
This morning at Mass at Mosman I realised that the women sitting on each side of me had been catechists with me at our local public school in our previous parish. How did I arrive at this place at this stage of my life?
I was born in Bathurst to parents who came from solid Catholic families. By their standards, one lived decently, looked after others, went to Mass on Sunday, abstained from meat on Friday, observed the Lenten fast and did not go to Anglican weddings. From my early childhood I remember that my father found the Friday abstinence hard; meat and eggs were essentially free food while fish was expensive. He said one Friday that if he ate one more egg, he would turn into a chook.
Before her marriage my mother was housekeeper at the Bishop’s House in Bathurst and therefore knew every priest in the diocese. When young priests came to Bathurst, they would often drive the extra distance to have a “cuppa” with my mother. As a young child I learned that they, like my father, worked hard, worried about doing their work effectively and sometimes found the instructions of their immediate superiors frustrating.
My primary secular education was in the public schools of two country towns; my religious education, apart from “caught” values, consisted of the Red Catechism and then the brilliant “Religion by Letter” handed out by the Josephite sisters who visited our town on one Sunday a month. The only criticism of the Church I heard at that time was the matter of not attending weddings in non-Catholic Churches, a regulation which my parents found silly.
So, off to a boarding school in the city. A culture shock. The standard of education so much higher, the discipline strict. Some of the values of the sisters I questioned, a certain snobbishness I found irritating and the attitude of many country girls to aboriginal people puzzled me. My energy was not always well directed. I remember with affection Reverend Mother’s way of dealing with me when for the umpteenth time I had been caught sliding on the balcony. This wise Irish woman looked me up and down and informed me, “You have too much of the kangaroo in you,” and dismissed me without punishment.
Still, for its time, I received a solid grounding in Irish Catholic beliefs and practices.
University and the Newman Society under the chaplaincy of Fr Roger Pryke was pivotal in my life. He moved us (this was the 50s—groupers v the coms) from a tribal culture, a Catholic ghetto mentality to one where we each took responsibility for being a Christian presence in the University. We were wonderful supports for each other and I, like many, met my future husband in this group. In the days when getting to university was not the norm, Fr Pryke also kept our egos under control. I recall wincing when he said that our examination of conscience should include, “Do I regard my father as my bank, my mother as my housekeeper?”
As part of my Diploma of Education, I took an elective, “Religious Education,” in the hope that the suggestion in the Wyndham Report of mainstream religious education as part of schooling would come into effect. It did not, but working with a group of committed Christians under the direction of the learned Dr Anna Hogg was my introduction to the study of early Christianity. The coaching in Biblical Studies I received from my fellow students (all Anglicans or Protestants) helped me to find my way around the Bible.
At 21 I was given my first teaching appointment. Hard work. After two years I was placed under the supervision of a brilliant Head of Science at Cremorne. She taught me a lot about living and teaching as a Christian; she did not preach, but she did guide.
While at this school, I married and started on the usual house renovation path. All was going well until my husband was diagnosed with cancer, primary in the leg and secondary in the brain. While he was in hospital and very ill, I found that I was pregnant. Help from family, my teaching colleagues and family friends was gratefully received as my husband moved from danger of death to being well enough to come home, but not well enough to be left on his own. Over the next few months, things improved. Surgery, medication and radiation had the cancer under control, and he was able to return to work the month before our daughter was born.
Life was good. While my husband never regained his full health, he was able to lead a fairly normal life, the child was a delight, and I obtained a good part-time teaching position. We were engaged in parish life, enjoying the liturgical reforms and parish discussion groups flowing from Vatican II. Humanae vitae was a problem for me because I could not reconcile the view of marriage in that document with real life.
Next came a tragedy which had a significant effect on my understanding of prayer. After a medical career, my brother-in-law decided to follow the path he had always wanted and entered the Jesuits. The month before he was to be ordained, he and another Jesuit were killed in a car accident. In my first draft of this account, I wrote that this tragedy caused an angry conversation between me and God. It was, in fact, a monologue, but it taught me about intensity in prayer. I was not listening, yet when I took delivery of his ordination cards and read the passage from St Paul which he had chosen, I got the message. The passage was: “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”
By the 80s all was going well. In a fit of enthusiasm, I enrolled in “Introduction to Biblical Studies” at the Catholic Theological Union at Hunters Hill (and in Astronomy at Macquarie University). My poor family had to live on pre-prepared curries, but I was forgiven and many years later, my daughter did a similar course, remembering how much I had learned from this one.
My husband was enjoying his job, the child was flourishing, I was building a career and we had the energy to be actively engaged in the parish. Sunday lunch always had the entertainment of picking apart the homily, so our daughter was used to a critical approach to our faith. As a teenager, she had organ lessons from the parish organist and took over the responsibility of selecting music for the Saturday evening Mass and playing the organ.
This happy life unravelled near the end of the decade. My husband became ill, an aftermath of the cancer and, two years later, died in his early 50s.
A year after that I was promoted to be Mistress in Charge of a campus of the Anglican school where I worked. Part of my duties was to take chapel services, including delivering the homily. The critic of homilies got her just deserts. It is a reflection on the breakdown of sectarianism in Australia that although I was only the second Catholic appointed to the school staff, I later became a Deputy Headmistress there. I had a good relationship with the chaplains at the school, and one of my last jobs there was to help rewrite the Divinity program.
My daughter and I moved house and parishes mid-90s. She had been playing the organ once a month in the new parish, so it was not a big move. When I retired in 2000, I became very involved with the community there, and I am sad that this parish no longer functions. After my retirement, I became a catechist and enjoyed the training for the role, especially Dr Charles Hill’s classes. He was an authority on the Eastern Fathers and a clear and scholarly teacher. I also worked in the interview room at Vinnies, referring clients to conference, and I did a year as a Lifeline councillor, a job for which I was singularly unsuited. Guiding at the Australian Museum kept me gainfully occupied one day a week. Soon after this I attended a Conference organised by Catalyst for Renewal to celebrate 50 years since the beginning of Vatican II, and a friend who was a Catalyst member encouraged me to join. Another chapter in my journey, as I gradually came to understand the value of conversation as promoted by Catalyst.
Much to the surprise of our children and the delight of fellow parishioners, a widower — a very committed member of the parish — and I decided to marry. While different in age we had much in common, though we argued about the geometry of church: his church was triangular, with the pope at the top and the laity on the base; mine was circular, just the people of God. In 14 years of marriage, we did not resolve this, but his triangle became flatter, and I grudgingly agreed that some structure was useful. He was drawn to the Catalyst way of thinking and became a member. He died gently at the grand age of 98.
Because of COVID restrictions, our parish ceased to function, and many of us now try to attend the 9am at Mosman to keep contact. I believe that my husband’s Requiem was the last service in our church.
The more science I learn, the more I am in awe of God. The Creator, who permits co-creation, is to be regarded with awe and wonder. This is central to my belief. I refer to my spat with God when my brother-in-law was killed. I packaged this understanding when teaching that “I have as much chance of understanding the mind of God as an ant has of understanding mine.” Influenced by long association with Anglicans, I tend to a more Biblical rather than devotional approach to my religion, while holding firmly to the fact that the Incarnation implies flesh as well as word. I have given up catechetics because I was finding primary classes irritating, and you can’t teach effectively if you are not tuned to the class.
In addition to my Catalyst activities, I still guide at the Museum and am now a walking guide at the Botanic Garden. The aim at the Museum and the Garden is to inspire, enthuse, educate, and entertain. The teaching aid? God’s wonderful creation.