A rescue at sea that was bordering on the miraculous

Three sisters of the Sacred Heart Order in Papua New Guinea, were travelling to their outer mission post, with medical supplies in a canoe. They were accompanied by a native boy.

The river flowed into the sea. They were swept far out to sea. The canoe overturned and they were in the water.  Each of the sisters and the boy felt a dolphin underneath them, gently carrying them along.

The dolphins deposited them on an island. One of the sisters found a piece of glass on the island and a few days later the boy climbed a coconut tree and shined the piece of glass into the sun to create a light for ships at sea to notice. They were rescued by a passing ship. One of these nuns (an Australian) is the sister of one of our family friends.

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An ecumenical boss

I once worked in an office in Sydney, where the staff were consisted mainly of Catholics and Jews.  The boss in my section was a member of the Anglican Church. He used to let the Catholics go to Mass in work hours at a nearby church on Holy Days of Obligation. The reason for this was that his little grandson was a Catholic and used to ask him why people were in different churches. This is hard to explain to a three year old. The boss had a great time telling this to the bank manager over the phone in these words, “I let Gilroy’s mob go to Mass”.  For those who are not familiar with this ‘Gilroy’s mob’ was the bosses’ way of describing the Catholics on his staff.  Cardinal Gilroy was the first Australian born cardinal.  At that time he was the Archbishop of Sydney.

The story of a vocation to the priesthood

Here is the way that one man became a priest. He is an Australian who was teaching in Papua New Guinea at a Catholic school.  A native boy came to him and said: “Why you not  priest?  You talk with priests, you act like priest.”  That simple remark got him thinking and he later became a priest.