Waiting for God's Plan: Venerable Catherine McAuley

“Take from my heart all painful anxiety; suffer nothing to sadden me but sin, nothing to delight me but the hope of coming to the possession of You, my God and my all, in your everlasting kingdom.” ~~Venerable Catherine McAuley

Being one who is prone to all kinds of painful anxiety, and who lives with daughters who are prone to painful anxiety (and then I feel anxious about their anxiety, and they get anxious that they’re causing me anxiety–some days it’s like living in a pack of over-caffeinated toy poodles…)–well, any quote about anxiety piques my interest. And I had never heard of Venerable Catherine McAuley, so I did a little research.

Catherine McAuley was an Irish nun who founded the Sisters of Mercy, an order that worked among the poor women and children in Dublin. She lost her father when she was fifteen, and her mother at twenty, so she and her brother went to live with relatives. When she was twenty-five, she became the live-in companion of an elderly, childless Quaker couple…and there she remained until she was forty-four.

This made me think. I am a notoriously impatient person, and am always worrying about the future (see “painful anxiety”). I spent fifteen years at home with my children, and I regret to say that I spent more of it than I should have worrying about whether I’d ever be able to re-enter the workforce, what I would do when I did, and how we would ever get four children through college if I didn’t. Looking back, I wish I’d just stayed in yoga pants all day, snuggling and playing with my babies. Because in the end, we got by, and by the time my youngest was entering school, I’d gone back to school myself and found a challenging, satisfying, and secure job. I could have just skipped all the worry!

Yet I thought of Catherine McAuley, in the 1800’s, unmarried, living with this Quaker couple for almost two decades. She must have seen her friends getting married, having babies, living in Victorian mansions (or whatever kind of mansions there were a couple decades before Victorian ones), moving up in society…Did Catherine ever wonder where she was going, what she was going to do with her life, or wonder when her “real life” was going to begin? Did she feel that she’d missed out as the years went on and her life stayed the same? Or was her faith strong enough that she was able to wait on God’s timing and His plan for her?

Because the end of the story (or, really, the beginning) is that the Quaker couple converted to Catholicism and left Catherine their fortune. She used that fortune to buy a place in Dublin where she and a few companions could care for women, poor children, and orphans. She intended for them to be a group of lay Catholics serving the poor. However, she was encouraged by her spiritual director to create an order, so in her fifties she professed vows, and named her group the Sisters of Mercy. Today, they have grown to 10,000 sisters.

If she'd been asked as a young woman, doubtless Catherine would not have ever guessed that this would be her legacy. But how many of us someday could also leave a great legacy, if we are able to wait for God's plan?