Edel Quinn : a way to holiness

Abstract

The Gospel is a never ending call and an invitation to a personal holiness; to become holy is man's supreme goal and vocation; the Church in her various documents reiterates this ardent wish of Christ, "Be holy as your Heavenly Father is holy!" Lumen Gentium has this to say: Therefore all the faithful are invited and obliged to holiness and the perfection of their own state of life. Accordingly let all of them see that they direct their affections rightly, lest they be hindered in their pursuit of perfect love by the use of worldly things and by an adherence to riches which is contrary to the spirit of evangelical poverty, following the apostle's advice: Let those who use this world not fix their abode in it, for the form of this world is passing away (I Cor. 7:31.) We Christians believe that the Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier, the artist who moulds man to perfection according to the desire of the church. It is here that the life story of Edel Quinn becomes important; she was one of the most outstanding figures who wanted to be saintly through evangelisation, her spirituality all lay there. As desired by the church documents we have been through, Edel wanted to make the Africans of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika share in the gospel of truth; consequently she left home and all earthly possessions to become a witness of Christ far away from home, in a foreign culture. We thus hope that by our dissertation we create in man an awareness of her life, and a response to holiness similar to hers built on an endurance to suffering, a devotion to the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin and the Blessed Sacrament. These will be the items of this dissertation inserting as well her great perspicacity with which she sought together with the Africans contacted truth and justice, the time and definitive dimension of which are found in the Gospel.