Fr Cornelius (Con) Jordan MSC died at St Joseph's Home for the Aged, Kensington, Sydney, on Saturday evening, May 18th.  He was 99, eleven days short of his hundredth birthday.

In February, he celebrated his 80th anniversary of religious profession.  On November 30th next, he would have been 75 years a priest.

Con Jordan spent a great deal of his ministry in MSC education, especially at Downlands College, Toowoomba, both in teaching and in training-up-and-coming teachers.  In more recent times, he worked tirelessly in the MSC Mission Office, but retired because of increasing age.  He had for decades been plagued by hearing problems.  In later times, he also suffered sight problems. It can be said that he was looking forward to his eternal reward.

May he rest in peace.

And if anyone says to one of us, ‘You have received the Holy Spirit; why do you not speak in tongues?’, he should reply: ‘I do speak in every tongue. For I am in the Body of Christ, the Church, which speaks in every tongue. For what did it signify by the presence of the Holy Spirit if it was not that his Church would speak with every tongue?’.

-         From an unknown African author of the sixth century, Breviary, Saturday, Week 7 of Eastertide.

The Hunt won the Ecumenical Award in Cannes, 2012.  It takes up the issues of sexual abuse of minors but offers a different perspective.

THE HUNT/ JAGTEN, Denmark, 2012, Mads Mikkelson, directed by Thomas Vinterberg.

In the last twenty years, awareness of the realities of sexual abuse of minors, individual, in families, in institutions, in the churches, has increased, more than could ever have been anticipated. The Hunt, an excellent film, can be seen in an important and significant context.

But, the consciousness is quite different in different cultures. English-speaking countries were the first to experience this surfacing of issues of abuse with consequent police investigations and court proceedings. In the 1990s, many commentators from countries in continental Europe were in denial about such events in their cultures. They have had to face the problems since. So, it is interesting to see a film from Denmark. While it is an education situation that is dramatized here, it is a secular case, nothing to do with church or church institutions (although it is a Lutheran ceremony that serves as a catalyst for a confrontation, as will be mentioned later).

The focus is on a kindergarten teacher in a small Danish town. He is shown as a popular man with the men, many of whom are literal hunters of deer since venison is a favoured meat. The teacher himself, Lukas, hunts. We see him playing in a lively way and vigorously with the children at the kindergarten (something that would not be permitted in many countries now). He is a good man, an average man, who is lonely after his separation from his bitter wife who allows him to see his son only every other weekend.

Klara, the daughter of his best friend, Theo, is fond of Lukas’ dog and wants to take him for a walk. When her parents quarrel, he takes her to school. One day she kisses him and he tries to tell her that this is not quite right. At the same time, her brother and his friend show her pictures of an erect penis (which we, the audience, see so that we are experiencing our own reactions as well). In a little girl pique, she indicates to the principal that Lukas had exposed himself to her.

The audience knows that Lukas is innocent, so the film-makers invite us to share the experiences of a man who is not only the victim of a little child’s lie, but incurs the wrath of the town who readily believe that a child does not lie. He is demonized and is ostracized, even in the supermarket where we are horrified at the violence and hate in a bashing from people who assume the worst. This is lynch mob mentality in a contemporary setting.

The audience is made to witness the handling of the situation by the kindergarten principal and an expert she calls in. While they are sympathetic and think they are doing the right thing, their questioning is completely unprofessional, asking leading questions, putting ideas and images (especially in naming aspects of male sexual behaviour) in Klara’s mind. While the little girl does hesitate and even contradict herself, it is clear that she has become confused as well as willful, can’t quite remember what she has said and acquiesces in what could become implanted memories.

The only support Lukas gets is from a friend and his family where the father is a lawyer who helps, especially after Lukas is arrested and interrogated by the police. This interrogation is not part of the screenplay. We do not know how the police handled it. By this time, all the children believe that they have been abused – but their memory describes places that do not exist. The other support for Lukas is from his son who is also ill-treated, becoming angry and angrier.

As mentioned earlier, it is a Christmas Eve ceremony in the local Lutheran church, with prayer and the children singing hymns where Lukas is able to confront Theo about his innocence. The Christmas spirit and his conscience touch Theo.

Then, the film seemed to be moving towards a very Hollywood ending, nice, until a final shot jolts Lukas and the audience as well. The experience and the stigma might never go away.

Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen has played many a villain in his local films as well as in international films (like Le Chiffre in Casino Royale). He won the Cannes Best Actor award for this role and, generally quietly, bewildered, then angry at people’s unquestioning hatred, he enables us to share something of what this experience is like, how at times, it seems that he can never escape from it, that his fate is doomed.

