One of my favourite quotes from Kilbreda’s long history comes from the local paper in 1913. “The Angel of Death”, it begins, “had visited the Brigidine Convent, Mentone, and had borne away the spirit, so nicely endowed with the gifts of God, of Reverend Mother Benedict Moore, Superior of the Mentone Convent”. Mother Benedict Moore was made superior of Mentone in May 1905, not having been part of the pioneering group who had founded our convent. Instead, she had been part of the pioneering group at Echuca in 1886, having been professed at Tullow in 1870.

She returned to Ireland in 1908 to attend the General Chapter Meeting with Mothers Alacoque and Alphonsus.

Her words on making the move to Mentone, after stints in Echuca and Rochester, were prophetic and uncannily eerie: “I hope this change will open my eyes and strengthen my will to prepare for the great change to Eternity”, she wrote. Mother Benedict bore her suffering with Christian fortitude, dying at 66 on the 26 November 1913.

Beloved by her community of sisters, Benedict’s “qualities of heart and mind…endeared her to its members.”

Benedict was held in such high esteem here that the new wing St Benedict’s (Colonnade) and the back oval (St Benedict’s Park) were named in honour of her patroness.

Damian Smith

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