Religious Sister of Mercy served God and the faithful for more than 70 years
By Dan McWilliams
Sister Pat Soete, a Sister of Mercy for 74 years, passed away peacefully on July 26 at Mercy Convent in Nashville, surrounded by her community. She was 92.
She served in East Tennessee for 43 years, beginning in 1977 when she arrived at St. Mary’s Hospital in Knoxville to minister as a chaplain. During her 15 years there, her kindness and care demonstrated a vital presence among God’s people.
In September 1994, Sister Pat moved to Helenwood to become the pastoral associate at St. Jude Parish, one of the smallest faith communities in the Diocese of Knoxville. She ministered to all but especially to the poor and needy, leaving an indelible mark on all the communities she served.
In Helenwood, Sister Pat annually asked parishioners of St. John Neumann in Farragut to help provide Christmas gifts for children in her Scott County area of Appalachia, including clothing, toys, and games for kids 17 and under. St. Jude parishioners picked up the gifts several days before Christmas.
Sister Pat loved the mountains of East Tennessee, and camping was one of her favorite activities. She also enjoyed doing jigsaw puzzles, quilting, and coloring on her iPad.
In 2020, she moved to Mercy Convent in Nashville for her retirement years. There she continued to minister to her Sisters with her compassion and care. She enjoyed being with and praying with the Sisters, and she visited with them in the infirmary and prayed daily for their needs and for the needs of all those who loved and cared for her. Sister Pat will be greatly missed by all those who knew her.
Patricia Ann Soete was born to Joseph and Hilda Soete on April 23, 1933, in Cincinnati. Inspired by two aunts, Alice and Bernice Marie, who were Sisters of Mercy, the young Pat Soete entered the community in 1951 in Cincinnati.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, she taught for 12 years in Cincinnati. Sister Pat went on to earn her license as a practical nurse and served in Ohio for nine years.
Sister Pat in late 2020 was the last of the original Sisters of Mercy to retire, ending the community’s more than 120 years of service to East Tennessee that began in 1896 when the Sisters came to St. Mary School next to Immaculate Concep tion Church in downtown Knoxville. The Sisters of Mercy founded St. Mary’s Hospital in 1930 and served there during its more than eight and a half decades of operation.
Sister Yvette Gillen, RSM, retired in spring 2020, just ahead of Sister Pat.
‘The need never ends’
As Sister Pat prepared for retirement, she was gearing up for another Christmastime toy and clothing drive sponsored by St. John Neumann for St. Jude.
“The parishioners there give us numerous toys and clothing, brand new. I can’t sing their praises enough,” she told The East Tennessee Catholic for its Dec. 6, 2020, edition. “We’ve been so blessed to have them give us these things. The room is filled with these gifts. Just to see the faces of these people does something to you. We’ve been doing that for 26 years now. St. John Neumann has been God’s gift to us in a very real way.”
While St. Jude is one of the diocese’s smallest parishes, its parishioners have big hearts when it comes to serving those less fortunate.
“We get a lot of calls here for helping people with their rent and utilities, with clothing and other odds and ends, people who are in dire need,” Sister Pat said. “We’ve been fortunate here at St. Jude’s. There have been a lot of people who have given over the years to help the poor.”
As well as holding the St. John Neumann drive, Sister Pat set up a gift-giving tree for those with extra needs.
“We take a small tree and put it in our vestibule here,” she said. “The people who call and ask for special help, I make a paper ornament with the mother’s name. I give them pants, coats, shoes, socks, underwear, and a toy. The people in the parish take the tag off the tree, and then they fulfill whatever is on the tag.”
The need never ends, she said in 2020.
“We had a lady just today call me,” Sister Pat said at the time. “She has two children who are like 12 or 14, and the third one is an adult child who is 34 years old and is special-needs. We have to get things for her that will kind of fit the phase she’s in. We had a lady who found her daughter dead in bed. They’ve really been struggling. That’s a very heavy burden to carry.”