Director Thomas Vinterberg is no stranger to these themes. His 1998, Festen has become something of a classic, the audience going into a home to share a feast and celebration only to find the surfacing of the ugliest of secrets, and sexual misconduct, within the family.

The public these days have strong opinions and feelings about sexual abuse, especially towards perpetrators and to authorities who have protected them. Stage government enquiries and the Royal Commission will surface more and more horrendous stories over the coming years. The Hunt is a reminder that, especially with small children, greater care needs to be taken when they tell their stories so that they will be protected but that the truth will come out and anyone wrongly accused will be treated with justice and compassion.

[Indictment: The McMartin Trial is an American film of 1995, well worth seeing. The staff of a child care centre were the targets of some false accusations, the children caught up in sharing each other’s alleged memories, with the danger of psychiatrists not simply surfacing repressed memories but suggesting and implanting memories.]

We farewell Augustine Ulatom, MSC, who is leaving for Papua New Guinea this week.  Augustine stayed at Sacred Heart Monastery for a number of months gaining some experience in communications and media auspiced by the MSC Missions Office. 

A century of love in action

Sydney celebrated the centenary of its very own religious order, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor in spectacular style, when more than 850 worshippers from throughout Australia filled St Mary’s Cathedral to capacity.

Sydney celebrated the centenary of its very own religious order, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor, in spectacular style last month, when more 850 worshippers from throughout Australia filled St Mary’s Cathedral to capacity.

In a truly amazing service overseen by Head of the Office for Liturgy for the Sydney Archdiocese, Fr Donald Richardson pp, the 13 sisters of this tiny but much-loved order were led into the cathedral by indigenous musician, Glen Doyle.

The haunting sounds of his didgeridoo reverberated throughout the Gothic ceilings, providing a hair-tingling insight of a culture that existed tens of thousands of years before anno domini. 

Gadigal Elder, Charles (Chicka) Madden then delivered a commanding yet touchingly simple ‘welcome to country’. 

To the accompaniment of the St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, 42 priests, two monsignors and six bishops from the Archdioceses of Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra Goulburn and the Dioceses of Maitland Newcastle, Broken Bay and Wollongong processed down the aisle, filling the apse to capacity.

They included Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Bishop Peter Comensoli DD VG; former Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Bishop David Cremin dd; Bishop of Wollongong Diocese, Bishop Peter Ingham; former Bishop of Maitland Newcastle, Bishop Michael Malone; Bishop Bernard O’Grady op; Monsignor Kerry Bayada ev and Monsignor Vincent Redden ev.

Interstate visitors included Darwin-based Fr John Kelliher msc, who grew up close to Our Lady’s Home – the congregational headquarters – at 35 Dudley Street, Coogee, and Fr Wally Dethlefs, a parish priest in Brisbane.

Principal Celebrant, Auxiliary Bishop Terence Brady dd vg, began his homily with a poignant personal recollection of the ‘Brown Nurses’, as the congregation of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor is affectionately known.

[Bishop Brady speaks. Visible is the photo portrait of Fr McGrath]

“As a little boy, I can recall the Brown Nurses getting on and off the 399 bus from Circular Quay to Maroubra Beach at Dudley Street, Coogee,” he said.“I remember being told the story of co-founders, Eileen O’Connor and Fr Ted McGrath msc, by my mother.

“In the mid-1970s my path with the Sisters crossed again when I was working with the then South Sydney Council as a welfare worker.

“Many of the poorest people of the inner city were being cared for by the Sisters, especially those whom were in the ‘too hard’ basket for others.”Bishop Brady paid tribute to the tenacity of Eileen O’Connor, who was severely handicapped by a fall that broke her spine when aged three.

“Over the centuries the Lord has tended to tap on the shoulder young women like Eileen to carry out his most challenging missions,” he said.

“He certainly knew what he was about when he offered his invitation to Eileen. 

“She may have been crippled and had a number of other ailments but her heart was on fire for the love of the Lord and her brothers and sisters, especially the poorest of the poor.

“In many ways, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor was a forerunner of a much larger congregation in our church, the Missionaries of Charity.

“I often wonder if the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta had not heard of these Australian based Sisters.”

Bishop Brady said Eileen’s status as a ‘saint in waiting’ was not without foundation.

“To many of us, she is already an uncanonised Saint,” he said. 

“Many of us have a desire to see Eileen O’Connor officially to be beatified and ultimately to be declared a Saint of our Church.

“Work already has been completed, however more is to be done and it is really up to a number of us here today to work much more deliberately to make it happen.

