Eileen O’Connor, a laywoman, is revered for having co-founded Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor, a religious order committed to nursing the sick and poor in their homes. She endured tremendous suffering in her personal life, spending most of her life confined to a wheelchair due to a debilitating condition known as transverse myelitis. Bishop Brady said when celebrating a special Mass last Sunday to mark the centenary of her death, “One of Eileen’s greatest strengths was that she never judged another’s situation and emphasised that we should never question the cause of a person’s poverty and the fact that someone is poor is the very reason you help them.” Eileen O’Connor is on the path to becoming Australia’s second saint. Below is a prayer approved by Archbishop Anthony Fisher for the Beatification of Eileen. Great and Merciful God, through the maternal love of the Blessed Virgin Mary, you inspired your servant Eileen O’Connor, to care for the sick and dying poor and to serve your Church
through spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Listen graciously to our prayers and grant that Eileen may be raised to the glory of your altar.
We ask this through Christ Our Lord. Amen.