Sr. Andrea MacEachen from Great Britain has spent most of her 57 years in religious life working in residential schools for troubled teenage girls, “learning more from them than I could ever teach them,” and later taught trainee teachers at university level. She now works in the local parish of Our Lady of Lourdes – in the village where she first met the Good Shepherd Sisters. On her recent visit to the Generalate, she spoke to the Communications Office about her vocation story.

When I was a little girl, I found in my local church, at the back, I was maybe 6 years old, and I found a little crumpled up leaflet in the back of the church. I picked it up to see what it was. On this leaflet, I saw a picture of a beautiful, beautiful nun and on the other side a picture that underneath said the green door. And I wondered: ‘where is this green door and where is this beautiful nun?’

Everything on the leaflet written on the back was in French, so I took it home and I looked at it and studied it and found out what the words were. I realized that this woman, this beautiful woman, was Mother Ursula Yung and she was in Angers, in France, behind this green door.

So, I made up my mind, I would pack a little bag – and I did, I had a little pink bag and I packed all my little sweeties and valuables and things that I wanted to take with me – and off I went to the train station which was near to where I lived. I sat on the platform and the station master came out and said “Where are you going miss?” and I said “I’m going to France, is there a train for France” and he said “Not yet but it will come.” So, I I said, “I will wait here for the train for France” but he said “Why are you going to France?” and I showed him the leaflet and said I’m going to see this woman. So, he disappeared and of course in adult life I found out afterwards he went to phone a neighbour who had a telephone to say to my mother come and get me.

So, my mother appeared at the station and she sat down on the bench beside me and she said, “Where are you going darling?“. “I said I’m going to France to see this woman behind this green door” and she said, “Oh, this is a very very good idea but maybe come home and have supper first.” So, I went home with my mother and had supper and forgot the green door.

Drawn near to the Good Shepherd

I had forgotten for a few years about the green door, but three years later, when I was 9, my father bought me a bicycle – I was so happy to have a bicycle. One of the reasons was because in the post office near where I lived, if children had bicycles, they could deliver telegrams. One of the ladies in the post office asked me if I would deliver a telegram to Sister Mary of Saint Anthony, whose feast day it was.

So, I was delivering a greetings telegram and I was going to get a lot of money: 9 pence to take the telegram because it was a distance outside the village at the Convent of the Good Shepherd and so I cycled to the Convent of the Good Shepherd. Not having ever met one before, I knocked on the door and a sister answered, a little old sister, and she said “come in, come in“, and at first she was wanting to take the telegram from me and I said “no I was told I have to give it to Mother Saint Anthony“; so she took me in.

And Mother Saint Anthony and another sister, Sister Augustine, and herself Sister Therese, the three of them were having tea to celebrate the feast of Saint Anthony and so they said come in and sit down and I gave the telegram to Mother Saint Anthony. They asked me, “do you want a cake?” and passed the plate of cake and I took a little humble small cake from the plate. There were beautiful big cream cakes, but I wanted the little one. They thought this was some kind of goodness on my part, but I I liked the little one.

So, anyway, one of the sisters said to me, “what are you going to be when you grow up?” Oh I said “I’m going to be a nun“. “And why? Why are you going to be a nun?” “It’s because my mommy told me that nuns pray all the time and praying is my very favorite thing – I love to pray so I want to be a nun so that I can pray all day and all night“. So, one one of the sisters, Sister Augustine said, “you know, being a nun is not a bed of roses“.

And I thought that was a bit discouraging but I took in what she said that it’s not a bed of roses. Anyway, I I was very happy to have my little biscuit and share with the sisters and I like them very much. And even if it wasn’t going to be a bed of roses, I still wanted to be a nun.

At that time, I thought it was going to be the kind of nun that Saint Teresa was – like a nun who prayed all day and all night. I didn’t know about the work of the Good Shepherd at that time, although the convent was so near my home. So I left, happy to have met these sisters for the first time and that was the next step in my connection with the Good Shepherd.

The promise fulfilled

Here I am standing outside the Generalate of the Good Shepherds Sisters; so, I obviously became a Good Shepherd Sister. But how did this happen? I had met them or heard of them when I was only a little girl of six wanting to run away to find the green door and then I met them when I was nine and they told me it’s not a bed of roses. But I entered when I was 18 years old and I’ve had a wonderful Good Shepherd life. I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve worked day and night with our girls and women who’ve come to us for help, and I’ve loved all of it. I thank God every day for all of it.

One day, when I was in the convent in Manchester, an old sister was admitted into the nursing home and she sent for me to come and talk to her. She was dying. And she said, “I want to tell you the story that you may not know about your life and your first connection with the Good Shepherd“. I was born very premature. As a little baby, my mother didn’t even know she had had me – she was very ill. I came very early, I was only 2 lbs and they did not expect me to live – there was no incubators in those days.

The nuns who were in the maternity hospital said to my mother, “take your little baby home, make her comfortable, but she will not live“. So my mother and father got into a taxi with me and my mother said “let’s not go home, let’s go to the convent so we can ask the sisters to pray“. She took me to the convent and a very young sister answered the door and she didn’t quite know what to do really, but she said to my mother, “come to the Chapel“.

We went to the Chapel and the young sister said “just lay the baby on the altar“. Other sisters had gathered around by then and this young sister said, “just, mama, say your prayer, say what prayer you want for your little girl“. And she thought my mother would say “oh, save my little girl, make her better, make her well”. But my mother’s prayer was, “Lord, you have given me the most beautiful little girl in the world and if you want her back, you can have her“. The young sister was in tears at this prayer. The baby was given back to my mother – myself, I am that baby – the baby was given back to her mother and my mother went home expecting that I would die.

Only when this sister was in the nursing home said to me, “I was that young sister and I remember your mother, and I remember your mother’s prayer, and I want you to tell you the story“. And she said, “I followed all the time – without you knowing – I followed what you were doing in your life and I could not contain the joy when I heard that you were coming into the Good Shepherd sisters. And so here we are, two Good Shepherd sisters together that met when you were only two weeks old and I was just a young sister and we are here together now and I am going to God now. And your story, you were meant to be Good Shepherd. You were dedicated to the Good Shepherd“.

And so here I am here in Rome, in the Generalate of the Good Shepherd, after so many 54 happy years. Thank you, Lord, thank you, Good Shepherd, and thank you to that sister, her name was Sister Mary Bernardine. Thank you to all who have taken me along this path.

I love my Good Shepherd vocation – thank you!