“I dream for the day when the words declaring Eileen O’Connor a Saint of the Universal Church will fill St Peter’s Square.”

His Excellency, Apostolic Nuncio to Australia, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, said it was an honour to address the congregation as the recently-appointed representative of His Holiness, Pope Francis, exactly one month after his election as the Successor of St Peter and Bishop of Rome.

“As has been noted from the first moment that his name was announced from the balcony of St Peter’s, Jorge Bergoglio, Jesuit priest, bishop, cardinal and now Pope, has always been, and will remain, a friend of the poor,” he said.

“So, he would be delighted to know that I am with you this morning to celebrate the centenary of the Brown Nurses.

“Such an anniversary is not only an occasion for thanksgiving for all that God has accomplished for his poor through his servants Eileen O’Connor, Little Mother, and Father Edward McGrath, and the courageous women drawn to their charism, it is also an opportunity to recognise that the Holy Spirit of God is at work in Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor today, and to beseech the Almighty Father, that this particular manifestation of His compassion and mercy, which was first shown in this great city of Sydney, may continue to be made present among us today and tomorrow.

Our Lord tells us still: You have the poor with you always and so it is even in times of greater prosperity, opportunity and social solidarity, that souls should be moved by the love of God and Our Lady to serve and nurse the poor must always remain among the highest ambitions of the Catholic Church and the Christian spirit.

“Congratulations, Sisters, thank you for all that you have given during those 100 years. 

“We are grateful to you and to God whose blessing we invoke upon on you.”

OLN Congregational Leader, Sister Margaret Mary Birgan, replied with a gentle and heartfelt address reinforcing that ‘The Work’ was far from over.

“As I stand here today, I imagine that I am seeing all of you through the eyes of Eileen O’Connor and Father McGrath,” she said. 

“They would see – as I see – an astounding gathering of people so diverse and representative of all they hoped and prayed would rally to the service of their beloved sick poor.

“They would see the faithfulness of generations, not only of their own family members who have come from far and wide to be here today but also of religious, clergy and ordinary people.

“It is people like you who have sustained us as a community for more than 100 years.

“Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor hasn’t changed much since our foundation.

“We are still small in number but our work for the poor, disadvantaged and marginalised is still very large and growing. 

“We pray and trust that ‘the work’ will continue to grow through the ongoing work of our lay apostolate, the Brown Nurses.” 

Following Mass, the bells of St Mary’s rang out in majesty for 30 minutes as hundreds of visitors merged in the brilliant autumn sunshine.

The following morning tea had a most joyous atmosphere of reminiscence and reconnection.

Many visitors had a direct association with the Sisters of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor and although unknown to each other, happily shared amazing recollections as old friends.

Relatives of co-founders, Eileen O’Connor and Fr Ted McGrath, offered personal recollections that added even more depth to the recorded personality of these great individuals.

NSW Attorney General, Greg Smith, volunteered that his mother had been a close friend of the early sisters and he himself had served as an altar boy at Our Lady’s Home.Other dignitaries attending included Official Secretary and Chief of Staff to Her Excellency the Governor of NSW, Brian Davies; Former Federal Attorney and 

Minister for Immigration & Aboriginal Affairs, the Honourable Philip Ruddock; NSW Legislative Council members, the Honourable Sophie Costis and Luke Foley; and City of Sydney councillor, Linda Scott.

Also in attendance were a wide representation of religious orders and organisations, including the Catholic Women’s League, Knights of the Southern Cross ,St Vincent de Paul and the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry.

Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor was founded in Sydney in 1913 by a young Australian woman, Eileen O’Connor, whom many consider to be Australia’s next saint-in-waiting, and a Missionaries of the Sacred Heart priest, Father Edward McGrath. 

Both shared a deep devotion to Our Lady and the desire to establish a ministry of compassionate service to the sick poor in their own homes in her honour. 

For 100 years, the order has quietly provided in-home healthcare, advocacy and friendship for the poor and marginalised throughout Sydney, Brisbane, Newcastle and Wollongong.

Assisted by the generosity of their benefactors and volunteers, the Sisters continue to assist the sick poor in Sydney, Newcastle and Macquarie Fields. The Sisters’ mission for the poor and disadvantaged in the local government areas of Sydney, Randwick and Leichhardt is conducted by an organisation called the Brown Nurses. 

Based at Glebe, a small team of registered nurses continue to minister to the sick poor in the tradition of the Sisters.

(This article is a media release from the Our Lady's Nurses of the Poor. More photos can be found at the website of the Catholic Diocese of Maitland Newcastle.)