Sister Patricia (Mary Kevin) Dowler 60th Jubilee

Sister Patricia (Mary Kevin) Dowler grew up as an only child in Stanford, Connecticut. Taught by sisters throughout primary and secondary school, she met the Presentation Sisters at St. Mary School and the Sisters of St. Joseph in high school.

Even as she was exposed to various religious orders throughout her education, Sister Pat realized there was a joy and peace about the Presentation Sisters” that called to her. Sitting in St. Mary’s Church one afternoon, she observed Sister Mary Beatrice going about her daily work with such joy and peace about her. “I said to myself, ‘if she can be that happy just doing regular work, I can give it a try,’” Pat shares. Sister felt a deep sense of peace sitting the church that day and knew God was calling her to join the Presentation congregation.

Pat was always drawn to working in health care. That draw, however, was not as strong as her call to be a Presentation Sister, an order that historically ministered in education. Even her love of sports, especially basketball and Irish step dance, did not deter her. 

When she had graduated from high school, her parents provided the sign she needed to know that entering was the right choice. Handing her a dozen roses at graduation, her mother said, “I want you to respond to God and anything that God asks you in the same way these roses respond to God’s sunshine and rain, opening up gradually so you can receive God’s unconditional love.” 

A faithful supporter, Pat’s mother wrote her a letter every day during her novitiate. When her mother died right after she made first profession, her father never considered asking her to leave the order and come home. “He knew I was happy, safe and cared for; that’s all a parent could ask,” Pat explains.

Sister began her ministry in education, earning a bachelor’s from Regina Coeli College and a master’s from Fitchburg State. She grew to love teaching and taught for 12 years. Still, there was something inside her pulling her toward health care, and she asked if she could study nursing. Gaining permission from the congregation, Pat began a hospital-based nursing program at Burbank Hospital, becoming a registered nurse.

Sister worked at Burbank Hospital for 17 years before it closed. She most enjoyed her time in orthopedics and med surg nursing. “Caring for patients when they were in a most vulnerable situation was a very fulfilling ministry,” she says. “It was a privilege to provide the comfort and care.”

Sister’s biggest challenge was when she had a nurse under her charge that preferred not to care for a patient because he was an alcoholic. Sister understood that it is a disease. She took on the care for that patient herself, ensuring he had the care he deserved and asking herself, “What would Jesus /Nano have done?”

Taking another leap of faith, Sister asked if she could get trained in massage therapy. “The program at Bancroft School of Massage Therapy program was the best anatomy program I ever had,” she exclaims! “The more I learned about the human body, the more amazed I became at its complexity. I knew massage could be an extension of the healing profession begun in nursing.”

It also brought the realization that she was an instrument, serving as the hands of God. “These hands were not mine,” she shares. “Through these hands my clients would feel better; they were God’s hands.” 

After graduating and becoming a licensed massage therapist, Sister never left Bancroft, becoming a part of the staff and teaching many courses of CPR and first aid, serving as clinical supervisor/director and teaching hands-on massage techniques. When the director of education position opened, she applied for that job and came full circle back to education, though in a health care setting. Having served in all these roles, she spent 21 years at Bancroft. 

Pat also served as director of associate ministers for over 25 years. “Being director of our associate ministers allowed me to journey with women and men as they discerned walking in the footsteps of Nano Nagle; becoming companions in prayer and partners in service increased my own love of Presentation and deepened my relationship with Jesus,” Sister shares. 

Living in community with her Presentation Sisters has allowed Pat to grow spiritually. “Communal prayer is so rewarding. The sharing causes me to look at my own perspective in life and get some insights from others,” she shares. “That is how I grow in my relationship with God and others.”

Sister tries to “listen to God with the ears of her heart and spend time in quiet.” She explains, “If you don’t spend quiet time, you can’t really listen to what God’s trying to say to you.” In busy lives it is sometimes too easy to forget that prayer is the key to who the sisters are and, she explains, “you can’t give what you don’t have.”  

Pat concludes, “I have had such wonderful companions on this journey: staffs with whom I have ministered, students whom I have taught, patients for whom I’ve cared for, clients whom I have massaged, all my Presentation Sisters and ,of course, a faithful God with an unconditional love beyond measure. I have never regretted a moment of my years as a Presentation sister.”