Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy An Irishwoman’s cause for canonisation has been opened by an order she founded in Texas.
The cause for Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy of Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry, is being forwarded by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate.
A post on the order’s website May 20 revealed that the process of seeking Mother Murphy’s canonisation had begun. “We have studied her remarkable life, her unselfish and undying service to people in need and her extreme devotion to her faith,” the post reads.
“When Mother Margaret founded us in San Antonio, we were the first order of sisters founded in the state of Texas. People who have read her story or listened to the telling of her life’s work are inspired by her.”
Responding to the news, Cahersiveen parish priest Fr Larry Kelly said it’s “a great honour for the parish”.
“Naturally, it’s a very proud moment for all the parish to find one of their own who went abroad and did such great work is now being promoted for canonisation,” Fr Kelly said.
She “ploughed a lone furrow” in her work with the underprivileged of American society at the time, and Fr Kelly said she’s inspired the parishioners to “never give up”.
“Keep working for justice, keep working to help the poor, and that’s what the Gospel is about. It’s about reaching out to others as well as preaching the Gospel. Helping them in very practical ways, and that’s what she did, really.”
Margaret Mary Healy was born in Ireland in 1833 and emigrated to the United States with her father in 1845 to escape the Famine. She married John Bernard Murphy in 1849, with whom she moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, buying a ranch nearby.
Following the death of her husband in 1884, she moved to San Antonio, Texas. Margaret Mary responded to a letter read by a priest about the aid the African-American community needed in the post-civil war south. She went on to establish a school for African-Americans in 1888, before starting the Sisters of the Holy Ghost and Mary Immaculate in San Antonio in 1893.