Born: 16th June, 1938
Professed: 08th December, 1962
Died: 21st June, 2026
In 1938, in Christchurch, Max and Dorothy Parsons joyfully welcomed their first daughter, Judith Maxine Mary. Judith was big sister to her brother and two sisters. Within this loving, Catholic family Judith completed her schooling and went to work as a shorthand typist. When she was 20, she went for a holiday to Australia and returned for her 21st birthday. In her memoirs she wrote “office work and settling down did not seem quite enough”. She and her mother attended a preached Marist Mission and it was then she felt a deep and compelling desire to follow Jesus as a Religious woman.
She was almost 22 years of age when she travelled to Heretaunga to begin her postulancy. When received as a novice, she was given the name Sr Mary Marietta. She made Profession on 8 December 1962. At her Requiem her family said, “She never looked back and she loved every moment of her life”.
Like Mary, mother and first disciple of Jesus, Sr M Marietta continued to listen to His Word and keep it (cf. Const. 52). Her love of Scripture and the Eucharist nourished her whole life.
By May 1963 she was teaching in Savalalo, Samoa. It is difficult to capture the next 63 years of a woman who was always energetic, enthusiastic and resourceful! In the early days in Samoa she wrote syllabi, put them on gestetner stencils and ran them off. All this while she was Head teacher, Class teacher, and still could be seen out clearing the grounds! In later years she saw to the training and recognition of the teachers, hosting inter-school Music Festivals and Netball Competitions. At the same time, she experienced frequent bouts of ‘inconvenient’ filariasis. However, she balanced her life through prayer, community life, swimming, reading, movies and cryptic crosswords.
Sr M Marietta was a highly valued educator. She completed various studies and renewals in order to be academically and spiritually equipped to enhance her service to others. Her service was not loud but deep; not self- seeking but self-giving. All those years of active ministry took her in and out of Samoa. She was missioned in the Solomon Islands from 1989 to 1995. She held leadership roles in the Congregation in New Zealand. She returned to Samoa again until 2003, serving as Director of Catholic Education and part-time teacher at Chanel College, Moamoa.
Sr M Marietta went to Christchurch in 2004 to care for her mother until she died in 2007. When Bishop Barry Jones asked our Congregation for Sisters to work in the Diocese, she and Sister Bertha Hurley were missioned there. In 2008 they began in St Alban’s and Bryndwr Parishes, “attentive to the calls of the Church and world … to respond creatively … concerned only that the Gospel be proclaimed” (Const. 18).
Two women of prayer and action, Srs M Marietta and Bertha made a great team, supporting one another in ministry and in community. They loved their vocation and being with the people in every occasion of parish life, whether it was the daily Mass, or a serious theological discussion group, or a visit to someone sick, or simply a sausage sizzle. They were enthusiastic members of the Catholic Women’s League, and always participated in their local and national meetings. The people said of them that there was “a genuine affection, a smile and a kind word for everyone they met”. They visited many schools all over the South Island of New Zealand, sharing about the vocation they treasured. Sr M Marietta also became an integral part of the Christchurch based Pacific Leprosy Foundation which sent her each year to visit and support former patients in Samoa.
After the Christchurch earthquake, Srs Bertha and M Marietta moved to Papanui parish, and in 2025, when it was time to move into residential care, they chose to stay in the same area, first at Golden Age Home, then later at Wesley Care Hospital.
Sr M Marietta passed away quietly just three months after Sr Bertha. Her Requiem and the Vigil were attended by so many of Sr Marietta’s family who came to give thanks for the life of their beloved ‘Aunty Jude’, and more than a hundred and fifty friends and parishioners. Multiple Facebook posts and emails at the time of her death give testimony to some of the people’s lives she had touched.… she really was a great bridge builder. Messages came from Samoa, her first mission. From the Solomons one of her students wrote “Sr Marietta taught with patience, served with humility… duty was never separated from compassion nor faith from service”.
Her Requiem Mass was celebrated by Bishop Michael Gielen at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Christchurch, on 25 June 2026. In the homily, parish priest Fr Simon Eccleton spoke of how the discipline of Religious Life helped Sr Marietta focus on the essentials, so that she gave witness to a profound faith and trust in God and simplicity of life. Sr Maureen Connor conducted the burial service at the Waimairi Cemetery, where Sr Marietta and Bertha are buried together.
At Sr M Marietta’s funeral Mass, it was noted that this occasion marked the end of the presence of smsm Sisters in the Diocese of Christchurch. Between 1949 and 1999, eighty smsm’s served in the Chatham Islands Hospital. Srs Bertha and M Marietta served in Christchurch from 2008 to 2026.
We give thanks for Sr M Marietta’s passionate, faithful, Marist Missionary life. May she rest in peace after all her years of generous giving.
Sr Pauline Gresham smsm
