Born: 5 March 1934
Profession: 8 December 1963
Died: 2 March 2026
Bertha Mavis Hurley was born in Hunterville, New Zealand, on March 5th 1934, when proud parents Lois and Joseph Hurley welcomed identical twin girls into the world. The ground shook immediately after Bertha's arrival as a 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit the lower North Island. After it subsided, her twin Lois was born. The twin girls brought much joy to their four older brothers Arthur, Dudley, Brian and Desmond. As they grew up, they enjoyed the fun of confusing others by swapping identities as they were so alike and usually wore matching outfits. The twins attended Sacred Heart College in Whanganui, then worked as nurse aides at Opunake Maternity Hospital. Bertha always had a very special bond with her twin, Lois, and was deeply affected by her death in 2015.
At the age of 27, Bertha entered the smsm novitiate at Heretaunga near Wellington, after a year and a half of travel and work in England. She made first profession on 8 December 1963, and was asked to spend the following year doing correspondence studies to pass the University Entrance examination, enabling her to study for a B.A. at Victoria for the next three years.
Armed with her teaching qualification, Sr Bertha was missioned to Samoa where she taught for six years – in the mornings at Marista, Moamoa, where she later served as the principal, and in the afternoons at St Mary’s College, Vaimoso. Besides teaching English and Latin, she shared with her students her joy in being a sister and a missionary.
Bertha’s heart embraced everyone. After Vatican II there was a radical change in the church’s approach to believers of other Faiths and a call to enter into a deeper relationship with them. In Fiji, smsm established a little community in Naleba, to teach in a remote rural committee-run Junior Secondary School, supporting the minority Catholic Indo-Fijian community, and to engage in dialogue of life with their neighbours, who were predominantly Hindu sugarcane farmers. When there was an appeal for a volunteer to join Sr Frances Hardimanin this mission, Sr Bertha offered to go.
She transferred to Fiji from Samoa, and immersed herself in a totally new environment. Despite not knowing the Hindi language, she accompanied Sr Frances on regular after-school visits to the families of the students, and attended their religious and cultural celebrations. They helped the Catholics with liturgy, attended the weekly mandali (prayer), formed a Women’s Club, and provided catechesis for adults before Baptism, and for children during school holidays. When Sr Frances moved to another mission, Sr Virginia Fornasa joined Sr Bertha for two years.
During those years in the north of Fiji, Bertha grew in her desire to work with persons of other faiths, to learn about their relationship to the divine in their lives, and she deepened her understanding and appreciation of Hinduism. This developed further in her next assignment when she lived in a small Catholic centre in Raviravi for over a year, as a Christian presence in a predominantly Hindu area. There she was involved in liturgy, mandali, and a women’s group. She continued these activities when she moved to Labasa, where she also taught part time at Holy Family Secondary School.
In 1985, Bertha was asked to return to New Zealand to be a member of the formation team at the novitiate in Heretaunga. Later that year she went to St Louis, USA, and gained a Master’s degree in Religious Studies and Pastoral Care. She then returned to Fiji to the island of Taveuni, to teach at Tutu Training Centre, and to guide several smsm postulants in their first formation. In Taveuni, she visited Indo-Fijian Catholic families, and shared in their mandali. In 1992, Sr Bertha became directress of novices at Heretaunga, accompanying young women from several countries in their discernment, and sharing with them her own rich experiences of mission.
Her next assignment was to Suva, Fiji, as regional financial administrator. She joined the Fiji Interfaith Search group, and became its coordinator. Bertha made new friends among those of other Faiths who were working together to build peace and good relationships in a nation which was recovering from prejudice, fear and mistrust after the military coups.
In 2000, Bertha was reassigned to New Zealand as provincial financial administrator for the South Pacific, and sector coordinator for the communities in New Zealand. For eight years, she competently provided these services from her base in Auckland. She even managed to go Rome for six months in 2003 to help facilitate an LTSR programme.
In 2008, Bishop Barry Jones asked smsm to assign two sisters to Christchurch to assist in the parishes of St Albans and Bryndwr. Sr M Marietta and Sr Bertha were delighted to take on this new venture. Soon they found plenty of opportunities to be pastoral workers in Christchurch. They helped in religious education at St Alban’s Primary School and Cathedral Secondary School and visited many Catholic schools around the South Island to give vocation talks. Sr Bertha was involved with the RCIA programme, and she also began a small regular prayer group in a nearby nursing home. As members of the Catholic Women’s League, the sisters participated in local and national meetings. After they experienced the disaster of the Christchurch earthquake in 2011, they quickly began to collect food and clothing to share with people in distress, especially those in the eastern suburbs, where they made many visits to people living alone in badly damaged houses. Later they received an award for their efforts.
From the time she arrived in Christchurch, Bertha joined the Christchurch Interfaith Society, participating in many Interfaith activities. Perhaps the most poignant of these was the Interfaith gathering at the Peace Bell in Hagley Park, a few days after the deadly mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019.
In 2017, Srs Bertha and Marietta moved to Papanui, Christchurch, and gradually reduced their outreach. In February 2025, both moved into residential care at Golden Age Home in Papanui. Bertha transferred to nursing care at Wesley Care Hospital in November 2025, and died there peacefully on 2 March 2026, just 3 days short of her 92nd birthday and almost exactly to the day her beloved twin died in 2015.
Bertha died as she had lived: seeking the encounter with God, and peacefully trusting God’s call in her life. She was a woman of deep prayer and wisdom, passionately committed to mission, especially to the dialogue of life with persons of other Faiths, and she welcomed the opportunities for pastoral ministry among students and parishioners wherever she lived, selflessly trying
“to respond creatively in any form of apostolic service,
according to the missionary charism of the congregation,
concerned only that the Gospel be proclaimed.” (Const. 18)
Sr Judith Moore smsm
