Suzanne Aubert (19 June 1835 – 1 October 1926), better known to many by her name of Sister Mary Joseph or Mother Aubert, was a Catholic sister who started a home for orphans and the under-privileged in Jerusalem, New Zealand on the Whanganui River in 1885. She first came to New Zealand in 1860 and formed Congregation of the Holy Family to educate Maori children. She founded a religious order, the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion in 1892. She later started two hospitals in Wellington; the first, St Joseph's Home for Incurables in 1900, and Our Lady's Home of Compassion in 1907.
She 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. 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 our cultural understanding and literary heritage.
She was actively engaged with the local Māori population and spoke Māori well. She wrote a book New and complete manual of Maori 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.
The process for Suzanne Aubert's canonisation as a saint was commenced with the appointment in 2010 of Maurice Carmody as postulator or advocate for that cause.
Read more about Suzanne Aubert: History