ages six to 10. She also had charge of one of the large dining rooms and recalls the buzz of 70 children all sitting a dining room together.

She was then sent to Liverpool for four years where she completed a science degree (BSc Hons), and taught in local schools whilst living with other Sisters in community.

“We Sisters are all so different, - some Sisters we would never have chosen as best friends, but we share the same vocation, vision and mission - to serve vulnerable people. This creates bonds of unity and affection between us and that is what makes our lifestyle work. Rooted in God - together we are stronger.”

In the 80s, Sr Maureen went back to St John’s in Boston Spa where she completed teacher’s training for deaf children and taught in the Senior School. One of her favourite memories is playing football and rounders with her young students and watching them live life to the fullest.

Since then, Sr Maureen has travelled all over the country serving people from all walks of life and poverties; from running a Youth Retreat Centre in Scotland, catechetics and pastoral work in parishes, serving in a hospital chaplaincy team and working with people seeking asylum. She also spent many years working in initial formation accompanying young women who were trying their vocation as a Daughters of Charity. She also took a group of Vincentian Volunteers during their gap year to Paris – the home of the Daughters of Charity Mother House – to experience serving the poor and visit Vincentian sites. For nine years she worked in Province leadership and for a further ten years worked with the Vincentian Family in Great Britain running collaborative, spirituality, justice and Vincentian Values Groups, events and training. Her teaching experience, along with her previous placements, has made Sr Maureen the perfect Sister to join the Daughters of Charity Services as our VIVAT Co-ordinator in January 2020.

Sr Maureen says the most wonderful thing about being a Daughter of Charity is that vulnerable people let her into their world, and in turn become a part of her life. In fact, she is still in contact with many of the people she has served during her life today.

And although she has never once regretted her Vocation as a Sister, she says one of her biggest misses in life is that she did not have the opportunity to marry or have a family:

“The desire to be a mother is always there, but in my many years of being a Daughter I hope that I have “mothered” many.”