Miracle cancer survivor Kathleen Evans says she has no idea why she was touched by Mother Mary MacKillop, and probably won’t know until she finally gets “upstairs”.
The NSW woman, who once lived at Lorne Station, Lightning Ridge, and whose dramatic recovery from lung cancer was confirmed as Mother Mary’s second miracle, has described herself as an ordinary churchgoer.
At Sydney’s Mary MacKillop Chapel, the 66-year-old said she was just an average mother-of-five and grandmother to 20, who just happened to be touched by the rebel nun.
Mrs Evans’ identity had remained a secret until she spoke publicly for the first time about her miracle cure.
In 1993, then aged 49, Mrs Evans was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, which was soon found to have spread and caused a secondary cancer on her brain.
The former smoker refused radiotherapy treatment and was given
just months to live by doctors.
But with constant prayers to Mother Mary from family and the local parish, and wearing a relic containing a piece of the soon-to-be saint’s clothing, she recovered from the disease.
“Wow” was down-to-earth Mrs Evans’ reaction when doctors first told her the cancer had disappeared.
“When he (the doctor) was so excited the first question I asked him was, ‘had it shrunk’, and he said ‘no, it’s gone’,” said Mrs Evans flanked by husband Barry, daughter Annette and son Luke.
“Once he told me it was gone that was it. I’ve never looked back and thought I might have cancer again, or it might come back.”
“I won’t get cancer. I’ll die of a heart attack,” she joked.
In December last year, Pope Benedict XVI confirmed her recovery as Mother Mary’s second miracle, paving the way for the canonisation to make her Australia’s first saint.
Her first miracle, the curing of a woman who had leukaemia in 1961, was accepted by the Vatican in 1993.
Mrs Evans, who hails from the Hunter region, said that after years of anonymity she was overwhelmed by all the attention she was now getting.
“I’m not one to be on my knees all the time. I’m just an ordinary person,” Mrs Evans said of her faith.
“If I miss a mass, I don’t think I’m going to go to hell or anything like that.”
Mrs Evans said she didn’t know why she had been saved.
“When I finally do get upstairs, it will be the first question I ask,” she said.
Mrs Evans said she had felt a presence in her Windale home during her fight with cancer.
She still wears the relic - “it’s on my bra” - and still felt the presence of Mother Mary in her life.
“I have many, many times felt Mary MacKillop’s presence,” she said.
“I do feel her presence.
“I do feel that she is with me. I feel she is praying for me.
“I talk to her as if she is a person.
“It’s like when you lose someone in your family and you still talk to that person.”
Mrs Evans said she felt privileged to be part of
Mary MacKillop’s canonisation.
She hopes to travel to Rome for the ceremony, expected later in the year.
“It makes me very humble,” she said.
“Australia’s first saint - it’s pretty big.”
Mary MacKillop died in 1909 at the age of 67, and was beatified by Pope
John Paul II in 1995 after
her first miracle was
decreed. She fought many battles with the Catholic Church when establishing the Sisters of St Joseph, and the dozens of schools they created for less fortunate children - earning her a reputation as a rebel nun.
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