Ellen Organ's life was cut short aged four, when she died after being ill for most of those few short years.
Her short life was marked by suffering, both physical and, it would appear, spiritual. The latter is not something to be expected in such a young life, yet it appears as though this were the case, leading to Pope Pius X seeing her life as the instigation for changes in the First Holy Communion of children.
William Organ married Mary Aherne in 1896, both of them Catholics living in County Waterford, in the South of Ireland. They had four children, of whom Ellen was the youngest. Nellie, as she came to be affectionately known, would often talk about ‘Holy God’ in a manner that suggested a deep affiliation with her Creator. She moved to Spike Island, where her father was stationed as a soldier. Her life quickly became tragically affected by the poverty of the time however, with her mother dying when Nellie was three, due to tuberculosis.
Struggling to maintain care of the family, William Organ placed Nellie and her siblings into the care of religious orders, the Good Shepherd Sisters in Cork welcome Nellie and her sister Mary into their care.
Under the care of the nuns, Little Nellie showed an understanding of the faith that made them startled. She had a fixation with Our Lord’s crucifixion and asked why it had been allowed.
Nellie became enchanted with the statues of the Little Child of Prague, stating that she could see images of him dancing for her amusement and becoming excited.
In late 1907, it became clear that Nellie would not have a long life. So sick was she that Bishop O’Callaghan administered the Sacrament of Confirmation upon her, in preparation for her inevitable death. Her response was striking, something that one might have expected from Saint Therese of Joan of Arc, she said ‘I am now a Soldier of Holy God’.
It was after this that she started to develop her most mystical insights, particularly in relation to the Blessed Sacrament. She repeatedly stated that God was ‘imprisoned’ and instinctively knew upon first seeing a monstrance that ‘there is Holy God’.
She died in 1908.
Hearing of her life, the pope for whom she prayed, Pius X, said ‘She was an angel’.
Only two years after her death, Pope St. Pius X wrote Quam Singulari, his encyclical bringing about radical changes in the age of First Holy Communion.
This week, amid an increasingly hysterical and violent anti Catholicism in the country, her grave was vandalised.
A plaque donated by the French government, as a thank you for a family healed by her intercession, was robbed.
The railings were cut.
Prayer cards and Rosary beads were stolen.
Leftists celebrated the attack with glee. Vandalising a child’s grave is now fair game to the Irish left. It is a new low, but there is no doubt that they are capable of going even lower.
There has been the usual silence from the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, as there was when Catholics were kicked up and down the street for sharing their faith in Dublin last week.
In the same week, a newspaper in Cork, where the vandals struck, compared Catholics to terrorists.
Where will this all lead to?
Little Nellie of Holy God pray for us.
