Where better to sit with Life, than in a graveyard? I didn’t sit, as it happened. I laid on the grass between the rows of graves and kept company with the sisters and the priest who were, in their turn, companions to saint-in-waiting, Eileen O’Connor.
Eileen died in 1921, aged twenty-eight, her three-foot-ten body stunted, ravaged, and partially paralysed by tuberculosis, which had infected her spine by the time she was three. This precious soul, despite her terrible illness (or because of it) was so moved by the plight of the sick and destitute of Sydney’s slums, that she founded an order of nurses to care for them, in their own homes and at no charge. Esteemed as a saint in her own lifetime, the wheels of the church are slowly turning and the paperwork supporting her investigation for sainthood reached the Vatican last year. She needs a documented miracle for the Vatican to consider her cause has divine confirmation. So, if you’re after miracles, pray to her.
Each year, a memorial Mass to commemorate Eileen’s life of service is held on the anniversary of her death, January 10th. I flew to Sydney to attend the service and spend three glorious days walking in the footsteps of Eileen and her nuns, on holy ground. A pilgrimage. But also a visit, because there were many thin places, where it was so easy to feel the presence of this amazing woman. Sitting in the quiet in her chapel, created in her old bedroom, kneeling at the foot of her tomb under the floorboards, which is opened for the occasion. That place pumps with grace. The first time I visited Eileen’s home, by serendipitous chance seven or eight years ago, I knew nothing about her. But sitting alone in that chapel, I knew beyond doubt that she was a bona fide saint. She changed me and led me down the path which eventually led to me writing her story.
Walking from Eileen’s house to the nearby cemetery where she was first interred while her companions battled bureaucracy to get permission to follow her wishes and rebury her at home, I became aware of the footsteps of her sisters, who had made the same walk every morning for nearly sixteen years, to pray the rosary at her graveside. Now, many of her nuns, and the co-founder of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor, Father Ted McGrath, are buried in that cemetery, and it was to them I paid a visitation, lying on the grass. Communing in silence.
When Eileen was exhumed, almost 16 years after her death, the sisters asked for the coffin to be opened. The presiding funeral director recalled: “After the exhumation at the cemetery, the unopened casket was taken to our Funeral Chapel at 347 Anzac Parade, Kingsford, where a large number of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor awaited us. The Nurses asked me to open the sealed lead casket and remove the inner pine lid. This was done, and I was startled to see Eileen O’Connor lying there as though asleep in her simple blue gown, her hair lying naturally down each side of her face, and her hands joined on her breast. The skin appeared slightly dark and the eyes seemed a little sunken, but, not having the good fortune to know her in life, I could not know if this was natural. Our Lady’s Nurses then gathered around the open casket and appeared not in the least surprised at seeing their ‘Little Mother’ (Eileen O’Connor) as they last saw her 16 years earlier.” One of the sisters exclaimed, “The little darling is perfect.”
The quote from the undertaker comes from https://www.ourladysnurses.org.au/just-they-last-saw-her/
Comments