Nepean Times Tribute to Father James Phelan

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
December 30-31 2017: Feast of  the Holy Family

In its Saturday January 15 1898 edition, the Nepean Times newspaper included a tribute to the recently deceased Father Phelan:

“A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN
     It is not often we have to record the death of one who was so deservedly respected as the late Rev James Phelan, whose death was reported in our last issue. 

 

Father Phelan was one of the oldest priests in the diocese, and was the last but two receiving state aid , the other two being the Very Reverend Monsignor Rigney, of Prospect, now 86 years of age, and Arch Priest Sheehy. Father Phelan …was for a long time in charge of the Hartley District. He was afterwards at Braidwood, Subiaco and Penrith. The writer has known the rev. gentleman for upwards of 20 years as a most philanthropic and earnest Christian. His good deeds among the poor of the district and colony generally will never be effaced from memory of our oldest colonists. Many of the poorer families in Penrith and St Marys, it didn’t matter to what denomination they belonged, will miss periodical supplies of necessaries that came to them from an unknown source. For Father Phelan, when he knew of any case deserving, had goods sent to the homes with instructions that the parties were not to be told from whence they came. This happened hundreds of times. Then he gave liberally and unsolicited to both the Nepean Cottage Hospital and St Marys Benevolent Society. He was always of a jovial disposition, was fond of cracking dry jokes, and was known to his personal friends  as being an exceedingly well read man. Although not in charge of any parish particularly, he solemnized Mass at intervals at St Marys, and generally assisted Father Sheridan. When Father Phelan left Penrith he had built for himself a very comfortable  cottage on the Mamre Road, and poor persons who called there were never known to go away hungry. He attended to duties up to within a fortnight of his death, so that he      virtually died in harness at the age of 77. After death he had all the honours that his Church could confer. On Friday a requiem Mass and solemn dirge was held at the R.C. Church, St Marys. Cardinal Moran, Bishop Higgins, and about forty priests took part in the services. The Rev J Sheridan was the celebrant of the Mass, Rev B Baugh deacon, Rev F Martin sub-deacon. The Cardinal gave the Absolutions in the Church, and also officiated at the grave. Among the clergymen present we noticed the Very Rev Dr O’Haran, Rev T O’Reilly,  Rev James Mahoney, Rev B Sheridan, Very Rev Monsignor Rigney. The funeral procession was a very long one, and among those who attended were a very large number of Protestants, including Rev A O Corlette and Rev Alex Smith. On the Sunday evening too, Rev A O Corlette referred to the death of Father Phelan.” 

 

 

Saintly quotes on how to approach the Eucharist with a true ‘Christmas’ spirit

THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD - CHRISTMAS DAY
December 25: The Nativity of the Lord:

While Christmas is principally focused on the birth of Jesus and the mystery of the Incarnation, it also brings up many beautiful connections to a sacrament that Jesus would later establish at the Last Supper. The sacrament of the Eucharist is often directly connected to the birth of Jesus, and the Mass  compared to Christmas day.

Many saints saw these correlations clearly and   expressed it in their writings. Below are five quotes from various holy men and women who teach us how to approach the Eucharist with a true “Christmas” spirit.

Servant of God Chiara Lubich:   When we worship you in the form of bread … we always see you as an adult. But every year at Christmas, you reveal yourself to us as a child born in a crib. We stand in silent amazement … In silent adoration we stand before the mystery, like Mary when the shepherd came and told her what they had seen and heard: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” – 

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross:  Whoever really takes [the Eucharist] as his daily bread, experiences EACH DAY the mystery of Christmas, the Word made flesh. – 

St. Teresa of Calcutta:  The Holy Eucharist is the continuation of Christ’s incarnation on earth. The mystery of the Eucharist gives us the joy of having Christmas every day. When we come to the Blessed Sacrament we come to Bethlehem, a name which means “house of bread.” Jesus chose to be born in Bethlehem because He would dwell with us forever as the “Living Bread” come down from heaven. When the shepherds and Magi came to adore Him, they brought Him so much joy with their humble visit to Bethlehem that their visit has been praised and retold down through the centuries. God has never stopped honoring them for honoring His Son in Bethlehem. So too, your humble visit to Jesus today in the Blessed Sacrament brings Him so much joy that it will be retold for all eternity and bring the world closer to His promise of peace on earth. 

