THE centenary of the death of Australia’s next likely saint, Eileen O’Connor, was marked with a Mass in St Stephen’s Cathedral, Brisbane, on July 24.
Eileen O’Connor co-founded Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor in Sydney in 1913 and in praying for her canonisation, only one of the sisters – Sr Patricia Lord – was able to be present due to pandemic border closures.
Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge encouraged all gathered at the Mass to pray for Eileen’s “eventual canonisation” and consider Mary, the Mother of Jesus, “who, like Eileen, leads us to Christ, crucified and risen”.
Archbishop Coleridge spoke of the “liberating obedience” of Eileen’s commitment to serving God.
“If you want to be free, and genuinely free, you must learn the way of obedience which is the way of the open ear,” he said.
“We see this in the Book of Exodus where the people … hear the commands of the Lord and the people say, ‘We will observe all that the Lord has decreed’ … (but) subsequently they don’t and nor do we.”
Archbishop Coleridge said the Church, and our hearts, “is like the field … with wheat and weed”.
“We say, ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ at the one time,” he continued.
“We say we will obey but we don’t quite manage the obedience that we pledge.
“The problem is we won’t shed blood and that’s what radical obedience requires.”
“Over time” there have been those who have “shed blood” in commitment to the Lord, and one such example was Eileen O’Connor, Archbishop Coleridge said.
“It is certainly true of Eileen O’Connor that she lived the sacrifice and entered deeply into the mystery of the Lord’s Cross,” he said.
“Therefore we pray this morning that she who founded Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor, and who entered her own poverty which is the poverty of Christ … that the time will come that (she) will join Mary MacKillop in the joyful company of all the saints.
“It’s not that they are perfect but they have found their way to that radical obedience into the mystery of the Lord’s Cross and therefore into the mystery that is Easter.”
The OLNs remembered for their ministry in Brisbane were Sisters Gabriel Bast, Greta Gabb, Kerry Macdermott, Margaret Mary Birgan, Patty Byron, Pauline Fogarty, Pat Malone and Patricia Lord.
The sisters operated from a home in New Farm, July 1 this year, the 75th anniversary of the commencement of their 54-year ministry across Brisbane and beyond.
OLN Sisters who have died were also remembered including Anne O’Shaughnessy, Amy O’Connor, Katie Flannery, Rene Madrid, Peggy Shead, Marie Carey, Nancy Carr and Patricia Murphy.
At the end of Mass, Sr Patricia Lord received a papal blessing, recognising her 60 years as an OLN.
The funeral Mass for Sr Anne O’Shaughnessy, who died on July 19, will be offered in Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor Chapel, Coogee, on July 27 at 10.30am, and livestreamed via https://www.funeralvideo.com.au/private/sr-anne
