Sister Mary Patricia, OP, celebrated 25 years of service with the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne at a jubilee Mass Oct. 26 at the order’s motherhouse in Hawthorne, N.Y.

Sister Patricia, whose mother, Edith Haley, is a member of Corpus Christi Church in Stone Mountain, grew up in Atlanta at St. Thomas More parish in Decatur. She attended Druid Hills High School and worked as a data processor before entering religious life.

Sister Patricia began her search for community at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home for terminally ill cancer patients in Atlanta, where she worked as a Saturday volunteer. She entered the Dominican novitiate in 1964 and took first vows two years later.

“I have never regretted my choice and would do it all again,” Sister Patricia said of her 35 years working with and for cancer patients. “I have been happy here. This life is everything I had hoped it would be.”

Sister Patricia, who has been assigned to duty at the Rosary Hill home and motherhouse in Hawthorne since she was professed, coordinates the home’s large kitchen operation. She frequently works night duty in order to have more direct contact with the patients.

The oldest of six children, Sister Patricia was happy to have her large family on hand to celebrate her jubilee. Her three sisters and two brothers still live in the metro Atlanta area.