The long road begins

30 November 1909. Co-founder of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor, Edward (Ted) McGrath is ordained a priest of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart at St Mary’s Cathedral by His Eminence Patrick Cardinal Moran. It is the start of a long, fruitful and at times, lonely, vocation. Father McGrath has spent the past eight years studying at the MSC seminary at Kensington, NSW. Despite his incomplete schooling, he proves to be a capable student who, in time, can express his thoughts in French and Latin as readily as he can in English. Following his ordination, Father McGrath is appointed to Ngahere, a West Coast village within the Diocese of Christchurch, New Zealand. He is recalled to Randwick in early 1911 and is appointed priest-in-charge of the Coogee parochial district. The recently-built St Brigid’s Church has no presbytery, so Father McGrath lives with the MSC community at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church, Randwick.