Sr Moira Lynch FDNSC. PHOTO: Supplied/Catholic Weekly.
Sr Moira Lynch FDNSC, who in her 70s left Sydney to serve the poorest of the poor in war-torn southern Sudan, has been recognised in her regional hometown’s walk of fame, reports The Catholic Weekly.
Sr Moira’s incredible life story will be added to the memorial in Walter Day Park at Lockhart, southwest of Wagga, which recognises residents who achieved greatness in their chosen field and made a valuable contribution to Australian life.
Known and loved as the “angel” and even the “Mother Teresa of Mapuordit,” the member of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart had already given a lifetime of service to her family, her order, and indigenous communities in the Northern Territory when she left Australia in 1995.
Alongside Sr Jo Kenny, she was a founding member of the order’s mission to Mapuordit in the Diocese of Rumbek in Sudan.
With just one cardboard box of medical supplies, and no running water or electricity, the trained nurse set up the diocese’s first health clinic in a dirt-floor bamboo hut.
The following year she was arrested by armed soldiers of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army with fellow religious Sr Maureen Carey and Sr Mary Batchelor.
The trio of sisters were accused of spying, along with three other missionaries, and held captive for 11 agonising days.
A plaque featuring Sr Moira’s inspiring life story and her photo were unveiled last month in Lockhart along with those of former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer AC, transport magnate Raymond Burkinshaw, and rugby league legend Norman “Sticks” Provan.
Members of her religious community, the large Lynch clan and Sudanese representatives travelled from across the country to attend the ceremony led by local mayor Greg Verdon and attended by Federal Member for Riverina Michael McCormack, who said the prominently displayed stories will inspire people for generations to come.
L-R Federal member for Riverina Michael McCormack, provincial councillor Sr Lorraine McCleary FDNSC, provincial leader Sr Philippa Murphy FDNSC, Lockhart mayor Greg Verdon. PHOTO: Supplied/Catholic Weekly.
Provincial leader Sr Philippa Murphy FDNSC said Sr Moira and her contemporaries were “amazing, amazing women who lived in very poor conditions to serve the poorest of the poor”.
In sharing the locals’ joys and their heartbreaking situations, the women were “looking at the pages of the Gospel come to life,” she said.
“Sr Rita Grunke, herself a great missionary, worked alongside Sr Moira and said she always lamented that in her first years at the small clinic at Mapuordit during the civil war, several of the children died needlessly due to a lack of available medicine,” Sr Philippa added.
“She was only there for about seven years but made a huge impact. Others there for 20 years have been remembered too, but Moira was really referred to as a saint and an angel.”
This month, the congregation will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its foundation by Fr Chevalier Issoudun in France on 30 August, 1874.
Sr Philippa said Sr Moira epitomised the sisters’ desire to use all of their skills and resources “to ease suffering wherever that is, grounded in our prayer life and community life.”
“Our older sisters have a character that is very joyful, dependent on prayer, and totally one with the people they serve,” she said.
Tresa Diing, former pastoral care co-ordinator for Sudanese Catholics in Sydney, remembered the “tiny” sister praying with the community and visiting newly-arrived families in her later years to ensure they had whatever they needed to start their new life in the country.
Sr Moira’s nephew Brian Flinn said her family are proud of their “Aunty Marie” and her work for the under-privileged.
“But she was just a normal person to us and would have been quite embarrassed by all the fanfare,” he said.
Sr Moira was born one of nine children in Lockhart in 1923. She was 11 when her mother died and at age 15 left school to care for her father and siblings.
She entered the order in Kensington, aged nearly 30, in 1952.
By her 50s she had trained as a midwife and joined a mission in the Northern Territory. There she spent the next 23 years in Indigenous communities, nursing and training local health workers before she went to South Sudan.
Later Sr Moira would tell her loved ones how she and her fellow captives sang hymns and recited the rosary together each day in their bush prison.
“She didn’t do any of it for any reward, but it’s good to see her being acknowledged because she spent her life doing such good work without anyone knowing about it,” Mr Flinn said.
This article by Marilyn Rodrigues was published in The Catholic Weekly.