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The
Dawsons
have been at the very foundation stones of our Passionist Family
Group Movement. While
St.
Anthony in the Fields, Terrey Hills was the tiny parish of origin,
the Passionist Monastery at St. Ives was the Spiritual dynamo.
Many
functions, parties and retreats occurred there. The Cloister was
awash with laughter and sharing from hundreds of people coming
from the Family Group parishes. Many stories can be told of those
humble beginnings.
Amid
all the chaos and empty cans, “Blessed Mary” atop the garden
pond and rockery kept
a watchful eye over all the proceedings. I’m sure it was her
influence that stopped people from falling in the fish pond and
remaining friendly as brothers and sisters together.
When
the unimaginable happened, when the Monastery was not only closed
but the Cloister was demolished, Greg and Elinor Dawson blithely stole the statue of Mary and hid it in their back
garden.
When
I discovered this several years later, I sent the Ballesty boys
round to pick up Mary one Saturday afternoon. They drove their
black and chrome ute up the front driveway at a hundred miles an
hour; screeched to a halt and excited the monster with dark
glasses, shaven heads and blue singlets.
Greg
was quietly resting. Naturally, Elenor was out the back gardening.
My boys knocked on the front door and gruffly asked a stunned
Dawson
, “We’ve come to pick up Mary.” Being hard of hearing, he
said, “She’s round the back gardening.”
“Father
Peter told us that she is wanted at Grace Cottage. We’ve come to
get her.” I’m not sure whether Greg was relieved or
disappointed that they weren’t going to take Elenor away.
Now Mary stands serenely blessing and greeting all those who come
to Grace Cottage. It is most appropriate since Mary, our Mother,
is full of Grace.
This story does not end there. The
Dawsons
also pinched the sign from out the front of the St. Ives
Passionist Monastery and proudly display it on the front wall of
their mansion in Perth. Greg says that the way he lives under the Abbottess merits the
Monastery sign at the front door!
Written
from Grace Cottage on the Feast of the Assumption, 2007 by Peter
McGrath.
(Hope
you enjoyed Fr. Peter’s wonderful Australian humour in writing
‘his version’ of how the Statue of Mary
has come to rest at Grace Cottage. Please come and see her for
yourself one day.)
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