Ruadhán Jones
Following the “frustrating” theft from their orchard, the sisters of the Priory of St Benedict in Co. Cork were delighted with the unexpected good that came of it.
The priory in Cobh is home to an order of contemplative nuns, who welcome the public to their chapel and Bible Garden. But the sisters recently discovered that ten wheelbarrow loads of apples had been stolen by some unwanted visitors from their orchard, and reached out to the local community for support. The sisters rely on the apples to make products that they sell to fund their community.
“I was advised by the gardaí to enquire locally if anyone had seen anything,” the prioress, Mother Catherine told The Irish Catholic. “Our friends around the monastery were indignant that someone would steal our apples…one of them contacted a TD and he contacted the Office of Public Works (OPW) and managed to get them on board to replace the apples.”
Workers from a nearby OPW site packed apples into boxes and delivered 30 of them to the sisters to make up for their loss.
Donations
But the unexpected benefits didn’t end there as more donations followed after the story spread.
“Over a few apples, it’s astonishing. It shows how God works in mysterious ways,” according to Mother Catherine.
“The whole of Ireland now knows that’s there’s a monastery in Cobh, which they didn’t realise before,” said Mother Catherine. “A lot of people have been asking for prayers and sending in contributions to our apple fund. We got some apples from Keeling’s in Dublin. There’s been a very generous response.”
Mother Catherine hopes that it would be a small sign of the good God can make from evil in these difficult times.
“I was just really happy, at a time when everybody is struggling and things are so unstable, to be able just in this small kind of way to say that God can bring good out of evil,” she said.