Staff of Auckland diocese paid their last respects to their much loved colleague Myra Crawford at a requiem Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral on September 19.
Mrs Crawford, 79, passed away on September 12. She had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn con-celebrated the Mass with Bishop Emeritus Denis Browne, vicar-general Msgr Bernard Kiely, Dean of the Cathedral Fr Peter Tipene andFr Anthony Malone, OFM, from the Auckland office of the Tribunal of the Catholic Church for New Zealand.
In his homily, Bishop Dunn reflected that Mrs Crawford, who worked for the diocese for 29 years, was for 25 years “day by day by day, a part of my life”.
He said he used to regard her as the “mother superior” of the diocesan centre. “But I’m thinking that with Myra, it’s probably more mother than superior because with her warm heart, she made our diocesan office very much a home where everyone who came — all new staff, any occasional visitors and all the regulars. We knew that Myra would do anything for us,” Bishop Dunn said.
Her daughter, Lianne Crawford, described Mrs Crawford as a person with “grace and dignity, poise and elegance and an unconditional generosity and kindness towards [those] whom she considered worse off” than herself, even in her final moments.
Her son, Grant Crawford, said Mrs Crawford organised every detail of her funeral and even wrote the eulogy to help him out.
This tidbit delighted everyone who knew her as it was so much like her to ease the way for everyone, as observed by Bishop Dunn.
Mr Crawford said his mother was blessed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 in recognition of her 20 years of service in the Church and was awarded the Benemerenti medal in
2017 by Pope Francis.
“I would say that mum just loved and gave and had zero ego. The world needs more Myras,” Mr Crawford said.
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