Sister Pat said that “God is good—I’ve been able to do what I’m doing. Right now, it’s going to be very hard to leave St. Jude’s. It’s the people in the parish and also the people in the community who have touched me. Their being present in my life has been God’s gift to me. When these people touch my life, I keep them in my prayers. I lift these people up who have touched my life. That’s a gift that we get throughout our life. When you get feedback on that, it gives you the strength and the courage to do whatever God is asking you to do. It’s not about the words. It’s about learning the presence, to meet the Lord in one another, how to be present to one another.”
Classrooms and chaplaincy
Sister Pat Soete poses for a photo earlier in her vocation. (Photo courtesy the Religious Sisters of Mercy)
The year following her retirement was a special one for Sister Pat, whose first profession of vows was in 1954.
“In 2021, I’ll be 70 years in the convent,” she said. “I entered in 1951.”
She recalled her years as a teacher early on in her vocation.
“In those first years, I taught second, third, fourth, and sixth grades for 12 years,” she said. “Then after that I think I got burned out, so I asked to go into nursing, so I took classes for a practical nurse. I served in Springfield, Ohio, when I got the degree. That was another nine years. After that I had to leave nursing because I had an injury to my back. I had two back surgeries. That was in 1977.”
Then she came to Knoxville and St. Mary’s Hospital to serve as a chaplain.
“Sister Marie Moore—we entered together in the same class. She was at the time the president of St. Mary’s Hospital. When she found out I was changing my direction, she asked me if I could come to St. Mary’s,” Sister Pat said. “I was at St. Mary’s for 15 years. Each one of those ministries prepares you for the next one. I live in the now, and so the now is very important to me and what I do with it.
“It’s awesome. It just dawned on me one day that I’m the last one (to retire). The last two Sisters are both from Ohio (Sister Yvette is a native of Findlay, Ohio). I’ve been here over half my life. I’m part Tennessean. It’s part of God’s plan. It’s just trying to fulfill whatever the Lord is asking me to do. It’s taking it day by day.”
In Nashville, Sister Pat found friends who also served at St. Mary’s Hospital. “There’ll be a few of those Sisters there who were at the hospital, so that will be a blessing,” she said.
Her hospital ministry often brought her close to people at the end of their lives.
“It was such a precious time because it was working with people who were ill, who were dying of cancer. I worked in the cancer unit. When you work with people who are dying, it’s a special gift—the Lord is calling them home, and He is calling me to be with them. It’s touching. It just grabs me by my heart. It’s very sad, but it’s a rich gift to be with people who are hurting, people who are in need, people who are suffering.
“We’re just responding to the Lord’s call. The Lord calls us from different places to be with people who are in need. We meet the Lord in the people we are with. I believe the Lord invites us into His life, not just the glories. He invites us to be part of that suffering. It’s something that you carry with you all of your life.”
‘To be His presence among God’s people’
When she first entered the Sisters of Mercy, Sister Pat said “it was difficult because it was the first time I was away from my family. I was 18 years old. You lived by the rule (in the convent); you did certain things a certain way. As I grow older, I can look back and learn things from those days. I tried my best to answer the Lord’s call in being a Sister, a nun. He asked me to be one with Him and to be His presence among God’s people. I can look back over the years at things that have enriched my life or have challenged me through difficult times. I call myself a survivor who is most grateful to the Lord for the gift of His calling me.”
She remembered at her retirement her late aunts who inspired her vocation, as well as the Sisters she was close to as a young student.
Sister Pat Soete, RSM, left, is joined by, from left, Sister Yvette Gillen, Sister Janice Brink, Sister Thomasetta Mogan, Sister Martha Naber, and Sister Margaret Turk during an event celebrating the Religious Sisters of Mercy. (Photo courtesy the Religious Sisters of Mercy)
“I was born Catholic, so I went to a Catholic school, and there were a lot of Sisters there,” Sister Pat said. “There was something about being around them, that I guess the Lord goes to work on you. The attraction of doing what they were doing, I wanted to be like them.”
