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In the early hours of Monday 31st January 2022 God called Amy Micallef Eynaud RSCJ to the fullness of life, at the age of 103, and after more than 82 years of religious life.
Born in Sliema, Malta in October 1918, in the final weeks of World War I, Amy lived through a century of seismic changes – in society, Church, politics, technology, women’s rights - as well as two global pandemics, at the beginning and end of her life.
Amy first encountered the Society of the Sacred Heart as a pupil at our school, St Julian’s, and it was here, during a school retreat, that she first felt called to give all she had – her whole life – to God in religious life. After leaving school she completed a short course in nursing and considered joining an order dedicated to this, but she realised that the spirituality and ethos of the Sacred Heart were what she really wanted her life to be about.
In July 1939 Amy left Malta, to enter the noviciate in Roehampton, where she received the habit seven months later. By then plans were already being made to evacuate the novices to avoid wartime bombing raids: Roehampton having been the noviciate for England and Malta since 1850, Amy thus became the last in a very long line of RSCJ to enter there.
The noviciate was evacuated to Kinross in Scotland, where Amy made her vows in February 1942 – had she lived only three weeks longer she would have celebrated her 80th anniversary. She spent the next three years in West Hill, before returning to Malta – and to a long-awaited reunion with her family - after the war had ended in 1945. Throughout her life, Amy remained very close to her parents and to her brother and his wife, who became regular visitors to whichever community she lived in, along with their children.
Amy and another sister set about establishing a Junior School, before she left Malta again, to spend five months in Rome preparing for her perpetual vows, which she made in February 1948. She then lived in England – working in the schools at Tunbridge Wells and Brighton – before returning to Malta in 1954. She spent the next twenty-three years teaching at St Julian’s, becoming Head of the Junior School in 1969. A naturally humble, diffident woman, she found this, and other positions of authority difficult, but she embraced them with generosity, as she also embraced the many post-Vatican II changes. These included moving from the main convent into a small community house with only a few other sisters – the first of many small communities she was able to adapt to, after more than thirty years in large institutions. Those who lived with her recall a kind, loving, cheerful and wise woman, but one who also lacked confidence in herself and her gifts, and needed reassurance.
Amy returned to England in 1978, where she spent most of the rest of her life, initially moving between Southall, Roehampton, Bexhill, Acton and Hammersmith – plus a renewal course in Rome, in 1985. In Roehampton she provided support to and later led Duchesne House, the Society’s new community for infirm sisters; in Hammersmith, she focused on providing hospitality to the many visitors to London, and in her other communities she engaged in activities in the parish.
In 1995 Amy moved to Hayes, where she remained for eighteen years, apart from two spent in Floriana in Malta, living her retirement as actively and enthusiastically as possible. She knew all the bus routes – and regular drivers and passengers! – and was well-liked by parishioners, whom she welcomed at post-Mass tea and coffee, and the elderly people at a club where she volunteered.
By 2013 Amy’s energy was beginning to diminish, and she moved to Duchesne House, across the road from the convent where she had entered the Society 74 years earlier. She missed Hayes very much, but gave herself generously to her new community and its very different life and schedule, attending and supporting as many community gatherings as she could. In 2018 she celebrated her 100th birthday with a big party; there were smaller parties for her next three birthdays, but by October 2021, she had begun to grow weary. Amy died very peacefully, accompanied by the prayers of her community. Maybe in her final journey to God, and at the end of such a long life, she could know the truth of words from her favourite hymn, which were sung at her requiem Mass:
O Lord, with your eyes set upon me,
gently smiling, you have spoken my name;
all I longed for I have found by the water,
at your side, I will seek other shores.
Amy Mary Anne Micallef Eynaud RSCJ, 17th October 1918 – 31st January 2022
Amy speaking in 2016 about her early years in the Society and experience of wartime.
