Sixty years of love and service
MISSIONARY Sisters of Service nun Sr Cecilia Bailey celebrated 60 years of her profession as a nun which is really a milestone for someone who was reluctant to join at first.
Miss Bailey had been living in Melbourne working in a legal office when her parish priest asked if she’d ever considered the vocations.
“I said ‘No, I’m having too much of a good time’,” she said.
“The priest kept putting pamphlets of different (religious) orders in my letter box and I saw an order that I became interested in.”
That was the Missionary Sisters of Service founded in Tasmania by Fr John Wallis.
“I went over to Tasmania to see them but I told my mother not to get rid of my clothes because I’d probably be back in three weeks,” she said.
“But I felt something was missing in my life, I had some emptiness inside and I knew after two weeks that this is what I wanted to do.”
She came to Toowoomba in 1964 when the order was invited to the Darling Downs by then Bishop William Brennan.
The Missionary Sisters of Service spent their time either conducting correspondence courses to children from their base in Toowoomba or travelling the vast Diocese of Toowoomba visiting schools and families and teaching the faith.
“Wherever we went the people were wonderful,” she said.
“Some people lived in remote places and I had a woman hug me once when we turned up, I was the first woman she’d seen in a long time.”
A staunch Collingwood supporter, Sr Cecilia has a framed letter of congratulations from Magpies president Eddie Maguire which holds pride of place in her Toowoomba lounge room.
Her Diamond jubilee was celebrated with Mass and morning tea at Our Lady of Lourdes Church and another celebration will be held in her honour in Warwick later this month.
Proving the longevity of the order, fellow Missionary Sisters of Service — Srs Margaret Windsham, Marie Carroll and Pat Quinn also celebrated their diamond jubilees this year.