Caroline Chisholm: Horrified at the plight of single, emigrant women, she decided to help them and changed the lives of thousands in Australia

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME 

By Larry Peterson

Caroline Chisholm                                                  public domain     

Women settlers in Australia faced a life of prostitution, but Venerable Caroline was able to save many of them.

She was called “the Savior of Living Cargoes”

Caroline Chisholm was born in Northampton, England, in 1808. She was the daughter of William Jones, a wealthy farmer, who had been married four times. Three of his wives had died in childbirth, and Caroline’s mom was his fourth. She had seven children and Caroline would be the last. Her dad died when she was only six and he left the family some money and several properties to divide among the twelve surviving children. A prime lesson Caroline and her siblings learned from their father was to be generous and caring to those in need.

By the time Caroline was seven, she was displaying a pronounced interest in immigration. She had listened to the stories shared among the older people that frequented her home. These folks  included farmers, writers, religious and political leaders.  She invented her own immigration game using a washbasin as the ocean and boats made from pea-shells. She saved her money and purchased small dolls and would place them in the “boats” and send them “across the sea” to their new homes. This early interest in immigration would never leave her. It would only translate into a lifelong endeavor of caring and helping poor immigrants.

When Caroline was 22 years-old Captain Archibald Chisholm proposed marriage to her. Captain Chisholm was thirteen years older than Caroline and a devout Roman Catholic. Raised Protestant during an era when Catholicism was viewed with enormous suspicion and distrust, Caroline faced a hard choice.  She did want to marry him, but she had a significant concern, and it was not his Catholicism. Caroline insisted that she must always have the freedom to persevere in any philanthropic cause she chose. Archibald Chisholm readily agreed.

Caroline and Archibald were married on December 27, 1830. Deeply in love, Caroline soon converted to Roman Catholicism. Some suggested this was done for convenience. On the contrary, she embraced Catholicism and came to love her faith deeply. As one of her biographers wrote, “she was a MOST devout Catholic.”

Britain had established a penal colony in Australia in the latter part of the 18^th century. Here they would send convicted criminals. Later on, they would begin sending people from England known as “free settlers.”  Many of these were single women who would arrive with little or no  money. They also has no  friends, family, or jobs and, desperate to survive, would turn to prostitution. The “welcoming” they were receiving at their “new homeland” was deplorable.

In 1838, Captain Chisholm was granted a transfer to Australia because of health problems. At the time, it was thought that the climate was better there. When they arrived and Caroline saw the wretched circumstances and conditions that greeted the poor migrant women who were there and still coming, she was appalled. She knew she had to help them. Her life’s work could not have been more clear.

Caroline was 30 years old and immediately began planning a course of action, developing job schemes, and lobbying the authorities for better working conditions. She started a group that set out to establish a woman's shelter for migrants. In 1841, she had established the Female Emigrant’s Home in Sydney. Besides providing shelter, it also assisted unemployed young women in finding work not only in the city but even out in rural areas where work was more plentiful.

Deeply sympathetic to young women who were alone, Caroline wrote letter after letter seeking jobs for the girls and found many, especially as domestic servants. She would often accompany them to the far off places to make sure they were a safe haven for them. As time passed by, Caroline began housing men and then families. In her first seven years in Australia, she helped more than 11,000 immigrants.

Caroline Chisholm’s compassion, faith, and untiring devotion to the poor and lonely in a new country left an indelible mark on not only Australia and Great Britain but on the entire world. She is held in such high esteem that her picture is on Australia’s original $5 banknote. She was also awarded posthumously, the Order of Australia.

Caroline passed away on March 25, 1877. She was 68 years old. Her cause for sainthood has been put forward by the Archdiocese of Melbourne. The first Australian saint, Mary MacKillop, was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. It is expected that Caroline Chisholm will be the second saint canonized from “down under.”

copyright ©Larry Peterson 2020

                           

Mary of Egypt: The Journey from a Life of Sin to Redemption to Sainthood

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

St. Mary of Egypt     en.wikipedia.org

In his "Essay on Man", Alexander Pope penned three words that became immortalized; "Hope springs eternal". Nowhere do these words fit better than into the Catholic Church. For the Church of Christ is the home of forgiveness, mercy and, of course, redemption. Meet, Mary of Egypt.

Mary was born somewhere in Egypt in 344 A.D., and, for unknown reasons, left home at the age of 12, settling in Alexandria. (Why she ran away from home is unknown.). She became a prostitute, not for the money, but because her carnal desires controlled her (today she might be diagnosed as a sex-addict and have treatment available).  She quickly became adept at using her body to get what she needed; food, clothing, a place to sleep. She never accepted money.

Mary lived this way for 17 years. One day she saw a large group of people and discovered that they were headed to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. She decided to join the pilgrimage with every intention of using her skills as a seducer to take care of her needs. Her "skills" even aided her in acquiring the required boat fare that was needed to complete the journey.

On the actual feast day, she joined the crowd as it paraded to the Church to honor the relic of the True Cross. As she attempted to follow the other people into the church, something strange and inexplicable happened. She could not enter. Something was holding her back. No matter how hard she tried she could not get past the entrance.  Mary walked to the side of the church, fell down on her knees and began to cry.

Mary looked to her side and saw a statue of the Blessed Virgin. As she looked at it the realization of her sinful life impacted her. Remorse overwhelmed her. She prayed to the Blessed Virgin to help her, pleading for forgiveness. When she tried to walk into the church again, she entered without a problem. She kissed the relic of the True Cross and begged the Virgin Mary to not forsake her.

As she left the church a stranger stopped her saying, "Please, take these." and handed Mary three coins. Mary purchased three loaves of bread and headed for the desert. She did this because the Virgin Mary had told her that was where she would find peace. Along the way, she stopped at a church alongside the Jordan River.

The church was actually the Monastery of St. John the Baptist. It was here she was baptized into the faith and received the sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist. She then moved into the desert and was not seen by anyone for forty-seven years. This is when a priest by the name of Father Zosimas came into her life.

Father Zosimas was out in the desert because it was the custom for him and his brethren to spend forty days of Lent fasting and praying, returning home on Palm Sunday. He was stunned when he came across this dirty, unkempt, raggedy woman. She was naked, deeply tanned and somewhat shriveled. Her hair was pure white, the years in the desert having taken their toll on her emaciated body. She begged him to give her a cloak to cover herself. Father Zosimas did as she asked and the woman hurriedly tired to garner some dignity.

The priest asked her if she would tell him why she was in the desert and share what had happened to her. Slowly but surely, Mary began to open up and before long had told Father about her life as a "prostitute" and how hard life had been for her, alone in the desert. Father Zosimas cried. He realized that the woman, who told him her name was Mary, had achieved a level of holiness all the greater because of her previous sinful life.

Mary asked Father Zosimas if he would return the following Holy Thursday with Communion for her. He agreed and, one year later, came to meet her again. She asked him once more to come again the following year. He agreed.

A year later, when Zosimus returned again, he found Mary's body. Next to it was a note stating that she had died in 421 A.D., on the same night she had received Holy Communion. Father buried her incorrupt body where he had found it. That was her wish. Upon returning to the monastery he shared his story with his brethren who preserved it through oral tradition until St. Sophronius wrote it down.

St. Mary of Egypt is honored in the Roman Catholic Church (April 1), the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodoxy (April 5). She is the patroness of chastity, temptations of the flesh and skin diseases.

St. Mary of Egypt, pray for us all especially today as sins of the flesh are so prevalent.


                                                copyright©LarryPeterson 2017