More than 100 years after her death, Sydney woman Eileen O\u2019Connor is being considered for sainthood. Should her case be approved Eileen will become the second only Australian to receive sainthood, which former GP and biographer Kate Clinch finds to be well deserved.Key points:A new biography explores the life of Eileen O\u2019Connor, a Sydney woman now being considered for sainthood
\nDespite chronic illness and severe disability, Eileen co-founded a nursing ministry serving Sydney\u2019s poor and sick
\nHer life and legacy are now being examined by the Vatican as part of the Catholic canonisation process<\/p>\n
Born in Melbourne in 1892 before moving to Sydney as a child, Eileen contracted tuberculosis in infancy leaving her with a severely deformed spine that rendered her repeatedly bedridden with constant pain.<\/p>\n
Despite that, she went on to co-found Our Lady\u2019s Nurses for the Poor, or Brown Nurses, a Catholic organisation providing free, in-home healthcare, nursing, and welfare support to disadvantaged individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Eileen] was kind of unstoppable,\u201d Kate told Hope 103.2.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Against the backdrop of World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic] you\u2019ve got this young woman who is desperately ill, she is partially paralysed, she\u2019s largely bedbound, and yet she managed to set up a pioneering order of domiciliary nurses to care for the sick poor in the slums of Sydney.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was during Kate\u2019s own near-death experience and later cancer diagnosis that she began asking questions about suffering, healing and faith and came across Eileen\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
Documenting it in Every in a Saint, Kate discovered a \u201cwoman who had an extraordinary life and terrible obstacles\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEileen had an episode of illness that was so severe she was expected to die,\u201d Kate said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfterwards she said she was as close to dying as it was possible to go without actually dying.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring that time, she had an apparition of the Virgin Mary and came back from that near death experience absolutely convinced that she was called to help the sick poor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hope 103.2 is proudly supported by<\/p>\n
For Eileen to be deemed a saint, the Catholic church requires proof of \u201cliving a life of heroic virtue, dying in a state of grace, and having miracles attributed to one\u2019s intercession after death\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite a complicated and lengthy process,\u201d Kate said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople that knew [Eileen] felt she was a saint in her lifetime, [but] in the Vatican process the first stage is to be investigated for devotion to God\u2019s will and using your resources to serve others without ego.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis young woman had the most extraordinary pain and still managed to care for others with an incredible commitment.<\/p>\n
In 2018 Eileen was declared a servant of God by the Vatican and now, with documentation sent over from Australia, there\u2019ll be an investigation into her legacy, her history, her letters and everything else recorded about her.<\/p>\n
The official process can take decades at a minimum, but Kate believes Eileen\u2019s example of compassion and resilience deserves recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Eileen] was a living example of someone who did not let overwhelming odds stop her,\u201d Kate said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe never went into the victim mode that you could imagine someone that lives in unendurable pain and is partially paralysed could take on.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer whole life was about caring for people and not giving up.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Eileen] is an example of how we can hold on to hope in the face of insurmountable odds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kate Clinch\u2019s book Every Inch a Saint is out now.<\/p>\n
Listen to the full conversation in the player above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 100 years after her death, Sydney woman Eileen O\u2019Connor is being considered for sainthood. Should her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2655,9800,247,12205],"class_list":["post-11732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-article","tag-book","tag-sydney","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}