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People > Nuns (Sisters) > Sr. Miriam of the
Angels
Carmelite Community - Ormiston Queensland
“THANK GOD, I DIE A DAUGHTER OF THE CHURCH.”
(St. Teresa of Jesus)
Sr. Miriam of the Angels ocd (Noreen Therese Wilson) of the Carmelite
Monastery, Ormiston, died on 17th January 2003. Sr. Katherine, a close companion
of hers for forty eight years in the cloister, shares with us some significant
moments of her journey.
 On
13 February 1955, a vivacious twenty year old woman entered our Carmel, and at
the time, some of her family and friends questioned her decision. Why would such
an attractive, fun loving person choose to spend the rest of her life with twenty
or so sisters in a community, belonging to a world wide religious family, whose
beginnings were inspired by the Hebrews’ Scripture Prophet, Elijah, and
were re-founded by the Spanish saint, Teresa of Avila in 1562?
One answer is that Noreen was convinced God was calling her to this life of intimacy
with Him, and out of love for Him, she wanted to respond. However, that is not
the whole story.
Looking back on her life, there emerges a picture of a happy childhood spent
in a family of four children with her parents in Maryborough, where christian
values worship, faith, and family prayer were nurtured in the home and parish.
Noreen has been described as a happy, chubby little girl, giving no hint that
before she was seven, she had survived several life threatening illnesses, including
pneumonia and polio, in days when anti-biotics were unknown.
Role models seem to have played a large part in prompting her desire to be
a nun. When she was only five, she was impressed by seeing the total dedication
to God in the lives of two Sisters of Mercy, and so, there and then, she decided
she too wanted to become a nun when she grew up. During her years at school, she
was further influenced by the Sisters of Mercy who imparted a deep, strong love
for Jesus and Mary by their word and example. Her teachers found her a delight
to teach, and as she was deeply religious, (though no long faced holy joe), they
perhaps thought Noreen would end up a Sister of Mercy, and they would send her
to speak with the Mother Superior whenever she visited the school. However, for
Noreen, that never seemed a real option.
 When
she was only twelve, an incident occurred which left an indelible impression on
her. As she was swinging a hockey stick (rather vigorously apparently), in the
back yard of their home, her younger sister came up from behind and was hit by
it round the waist. As it turned out, the blow ruptured the liver, and it was
touch and go for her sister’s life for a while. Through the anxious days
that followed, Noreen was almost inconsolable, and she tells us, when recalling
the accident later, that the shock awakened in her a realisation of how passing
everything is, and how fleeting are the joys of life. She started thinking seriously
about her future from that time on, coming under the influence of St. Therese
- her Mother’s favourite saint, and much loved by a priest friend, who encouraged
the young teenager in her longing to follow in St. Therese’s footsteps and
become a Carmelite.
She tells us she engaged in many self searchings and passed through many vicissitudes
before she discerned that this was where God wanted her, as she loved life and
a good time, and wondered whether or not she was called to marriage. The thought
of leaving her home and family whom she greatly loved really tormented her, and
it was only after much prayer that she was able to say “Here I am Lord,”
and make her application to enter Carmel.
Her older brother, seeing her so popular, enjoying the social life in the Parish
Youth Group, enhancing the choir with her rich contralto voice, and excelling
at landscape painting as well as outdoor activities like cycling, swimming and
tennis, was shocked when he heard of her decision to become, not only a nun, but,
worse still, a Carmelite nun. He tells us he just could not understand, or grasp
why she would turn her back on so much opportunity for enjoying life. This view
was to change in later years, however, because, when visiting his sister in the
monastery on a monthly basis, her brother soon realised Noreen had found her true
happiness. She was still her happy bubbly self, with lots of little stories to
tell. But behind the smiling face and rosy cheeks, one could sense a deep inner
peace. His sister, he concluded, was becoming more Christ-like, sacrificing herself
for the betterment of others.
By now, Noreen had become Sr. Miriam of the Angels. She had fallen in love
with Jesus and ravished by his love for her, wanted nothing more than to live
in Carmel through union with Him in love, and by her prayer for others, to help
them become aware too of this tremendous Lover. This was a good beginning, but
before she could reach the end, she had to endure much which is demanding on weak
human nature.
Faithfully, throughout the forty-eight years spent in Carmel, through dark nights
and days, through the ups and downs of unfeeling prayer, she would spend long
hours during the day, praising God in the choral recitation of the Prayer of the
Church and communing with him in prolonged silent prayer. Over the years, her
health began to decline, and she suffered considerably from ailments of various
kinds, - a cross she succeeded in carrying with true christian dignity, never
letting it interfere with the fulfilling of her mission as a Carmelite, or the
generous carrying out of her manual work at the service of the community.
Humanly speaking, she found it difficult to accept all the changes in the religious
life she had come to know and love, - changes in lifestyle and ways of exercising
authority, which, after Vatican II were challenged by the inculturation of the
Gospel. Like all of us, also, she had to struggle to see God’s hand in all
community decisions, agreeable or not.
The last stage of her earthly journey, which began at the commencement of Holy
Week in the year 2002, was a lonely mysterious one. When she was diagnosed as
needing high level nursing care, we had to entrust her to the care of the Sisters
of Nazareth in their nursing home in an adjacent suburb, where we could frequently
visit her.
The vows, by which she lovingly committed herself to live the evangelical counsels,
were now bearing fruit in the transcendence of her inner self, despite the exterior
deterioration of her natural powers, through the very rapid form of Alzheimer’s
disease which was enveloping her. Virginity opened her heart, and made it possible
to love those who attended her in her last illness, as Jesus loved. Thanks to
poverty, she rose above the enslaving desire for possessions, being content to
be dependent on others for all her needs, and through Obedience, her life became
entirely at Christ’s disposal, to be used according to His designs. With
her loving cooperation, God was transforming her lowly human nature into a copy
of His own glorious body. Through it all, however, Sr. Miriam remained human,
and - more importantly - lovably imperfect.
Sr. Miriam loved her food. Towards the end of her illness, she had lost all
appetite, and had to be persuaded to take any nourishment at all. One day, hoping
to tempt her to eat, we brought along two of her favourites - prawns and ice cream.
“Which would you like,” we asked, “prawns or ice cream.”
To our great amazement, she said quite firmly: BOTH OF THEM!
With her lovely smile never far from her lips, in spite of the dimming of her
alertness, she often surprised us, with a little flash of her old sense of humour.
Once when her brother was leaving at the end of a visit, she responded to his
farewell, “God bless you” with one of her mother’s classic sayings
recalled from childhood days: “And the devil miss you”.
Though unable to communicate with us in the last few days, we sensed that she
was content to be in God’s loving hands, whether the agony was prolonged
or not. She was his masterpiece, and was like a child in its mother’s arms,
waiting for the prize she had always sought after so earnestly for forty-eight
years, to be given her. She would not wish to anticipate the hour for this, or
prolong it in any way - but rather to witness to Jesus’ loving surrender
to His Father’s will on the cross, grateful that she too, like St. Teresa
was dying a “Daughter of the Church.”
Whenever I now go to pray at her grave, in our little cemetery within the grounds
of our monastery, beneath the swaying gum trees overlooking Raby bay, I find myself
recalling a passage from St. Paul’s letter to Galatians which was very dear
to her: “God loved ME and gave himself up for ME.”
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