If I started talking on today's feast I'd be here forever. This is one of my favourite feasts of the year, when we celebrate All the Saints in heaven - our brothers and sisters now living in glory with God. And as we do so, we hope that one day, we will be numbered among them.
Have you ever met a Saint? I'm sure we all have, given that most Saints are unknown - and we all have Saints in our families. Of course we can also ask, have we met a person beatified or canonised by the Church, or will be? I was privileged to have met the Venerable Pope John Paul II. I just missed meeting Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. I also met Fr Benedict Groeschel, still alive, thank God, but one, I firmly believe, will be canonised one day. I studied and lived with a priest who was murdered in Iraq and may be declared a martyr and beatified one day; and I grew up knowing a Franciscan Brother, Br Placidus, a friend of my parents, who was martyred in Africa in 1997.
But there are two people whom I knew well and who I believe were Saints, and if I can anything to do about it, would love to see their Causes opened: both were members of our Fraternity; both had a profound holiness and both suffered a great deal in Christ-like abandonment and heroism. I will tell you about one of them today: she was Anne McGovern.
Anne was born in Corlough, Co. Cavan on the 6th March 1938, of a farming family which was quite religious. She was quiet and devout by nature. Her desire was to be a teacher, and so when she finished school she went to teacher training college and qualified as a primary teacher. Until her retirement, she taught in various schools. Like St Therese, nothing extraordinary happened her, but her gentleness and holiness impressed all who knew her. When she retired she joined the Legion of Mary, and there her quiet apostolic soul found plenty to satisfy her desire to reach out to others and bring them to Christ. She was tireless in her work for Mary, whose virtues were becoming obviously manifest in her. She was elected the President of her praesidium, of which I was the Spiritual Director, where she fulfilled her office with great charity and kindness. She joined the Fraternity of St Genesius as a means of offering her prayers and sufferings for those in the arts.
A quiet and reserved woman, when she fell ill with breast cancer, she kept it to herself, quietly suffering great pain, yet remaining serene and joyful. Though she was quite ill, she showed great concern for others who were ill. She revealed her illness to me, and I was sworn to secrecy. I tended to her, anointing her each month and helping her as much as I could. I was amazed at her heroism in the face of illness, nothing got her down. Indeed, if anything, she was more radiant and joyful. No one knew she was ill, but all remarked on her holiness. It was my privilege to accompany her in the last year or so of her life, watching, as I firmly believed then as now, that I was watching a Saint being born into life. Her heroism in the face of suffering was such that she asked to offer her pain for the Fraternity and its mission, becoming an Oblatory Member.
On the 9th May 2009, Anne did not feel well, The next day, as she was spending her usual hours in prayer in the adoration chapel of our church, she fell ill; she struggled on to the evening Mass, but she was so sick she had to be taken into hospital. I was alerted the next morning. When I went in to see her, she told me that the time had come. "I didn't think it would be so soon", she said to me. I told her that if this was God's time, then she had to prepare herself. She did not complain, but gave herself into God's hands. For the next few days she lingered, suffering a great deal - it was upsetting to see her; yet I knew this was the last time she would suffer - soon she would be in heaven. On Friday 15th May, Anne, having suffered the passion of her beloved Lord, gave up her spirit. Her obituary relates her life and interests, but misses out on her faith, hope and love. Today, as we celebrate this feast, and not preempting the judgement of the Church, I remember Anne and pray that she now shares in the vision of God.
Anne McGovern
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