Her aunts “didn’t pull me in,” Sister Pat said. “They let me be who I was. You’ve got to see if this was what the Lord is asking you to do.”
At the time of her retirement, she said she had “no idea” what her duties in Nashville would be.
“I know it’s going to be a challenge there. I’ve been living by myself for 27 years. I’m an introvert,” she said. “It takes a while for me to adjust. I have to keep on praying and ask the Lord to help me meet this challenge. At the same time, I am grateful that the Lord is taking care of me.”
Sister Pat was still going strong as an octogenarian.
“I’m 87. I’m proud of it. It took me a long time to get here,” she said.
The Sister of Mercy joined her fellow women religious in celebrating anniversaries of their entrance into the community.
On Aug. 4, 2001, at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Nashville, Sister Pat was among seven Sisters of Mercy marking 50 years of religious life at a Mass with four bishops among the celebrants. Bishop Edward U. Kmiec of the Diocese of Nashville was the principal celebrant. Principal concelebrants were then-Bishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Knoxville, Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell, then of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., who was the founding bishop of Knoxville; and retired Nashville Bishop James D. Niedergeses.
In 2011, Sister Pat celebrated her 60th anniversary of religious life at St. Jude, where she also assisted in education, helped with the celebration of Mass, and worked in the food pantry.
Ten years later, Sister Pat celebrated her 70th anniversary of entering the convent, joining Sister Yvette, who was marking 60 years, and two other Sisters celebrating 70th and 60th anniversaries.
Father Bill McKenzie was the main celebrant of a Jubilee Mass on Sept. 8, 2021, and Monsignor Bill Gahagan of the Diocese of Knoxville; Father Mark Hunt, the Mercy Sisters’ chaplain; and Father Pat Kibby were the concelebrants.
At the Mass, the four Sisters renewed their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, vows that all religious Sisters make, wrote Andy Telli of the Tennessee Register in an article that appeared in the Oct. 3, 2021, issue of The East Tennessee Catholic. As Mercy Sisters, they made and renewed an additional vow during the anniversary liturgy: to serve the poor, sick, and uneducated.
In the 2021 article, Sister Pat again credited her two aunts, saying that “it’s probably because of them I joined the Mercies. I was in touch with their caring. I liked what I saw, and I wanted to be like them.”
She spoke of moving from teaching to pastoral care at St. Mary’s Hospital.
“I knew that was what the Lord was asking me to do, to be in touch with the people,” Sister Pat said.
Father Dan Whitman of the Diocese of Knoxville invited her to be a pastoral associate at St. Jude. Her first response was, “I don’t know if I can do that. I’ve never done parish work.”
When she started, “I was scared to death,” Sister Pat said. “But the Lord’s grace gave me the courage I needed. It was an awesome gift the Lord gave me to accept myself to be the person the Lord meant for me to be.”
On the occasion of her 70th anniversary, Sister Pat recalled how the Second Vatican Council ushered in many changes for religious orders, including the Sisters of Mercy. One of the Council’s documents, Perfectae Caritatis: Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life, called on religious communities to rediscover their roots and the original charisms of their founders.
For the Sisters of Mercy, that meant reimagining the work of their founder, Sister Catherine McAuley, who started the order to care for homeless women and children and educating the poor. The community broadened its ministries beyond teaching and nursing after Vatican II.
“We were like a rosebud gradually opening,” Sister Pat said. “So, you were able to have a sense the Lord is in this, and He’s going to help us through.”
Sister Pat was preceded in death by her parents and by her siblings, Shirley Spitznagel (Bud), Mary Jo Meyer (Jim), and Joe Soete. She is survived by a sister-in-law, Carol Soete; many nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews, great-great-nieces, and great-great-nephews; and by her Sisters of Mercy community. Her funeral Mass was celebrated on Aug. 20, at Mercy Convent in Nashville, with Father McKenzie presiding. Burial followed in Calvary Cemetery in Nashville.
To make a donation in Sister Pat’s memory, visit www.sistersofmercy.org/news/sister-patricia-ann-soete/.