For Catherine McAuley making and remaking herself went with the turf. She was born into a stable Irish family and lost her father when she was five. After her mother also died Catherine was welcomed into the home of Protestant relatives and later into the home of the Callaghans, a wealthy elderly Protestant family whose property on the edges of Dublin she managed and for whom she also cared. She first adopted the Protestant faith of her hosts but later became a committed Catholic. She was also moved by the plight of impoverished young women and children, and tried to help them in different ways.
When the Callaghans died in 1819, Catherine inherited. She expanded her work among the poor, teaching of faith and skills that could lead to employment. After six years of reflecting on how she could best commit herself to poor Dubliners, she sold the house. In a fashionable suburb of Dublin Catherine built a home that could offer hospitality to children lacking schooling. The home, at which she was joined by two other women, opened on 24 September 1827.
Her own life was complicated in this time by the death of two priests who had supported her plans and of her sister and brother-in-law whose deaths left her the guardian of nine children.
One can imagine the complexity of the house in Baggot St which was home for Catherine and her helpers and a number of children and of young and destitute women, as well as a school for impoverished Dublin children. Her management skills were tested as was her trust in God. In her works she evidently combined a skill for good and complex management with an acceptance that reality trumped plans. She also had to respond to wealthy neighbours who were confronted at first hand by poor young Dubliners, by regular requests for blankets and food for the people in the home, by women in charge who claimed religious motivation, wore a black and white uniform but were not members of a Religious Congregation, and no doubt by the possible effect on land values.
It became evident that the future of the enterprise depended on the small group becoming a religious congregation, even in the face of anticipated objections of clergy who did not want competition with existing Congregations. She found support from the Bishop and local priests, and with two helpers entered the Noviceship of the Presentation Sisters as formation for religious life, In 1831 they took vows as Sisters of Mercy, with Catherine as the Superior. The name of the new Congregation embodied its focus on offering hospitality and service to the poor.
Over the next 10 years the Congregation opened houses throughout Ireland and England. In each case Catherine spent the first month with them to ensure they began well. Her attitude was always to ‘have a go’ and to begin well, trusting in God for the long haul. Her presence was experienced less as a stern Mother Superior than as an encouraging sister and friend. She died shortly after the confirmation of the Rule of the Congregation in 1841.
In 1846 Ursula Frayne, who had been with Catherine when she died, came to Perth with the first group of Mercy Sisters who quickly opened schools and hospitals through Australia with the same gift for gracious practicality, devotion to Mary and attention to people who are poor and need that Catherine McAuley showed.
Image: Catherine McAuley - Wiki Commons