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eileen egan
July 2009 
Rememberance VI
Posted on Jun 28th, 2008
by 
jikishin
jikishin
To begin this entry where the previous left off...
I'd like to remember Eileen Egan on this, not a date of death or birth, but an anniversary of a survival.
It was on this day in 1945 that a plane crashed into the Empire State Building. Eileen, out of that 79th floor office at the time, lost all ten of her colleagues in the U.S Bishop's War Relief Service. The war was about to end and that effort of healing from war that became the Catholic Relief Services fell to it's new nucleus, one spirited little lady.
ee
( Eileen Egan, Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa
from the book A Revolution of the Heart )
During her friendship of over fourty years with Mother Teresa, Eileen, as a journalist, played a main role in introducing Europe and the Americas to the works of the Missionaries of Charity.
Eileen's friendship with the center woman in the photo (above), Dorothy Day, began in the late 1930s, while Dorothy encouraged her to persue journalism.
I recall sitting in the room that that photo was taken in, with Frank Donovan and Fr.Joylita moments before Fr.Joylita took the subway uptown to present the papers necessary for Cardinal O'Connor to formally introduce-the-cause of Dorothy's cannonization. ( At the point of this blog writing, Dorothy's 'standing' in the sainthood process is Servant of God, whereas Mother Teresa's cause has progressed to the determination: Blessed. )
I had the privilege, the pleasure really, of working with Eileen on a cover for her final book, Peace Be With You (a critique of just war theory and an advocation of gospel non-violence). There she was well into her eighties, sharp with enthusiasm and centered in the momentum of a life of acting on an ever-refining vision.
Late one Fall morning in 2000 I walked into St Vincent Hospital on the westside of Manhattan just as Eileen was dying a few floors away. Her personal assistant, and Dorothy's grand daughter Kate, were already there. Our impromptu vigil, informal and so very far from casual, remains for me an inexplicable inspiration.
Although Ms. Egan, who had made a career of facilitating support for the well-being of war refugees, who had been present to so many dying, shared her own death with only a few, her living, to this day, touches countless lives bettered by her exceedingly modest, extremely persistant path.
from the book A Revolution of the Heart )
During her friendship of over fourty years with Mother Teresa, Eileen, as a journalist, played a main role in introducing Europe and the Americas to the works of the Missionaries of Charity.
Eileen's friendship with the center woman in the photo (above), Dorothy Day, began in the late 1930s, while Dorothy encouraged her to persue journalism.
I recall sitting in the room that that photo was taken in, with Frank Donovan and Fr.Joylita moments before Fr.Joylita took the subway uptown to present the papers necessary for Cardinal O'Connor to formally introduce-the-cause of Dorothy's cannonization. ( At the point of this blog writing, Dorothy's 'standing' in the sainthood process is Servant of God, whereas Mother Teresa's cause has progressed to the determination: Blessed. )
I had the privilege, the pleasure really, of working with Eileen on a cover for her final book, Peace Be With You (a critique of just war theory and an advocation of gospel non-violence). There she was well into her eighties, sharp with enthusiasm and centered in the momentum of a life of acting on an ever-refining vision.
Late one Fall morning in 2000 I walked into St Vincent Hospital on the westside of Manhattan just as Eileen was dying a few floors away. Her personal assistant, and Dorothy's grand daughter Kate, were already there. Our impromptu vigil, informal and so very far from casual, remains for me an inexplicable inspiration.
Although Ms. Egan, who had made a career of facilitating support for the well-being of war refugees, who had been present to so many dying, shared her own death with only a few, her living, to this day, touches countless lives bettered by her exceedingly modest, extremely persistant path.
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a beautiful and moving tribute. thank you for this.