Servant of God John Hardon:  What is the fact of the Eucharist? It is that the same Jesus Who was born on earth not only became man but remains man. He not only came into the world, He is in the world. In a word, He came to stay. The Eucharist is Christmas prolonged, because faith tells us that once God became man, He  decided to remain man. From all the reaches of past eternity, God had only been God. But having once taken on human flesh, into now the future reaches of eternity, God will always remain man. And this God-Man is here; Bethlehem is wherever there is a Catholic Church or chapel in which Christ is present. These are the two facts that we commemorate on Christmas day.  
St. John Paul II:  Bethlehem! The city where Jesus was born in fulfilment of the Scriptures, in Hebrew means “house of bread.” It was there that the Messiah was to be born, the One who would say of himself: “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:35, 48). In Bethehem was born the One who, under the sign of broken bread, would leave us the memorial of his Pasch. On this Holy Night, adoration of the Child Jesus becomes Eucharistic  adoration. We adore you, Lord, truly present in the  Sacrament of the Altar, the living Bread which gives life to humanity. We acknowledge you as our one God, a little Child lying helpless in the manger! 
 

 

 

SAINTLY AUSTRALIAN SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR, Part 4

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
December 16-17 :  3rd  Sunday of Advent


SAINTLY  AUSTRALIAN  SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR  (Part 4). By Anna Krohn

Mary’s parents also gave her a sense that what she did with her life – as with every single life – mattered to the world and to God. It is clear from her writing that her experience of her own serious childhood sickness (diphtheria and rheumatic fever), the loss of a baby brother and sister, and her keen vision of the grief caused by this, formed an indelible channel in her  vocational reflections.
She realised that grief “was a real physical pain” and that losing a precious baby could leave “a void that could not be filled”. She also realised that her family’s tenderness with the dying was not just a social custom but a mission owed to all people.

 

It was this ‘vivid empathy’ that drew Mary away from her deeply loved humanities studies, at which she excelled, to medicine. There was a surprisingly ecumenical encouragement in her vocation, from the Presbyterian town doctor to a Protestant who pointed out Catholic medical principles during a controversial procedure which they both opposed.

Dr Mary Glowrey, who would spend herself in the almost impossible task of curing and reverencing the bodies of the newborn, pregnant, plague-ridden and dying people of Guntur, experienced first hand the ‘gnawing disease’ of bone cancer as a final culmination of herself becoming like Christ – a path first shown to her through her family.

Her confidence in saying ‘yes’ to her religious life and heroic mission in India was a joining of smaller dots of light from her early life. This definitive calling, which came after Mary had listened to a Scriptural homily given on Hospital Sunday on 24 October 1915 at St Patrick’s Cathedral, marked the beginning of a health apostolate which would ultimately help countless millions. At the end of her extraordinary life, Mary said ‘yes’ once again and shouldered the Cross of excruciating physical pain and suffering. Mary’s only regret, in her own words:   

‘I have not done enough. I could have done more.’

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“We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world.”     - G.K. Chesterton

 

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“It is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.”    Peter Marshall, US Senate chaplain.

 

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“The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is JOY. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see we have only to look.”       –Fra Angelico, 16th C.

 

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“Live joyfully. Our Lord is looking on you lovingly. His mercy is infinitely greater than our misery.” 

 – St Francis de Sales

 

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SAINTLY AUSTRALIAN SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR, Part 3

December 9-10 :  2nd Sunday of Advent
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

SAINTLY  AUSTRALIAN  SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR     (Part 3), By Anna Krohn

The treasury of her family:

In the town of Watchem [in Victoria’s Western District – Mary was born in Birregurra]  at the age of six, she became entirely capable of a wide range of self-sufficient tasks – “making jam, soap, candles and simple meals.” Making something out of nothing became a miracle she worked in her later medical work.

