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 Saturday. Source: The Catholic Leader.
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.
“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.”
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100 years on, Brisbane Catholics gather to pray for canonisation of Eileen O’Connor (By Selina Venier, The Catholic Leader)
