Archbishop Denis Hart today announced that the preliminary phase of the cause for canonisation of an Australian woman, Mary Glowrey, has commenced in Bangalore, India. The preliminary phase involves a careful evaluation of her work and writings, together with her religious life.

Mary Glowrey left Melbourne for India in 1920 at the age of 33 years. She joined the Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a Dutch order of religious sisters, and worked in India as a medical missionary until her death in 1957.

For the last two years of her life, she shouldered the Cross of excruciating physical pain which she bore with extraordinary courage and patience. Her last words were: "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" and "My Jesus, I love you".

The Catholic Women's League of Victoria and Wagga Wagga has been working closely with the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in India for the past two years preparing for the commencement of Mary Glowrey's cause.

The Archbishop of Bangalore, the Most Rev. Dr. Bernard Moras, appointed Fr Paul Puthanangady on 11 November this year to assist and guide the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the preparation of all documents and records needed in the preliminary phase of Mary Glowrey's cause. The Catholic Women's League of Victoria and Wagga Wagga hold more than 80% of Mary Glowrey's personal writings.

Born in 1887 in Birregurra, 135 km west of Melbourne, and the third of nine children, she studied medicine at Melbourne University. In the fourth year of her course, Mary Glowrey joined St Vincent's Hospital. She graduated in 1910 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. She did her residency in New Zealand and returned to Melbourne in 1912. She held positions at the Eye and Ear Hospital and St Vincent's Hospital. By 1914, she had a successful practice at 82 Collins St.

Her religious vocation came in 1915 in her Collins St. rooms after attending Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral. During a chance reading of a pamphlet about the appalling death rate amongst babies in India and the need there for medical missionaries, she fell to her knees and knew that God, whose will she had constantly sought to do since an early age, was calling her to a life of medical mission work in India. She would wait until after the end of World War One before being able to travel to India.

In 1916, she was elected the first General President of the newly formed Catholic Women's Social Guild (now the Catholic Women's League of Victoria and Wagga Wagga.) Mary Glowrey also studied for a higher medical degree in obstetrics and gynaecology and was conferred as a Doctor of Medicine in December 1919.

In 1920, she left her thriving career as an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and, surrendering herself completely to God's will, she sailed for India.

She placed the remainder of her life at the service of the medical and spiritual needs of the people of India, as an expression of her own deeply held love for God and for humanity. The small dispensary in Guntur where she began her work grew into St Joseph's Hospital. She had a deep love for the people of India and their culture. Mary Glowrey studied and made extensive use of traditional Indian medicines.

Recognising the vital need to promote the Christian use of medicine, Mary Glowrey founded the Catholic Hospital Association of India (CHAI) in 1943. Her vision was the establishment of a Catholic Medical College in India to train health professionals whose medical care would be grounded in an understanding of the absolute inviolability of human life and placed at the service of life. In 1967, ten years after her death, St Johns Medical College was built in Bangalore.

Mary Glowrey was known never to attempt anything without praying to the Holy Spirit, knowing that with the help of the Holy Spirit all things are possible.

At her requiem Mass, the Bishop of Guntur described Mary Glowrey as a " ... special creation of God ... a great soul who embraced the whole world."

Published by CAM