The Eucharistic mystery was a central component of Nano Nagle’s spirituality. Daily, before her the work of the day began; and later on her return, she knelt in silent adoration and pondered the mystery of love outpoured.
At Chapel every day, from five o’ clock in the morning until nine an during the Divine Sacrifice, (Mass) how unaffected her appearance – silent, motionless, absorbed in recollection…her evening devotions were as regularly prolonged in the same unaltered posture!
At Christmas during her spiritual retreat of eight days, which she made every year, and on Holy Thursday nights, which she spent on her knees in the presence of the Most Adorable Sacrament ‘till morning, what pain must she not have felt! (Bishop Coppinger, Life of Nano)
As she prayed did her heart recall the words of the Psalm: “Of you my heart has said, seek his face!?” (Ps 27) Was her mystic heart wrapped in wonder at the mystery hidden before her. Jesus, her Lord and Master had become a suffering, servant! Jesus says: “I have given you an example, so that you may copy what I have done.” (John 13)
Nano contemplated in stillness the fact that the Jesus, the Word had become flesh and embraced our human condition. He was vulnerable, wounded, rejected, and paid the ultimate price of self-donating love. For Nano, the celebration of the Eucharist whenever possible was not some private devotion, disconnected from her life’s enterprise. She took seriously the injunction given by Jesus: “Do this in memory of me.” Where is she to find the face of God, the broken body of Christ?
Fortified by her spiritual practices, she becomes loved poured out for the world. She in turn bows and bends before the broken body of Christ. Aided by the light of a lantern and her walking stick, this frail but passionate woman, walked the grubby, muddied, smelly laneways, and hovels of the poor and needy of Cork. Here, before her the face of God beckoned to her: “I was hungry, thirsty, poor, naked, imprisoned…and you visited me.” (Matthew 25)
Like Jesus, her Lord and Master, Nano was taken, blessed, broken and given over. Called by God and anointed with the Spirit, her journey was marked by trials, suffering, rejection, misunderstanding, scorn, and derision. She surrendered and gave all she had and possessed in loving service of God’s people: “Love is life that pours itself out.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar,Theo- Drama IV)
Every act of welcoming, compassionate loving service – in her schools, in the jails, the alleyways and hovels, all testified to her living Eucharist.