 

At the same very early age, she also had a powerful insight that formed the rest of her life: “that if I should always do what was well pleasing in God’s sight” then all things would be clear and even sin would be impossible.

Mary was the third of seven children, and was deeply formed by the everyday prayer life of her family and  particularly of her beloved mother and father, Margaret and Edward Glowrey. Regular ‘trimmings’ on the Rosary  included a plea for more priests and doctors. In addition, it was understood through the example of her parents that all the baptised were ‘apostles’, years before this was articulated and confirmed by several 20th-century Popes and Vatican II.

Her mother Margaret was a gifted untrained catechist who ‘met’ children and others at their own pace. Mary called this ‘mother’s apostolate’ and it deeply impressed her. Mary’s mother taught her to wait patiently on God’s will – not as if God was some remote and dictatorial  tyrant but as a loving Father who called us to live in  relationship with Jesus Christ through the very real power of the Holy Spirit. Thus in her remote Australian town, Mary had a true taste of Trinitarian mission. Later her dedication to the Holy Spirit was to play a vital role in her work as a missionary doctor.
The call of the culture of life

In a very moving letter to her family from India, on her father’s death, Mary wrote that the guileless disciple of Jesus, Nathaniel, reminded her of her father Edward Glowrey: “Dada’s goodness was that of that unobtrusive, self-forgetting kind, which is so precious and so rare.”
It was Edward who gave Mary the strongest encouragement in the apostolate of medical studies, particularly supporting her against the common view that medicine was an unfeminine vocation. With Mary’s mother, he opened her mind to offering hospitality and social justice to a group of travelling Indians who would regularly stay on their property and were nursed back to health by the family. “My father’s kindness to this group of Indians was not an isolated instance. He was kind to everybody …  His solicitude extended to the spiritual as well as the temporal welfare of those he met,” writes Mary.

(concluded next week)

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"Hear and let it penetrate into  your heart, my dear little son: let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let     nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Also, do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection ? Am I not your fountain of life ? Are you not in the crossing of my arms ?"
   The Blessed Virgin  speaking to St Juan Diego,  on  Tepeyac Hill, Mexico City (December 1531)

[Dec 12: Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe]

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SAINTLY AUSTRALIAN SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR, Part 2

December 2-3 :  1st Sunday of Advent

SAINTLY  AUSTRALIAN  SR. MARY GLOWREY- MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR     (Part 2), By Anna Krohn

Her firsts continued. She may have been the first lay Catholic bioethicist (although this term had not been invented in her time) to write and research the social, theological and moral issues of medical procedures as early as 1907, when she penned a booklet against infanticide in the name of Archbishop Thomas Carr of Melbourne. She continued to intervene from India, contributing academic papers resisting the rise of eugenics, euthanasia and coercive population control in the European medical culture throughout the 1930s and ’40s.

She was the world’s first religious sister to be permitted to practise medicine, she established the first ward for incurables in India and she inspired the building of India’s first Catholic medical college. During the famine, violence and disruption of World War II, she founded the first Indian Catholic Health Association in 1943.

As her Indian biographer, Florence Swaminkannu writes, Mary was a pioneer of “tremendous zeal and ‘fight’ as   opposed to passivity” and had from her earliest professional years a “forthright” though “unassuming candour and  practicality”.  Holiness typically unifies paradoxical  opposites creating a new and marvellous whole.

How did an intelligent but reticent young woman born into a simple but devoted Victorian Western District Irish Catholic family (on 23 June 1887) – at a time when Catholics and women had to struggle – find the way to such an extraordinary life and how did she understand her vocation?
Perhaps the most powerful insights into this come from Mary’s own simple reflections related on the type-written sheets of her incomplete autobiographical sketch, which she entitled: God’s Good for Nothing.

Listening in on her thoughts, we can see how God called her to his love through what Blessed Edith Stein describes as a woman’s holiness (the feminine genius): “a vivid empathy” for both the goodness of all created life and a burning desire to “want to be there for another human being”.     

 

(to be continued)
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