This tribute was sparked by the following message posted by JoanW on the CathNews Discussion Board on Saturday, 1st December, 2007 at 6:30 pm…

I left this board a long time ago through the personal frustration I felt about the way people who did not know me could extrapolate, from what I wrote, many things about me, my person and my opinions, which were just that... opinions!! (I also wrote questions which were rarely answered.) As a teacher who entered the Dominican Sisters in 1960 and who had to retire in 1995, because of chronic pain, I tried to do my bit in following Dominic in spreading truth, but given that Sisters at the time I entered did not have the luxury of the study of seminarians and later the laity, I felt very ineffective and weakened in my ability to contribute. I admired the ways that Brian Coyne tried to play his role. So changing to the prayer part of our Dominican charism seemed the more prudent. Thank you Brian .... this is my first post in maybe years now; and probably the last.

This is my response…

Good to hear from you again, Joan. The Dominicans had an enormous influence on my father and his family up in the Murchison of Western Australia in the 1910s and 1920s.

I don't know what firewater those nuns used but it sure as hell had an enormous influence in turning out "loyal Cafflicks". A marvellous book was published a few years ago "Fields of Gold" by Ruth Marchant James which tells the story of those pioneering Dominican Sisters who came from New Zealand to educate the poor Irish immigrants who went out to populate those harsh climes of the Murchison goldfields inland from Geraldton about half-way up the Western Australian coastline. I can still remember the Sisters being there in the early 1950s before I started school but they'd left when I started in 1954 and I spent the first six months of my schooling at the local State School before my parents moved closer to the city (basically for the better educational opportunities offered for my brother and I). There is one story in that book which in fact inspires a lot of my work — I should say "our" work because what I do these days is a joint effort with my wife, Amanda McKenna. Those nuns literally "gave of their all" for what they believed in. The first group that arrived at times literally didn't know what they'd be eating for dinner each night for lengthy periods and seem to have been almost wholly dependent on the charity of the communities they came to serve — and I mean "charity" in the sense that if someone brought them in a few spuds that day, or a few eggs, then they had an evening meal otherwise they went to bed without a meal and offered it up to God. I honestly think we Catholic Australians owe all of you people, and those who preceded you an enormous debt for what you gave to us and our families. Amanda and I endeavour to live in what we call "Hughie Time". We endeavour to try and live each moment and each day out of the question: "Well, God, what do you want us to do next?" and, largely inspired by the stories Ruth Marchant James told in that book, and the stories I heard from my own father and aunts and uncles of those pioneering nuns and priests like Monsignor Hawes, the brilliant Anglican-convert and priest architect who fashioned so many of those beautiful churches that have become cultural icons in the Murchison and Central West landscape, we endeavour to live our lives by that sense of Providential trust that seemed to fire those often ill-educated nuns and priests who literally lifted Catholics from being second class citizens in their own land to take their place of equality with everyone else. All I can say to you, and all your confreres is "Thank you! Your story does inspire me!" …Brian

All I can offer in return is the song Amanda and Gerard Patterson composed for WYD08. It was the runner up to Guy Sebastion's composition which is the officlal theme song for WYD08.

LINKS: The Archdiocese of Geraldton website contains a photo gallery of some of the famous churches designed and constructed by the famous priest-architect, Monsignor John Cyril Hawes and a separate page provides background on this remarkable man.
http://www.geraldtondiocese.org.au/history.htm
http://www.geraldtondiocese.org.au/mpph.htm
The Dominican Sisters of Western Australia website can be found at:
http://domsiswa.org.au/

Brian Coyne is the editor and publisher of Catholica Australia. He was born in 1948 at Mullewa and spent the first six years of life at Yalgoo in the Murchison Goldfields.

We welcome your thoughts in response to this commentary in our forum.

Brian Coyne can be contacted at: Brian Coyne <editor@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Brian Coyne

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