Virginia Monagle “touched the lives of far more children and parents than she ever would have imagined”, Fr John Flader told the congregation at the Requiem Mass for his friend Virginia at St Mary’s Cathedral on Friday, 4 January.
Virginia, co-founder – with her husband Frank – of Parents for Education Foundation (PARED), which established Tangara School for Girls, Cherrybrook, Redfield College, Dural, Wollemi College, Werrington, and Montgrove College, Orchard Hills, died after a 4?-year battle with cancer. She was 59.
Fr John, an Opus Dei priest, said: “All the thousands of children who have studied in the schools over the years and their parents have benefited in some way from Virginia’s prayer and work.
“The decision to celebrate her funeral in this cathedral, which as we can see is full, to accommodate all the people who would want to attend bears witness to this.”
Students from the PARED schools formed a guard of honour at the conclusion of the Mass, at which the Archbishop of Sydney, George Cardinal Pell, was the principal celebrant.
In his homily, Fr John recalled the first time he met Virginia and her sister Suzanne almost 40 years ago.
“I was giving a talk in a seminar for teachers in Creston College at the University of NSW,” he said.
“Among those attending were two strikingly attractive girls who after the talk asked some very intelligent questions that showed the depth of their faith. I couldn’t help asking myself, ‘Who are these girls?’ I was soon to find out.
“From the time she joined Opus Dei, Virginia was ever faithful to her plan of daily spiritual activities, including the Mass, mental prayer, the Rosary, spiritual reading, reading of Scripture, the Angelus and so on. This gave her a very deep and personal relationship with Our Lord, with Our Lady, whom she loved very much, and the saints.
“And she did everything possible to share her faith with others. Frank tells me she would often engage even strangers, like taxi drivers, to talk about life and family and faith. In this year of faith, when Pope Benedict is inviting the Church to grow in understanding of the faith, to live the faith more fully and to share the faith with others, Virginia has given us a strong example.”
Fr John said that soon after their marriage 35 years ago in St Canice’s, Elizabeth Bay, Virginia and Frank began to plan for the children God would send them.
“Virginia wrote about it in the book Women of Hope, compiled by Linda Baraciolli and published in 2009. The book relates the stories of women who have come through adversity and have faced it with hope.
“Virginia’s is the first chapter in the book and in it she describes beautifully and sensitively how she and Frank began their marriage confident that God would bless them with children and they made the corresponding plans for them. But then, as the years passed and the children didn’t come, they realised that God had other plans for them and they accepted those plans wholeheartedly.
“St Josemaría (St Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei) had often spoken with childless couples and he would urge them to use their time and talents to look after other people’s children. Virginia and Frank did just that. From the beginning they were very involved, along with Suzanne and many others, in the establishment of the PARED schools Tangara and Redfield and, later, Wollemi and Montgrove.
“Virginia served on the board of PARED from the beginning until her death. Through her involvement with the schools over these many years, and her other activities, Virginia touched the lives of far more children and parents than she ever would have imagined, certainly many more than she would have reached had God given her children of her own.”
Fr John said Virginia touched the lives of people not only through the schools but also, “and perhaps more importantly, through her personal friendship with them”.
“Over the years she would often ask me to pray for the many people she was trying to bring closer to God through her personal conversations with them, and through the talks she was giving,” he said.
“Let me conclude with a little story about Virginia that has two phases, separated by some 40 years.
“When Virginia was still in high school or university, she went to a party outside of Sydney and her mother stayed up, praying that she would be safe and reading a book about St John Bosco, to whom she had great devotion. The book told how on several occasions, when St John was being attacked, a white dog would suddenly appear to protect him. St John saw that dog as his guardian angel. Meanwhile at the party some boys began to criticise the Church and the Pope and Virginia felt uncomfortable, so she moved to a different seat on the veranda, some distance away.
“A friendly white dog came up and put its head on her lap, as if to comfort her. At the end of the evening she asked whose dog that was, and the others, who were also on the veranda, said they hadn’t even seen a white dog.
“When she got home she told this to her mother who saw the obvious meaning in the events.
“We jump now to the day before Virginia died. Out of the blue she said she could see a white dog on the horizon.
“May her guardian angel lead her safely home to the Father’s house, may Our Lady, Gate of Heaven intercede for her, and may she rest in peace.”
|
