Today we can celebrate many saints, but we're going to go with Edel Quinn, servant of God (1907-1944), emissary of the Legion of Mary to East Africa. Cardinal Suenens of Belgium wrote a biography of her, and her cause is moving forward. I think I'd like this plucky and refined Irishwoman. Unselfish and full of life, she loved music, dancing and tennis. She moved around a lot due to her father's job and took it in stride. She'd listen to anyone, talk to anyone, make a joke often, but she had a serious side to her. She was a daily communicant and burned with the love of God. She wanted to be a nun but family circumstances and poor health prevented it. She had to go to work to put her four siblings through school. She had a few male platonic friends. One of them wrote after her death: "More than 20 years have passed away. In all that time the memory of Edel Quinn has not left me. I know that she prayed much for me and her petitions were heard. I owe her innumerable graces for myself and my family."
She found out about the Legion of Mary while she was working as a secretary in Dublin. She joined at 19 and became president of her praesidium (that's the name of each of their local groups) at 22. Some people objected because she was so young (and looked even younger), and the work (they do visitations, mostly) was rough: in those days it consisted mostly of helping street people, especially prostitutes. She was thought unfit for the job. The bishop waved away the protests, wisely, as it turned out. The two legion groups he was involved with expanded rapidly and made great progress.
She then volunteered for work with the Legion in Britain. At first her pastor didn't want to let her, but then a desperate plea came for Legion workers in Africa and she was offered the job. She immediately accepted, despite the hardship involved. She even knew she wasn't coming home -- "I shall spend 9 years in Africa and die there." (It was a prophetic statement.) She said goodbye to the Old Sod and landed in Mombasa, Kenya in '36. She traveled over an area extending three-fourths of a million square miles, starting the Legion of Mary wherever she went. People thought that Africans would never respond to the strict regimentation of the apostolate -- but they were wrong. People told her whites, Indians and Africans would never come together for a religious purpose -- but they were wrong. "Amor vincit omnia" ("Love conquers all") was her motto, and it was true.
She traveled in a rattletrap Ford driven by a Moslem man over remote reaches of Kenya, Uganda, Nyasaland and Tanganyika. She suffered an attack of malaria in '38 that brought her very low but she kept going. She saw parts of Africa no white woman had ever seen before. "We can never love too much;" she said, "let us give utterly and not count the cost." She lost a lot of weight and was down to 75 lbs. at one point. But she kept going. She sailed to Mauritius to found the Legion there. She made one last foray into Nyasaland and then sort of retired to a little room in a convent run by the Sisters of the Precious Blood in Nairobi, where she died of a heart attack in '44, with the name of Jesus on her lips.
"If I cannot work, then I can suffer." - Edel Quinn.
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