While most people prefer to avoid hospitals, Patricia Carey looks forward to her weekly visit to Cabrini Malvern.

Pat is 105 years young, and a parishioner at Cabrini Malvern Chapel, attending Mass every Thursday with her son Rob or daughter Mariette – “rarely missing”.

Pat’s connection with Cabrini runs deep. At the age of 100, she had life-saving surgery here, but her relationship with our hospital began a long, long time before she needed our care.

Pat was a resident of Stanhope Street in Malvern, located just behind St Benedict’s Hospital, which would later become Cabrini Hospital. She lived locally for some years, but moved interstate with husband John and a growing family, before returning to the Balaclava area about 20 years ago, after John’s death.

“I came back from Adelaide, and we started coming here to the Saturday night Parish Masses,” Pat recalls. “During COVID, we went back to our local Balaclava church, but we then returned to the Cabrini Chapel for the weekday Mass.”

Despite no longer living just around the corner from our Chapel, Pat makes the journey every Thursday for the “something special” that exists at Cabrini.

“It’s the atmosphere here, you know,” Pat said. “There’s something quite different about it. It’s a community, and there’s a connection we have to this place as a whole, not only with the Chapel. And it helps that there’s beautiful music.”

Not only does Pat enjoy the “spirit” of the Cabrini Chapel and its community, she also enjoys the physical beauty of her favourite place of worship.

“Walking into the Chapel, you can’t help but admire the exquisite artistry of the windows and the wooden ceiling and feeling God’s peace here,” she said.

And when Pat isn’t in our Chapel, the faith-filled mum of five, grandmother of 11, and great grandmother of seven might be found sharing stories and spending time with her family, or keeping her razor-sharp brain active.

“I have a good idea about what the secret to a long life is,” Pat said with a cheeky glint in her eyes. “But let’s put it down to keeping active in mind and body – reading lots of books and staying connected with family and friends.

“And I know I’ve been very blessed with the gift of a deep faith, of course.”

Catholic Mass is held at the Cabrini Chapel every Thursday at midday and is streamed to Cabrini patients on the televisions in their rooms.