I was recently in Rome for a week or so for the annual Talitha Kum international coordinating team meeting. Each time I enter this city, I do with gratitude – the memories of Mary MacKillop’s canonisation flood back in – what a time of great joy, inspiration and solidarity across the Congregation and our planet. Those memories and the ongoing inspiration Mary’s life steadied me as I was navigating a strong sense of clericalism around me.
This whole canonisation process came home to me when visiting the generalate of the Sisters of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Sister Denin is a member of the Talitha Kum staff in Rome, and we connected last year around the story of one of their Sisters, Sister Mary Glowery. Sr Denin invited me for a dinner one evening to meet the community and celebrate her birthday.
Mary Glowery, like Mary MacKillop was a Victorian. Born 45 years after Mary MacKillop, she went to university to become a doctor. She was a very active Catholic lay woman and at 29 years of age, became the president of the Catholic Women’s League (previously called Catholic Women’s Social Guild). After some years of practising as a doctor in Melbourne, she followed a call to work as a medical missionary in Guntar, India. She lived with the Sisters of Jesus Mary Joseph upon her arrival in 1920 and joined them that year.
As well as treating thousands of people, she trained many in the medical profession and founded the Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI), whose members today treat millions of people annually. In November last year, Pope Leo XIV recognised her ‘heroic virtues’ and she was made Venerable Mary of the Sacred Heart.
Being aware of the processes that led to Mary MacKillop’s canonisation, I assured the Sisters that I would do my bit to make Mary Glowery known more widely in the land of her birth. Hopefully it will not be as long a process as it was for Mary MacKillop. We here in Australia know the significance and importance of making this person known and loved globally and to ask Mary Glowery to pray with us for our needs and the needs of the world. Of course, miracles must be found and proven, and we can be attentive to any such events and inform the people who are leading Mary Glowery’s cause.
It is wonderful that we have one woman who is a canonised Saint in this country – a woman who offers such inspiration and hope, and we have two others on the road – Mary Glowrey, now Venerable and Eileen O’Connor, Servant of God. We need them and all those who have gone before us to pray with us for a world so in need of their type of faith and service.
Great will be the day when Saint Mary MacKillop will be joined by Saint Mary Gowery and Saint Eileen O’Connor to inspire us and pray with us.
Annette Arnold rsj