Servant of God Eileen O’Connor, of Coogee, Sydney (Part 1)

February 2-3 2019:
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time


Servant of God Eileen O’Connor, of Coogee, Sydney (Part 1)

Last year the canonisation cause of Eileen O’Connor was introduced. Eileen is now known as Servant of God Eileen O’Connor. Some parishioners are travel-ling to her tomb at the Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor convent in Coogee.  All parishioners are welcome.
The information below is from an article by Michael McKernan, published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, (MUP), 1988

Eily Rosaline (Eileen) O'Connor (1892-1921), religious, was born on 19 February 1892 at Richmond, Melbourne, eldest of four children of Irish parents Charles Fergus O'Connor, clerk, and his wife An-nie, née Kilgallim. Eileen, as she was known, when 3 fell from her pram and severely damaged her spine. Despite several operations nothing could be done to alleviate the terrible pain she endured. Later, radiologists discovered that her spine was at an angle of eighty degrees which should have prevented her from walking.
A member of a devout Catholic family, Eileen irregu-larly attended the Richmond parish school. With few friends of her own age and little opportunity for the normal preoccupations of childhood, she turned to her family and to her religion for consolation.
In 1902 the family moved to Sydney. When in 1911 Charles O'Connor died, his widow faced great finan-cial difficulty and sought help from a friend, a priest who introduced her to the parish priest of Coogee, Fr Edward McGrath, a fellow member of the Missionar-ies of the Sacred Heart. He found accommodation for the family and witnessed the courage with which Ei-leen met her disability. In McGrath's opinion she came close to death when lapsing into unconscious-ness during periods of particularly intense pain.
Deeply religious, Eileen claimed to have received a visitation from Mary, mother of Christ, who encour-aged her to accept her suffering for the good of others. She told only McGrath of this and he shared with her his hope of establishing a congregation of nurses to serve the poor. Eileen entered into his scheme with enthusiasm and on 15 April 1913 moved into a rented house at Coogee which, known as Our Lady's Home, would serve as a convent for the new congregation.

(concluded next week)