Nun Who Tended Sick in India to be Honored

London – A "living miracle" who founded an order of nuns in Brighton that went on to help thousands of sick and elderly in India and other parts of the world is being honored with an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire).

Mother Mary Garson, 83, is being acknowledged for her work as the Prioress–General of the Benedictine Sisters of Our Lady of Grace and Compassion.

The Brighton–based congregation's 200 sisters run five residential homes, a nursing unit and 13 schemes of retirement flats in Britain, four foundations in India, three in Sri Lanka and a home in Kenya.

Sisters at the hospital in India help more than 40,000 patients in a single year.

The nun was, however, unable to attend the Buckingham Palace MBE presentation ceremony because she was visiting the congregation's convents in India.

Archbishop Pablo Puente, the Pope's representative in Britain, described her and her congregation's work as "a living miracle".

Marking the 50th year after she started the Catholic congregation Mother Mary will be made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for "services in the care of others in southern England and overseas".

"I am of course happy to be acknowledged and feel the MBE reflects not just my work but that of my sisters and all our helpers,” Mother Mary said. "I'm delighted it matches the one given to my late father for his services as harbour master at Invergordon, Scotland, where I grew up.”

"I'm particularly proud of the growth of the congregation since we started in Brighton 50 years ago," she reminisced.

Mother Mary, an educational psychologist, began her humanitarian work in 1954 when she opened a home for the elderly and infirm.

In April 2002, Mother Mary received the Papal Award Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice for services to the Church and the Pope.