The eminent Ratzinger scholar and theologian of culture Professor Tracey Rowland, in her 2019 book Portraits of Spiritual Nobility: Chivalry, Christendom, and Catholic Culture (Angelico Press, 2019), unfurls in a series of intimate miniatures her memories of and respect for those cultures, movements and people who exemplify “spiritual nobility”.
These portraits are drawn from the epochal figures such as Pope St John Paul II and also from Professor Rowland’s own mentors and teachers.
The arc of these portraits illustrates what Professor Rowland means by “spiritual nobility”, and she ties together in this the huge thought of St Thomas Aquinas on virtues such as magnanimity (great and noble-spiritedness).
Professor Rowland threads through this what might be called the Augustinian concern for history, personal and cultural, and the contemplative response of the heart: both as will and the centre of affective responses. Spiritual nobility becomes an “ennobling force” not only for the person, but also for the world of music, art, architecture, liturgical life and beauty animated by the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. These themes are resonant in Pope Benedict XVI’s rich notion of spiritual nobility.
In one chapter on the culture of Belgium, she points out that spiritual nobility is the task of each generation and is often a fragile quality that can be lost along with a living Christian ethos and faith.
In both respects it seems that this quality is urgently needed for re-consideration post-2019, before the worldwide disruptions of pandemic and social dislocation.
Spiritual nobility is of course built upon the classical and human sense of what is noble, in the sense of fineness of bearing, integrity and courage.
Spiritual nobility is, in addition, faith and grace wrought and God-directed.
It is robust but never bullying. It is a personally distinct and sensitive quality, radiant in the lives of those who live their faith with moral and spiritual excellence. It is a virtue vital to any truly Christian “humanism”.
Professor Rowland, with quick and astute brushstrokes, shows that goodness and holiness are the opposite of the banal, boring or conformist. Spiritual nobility through grace enables people and cultures to stand above the herd, to be rich and original in the terrain of purpose and meaning, and to break through two-dimensional utilitarian, totalitarian and inhumane measures of success.
Some of Professor Rowland’s biographical insights can be heard in Mark Makowiecki’s TMC YouTube interview here.
Greatness grown on home soil
An Australian-born example of the social, cultural and historical impact of spiritual nobility taken to the even higher order with the Church’s recognition of a life of “heroic virtue” is that of Dr Sister Mary Glowrey, consecrated sister, medical doctor, missionary and healthcare reformer.
Last week, Pope Leo XIV announced that Mary, later Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart JMJ, was to be acknowledged as Venerable, the second stage in the Church’s formal process towards canonisation. She is only the second Australian following St Mary MacKillop of the Cross to reach this stage.
Mary was born to a devout Irish-Catholic family in the area near Colac, Victoria in the town of Birregurra on June 23, 1887. The family soon after settled further north around the Mallee region.
She was quiet but academically gifted, and through scholarships and the encouragement of her family, came to Melbourne during the Federation period to board and study firstly as an arts student and then a medical doctor. She worked as a doctor in Melbourne at St Vincent’s and other city hospitals, and in her own practice specialising in ophthalmology in Collins Street, Melbourne, also becoming the founding president of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild (CWSG, later the Catholic Women’s League of Victoria and Wagga Wagga).
Through the CWSG, Mary wrote and taught about social and health issues for women and children during the war years and about matters we would call today “bioethical”. In 1915 Mary realised that her vocation as both a Catholic and doctor drew her to the desperate health needs of women and children in India.
After further medical studies, resulting in a Doctor of Medicine at Melbourne University, she left in 1920 for India where she joined the initially Dutch order of the Society of Jesus Mary and Joseph.
With the canonical approval of Pope Benedict XV, she became the first sister doctor in modern times.
Working with her order out of Guntur in the Bangalore (Bengaluru) region of India as Sr Mary of the Sacred Heart, she established St Joseph’s Hospital, healthcare training programs, mobile medical units and many other initiatives. She encouraged local people, especially women, to education in nursing, pharmacy compounding and other healthcare fields.
Dr Mary spearheaded the formation of a Catholic network of hospitals, which today has become the Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI), India’s largest non-governmental healthcare network.
CHAI describes itself as maintaining a remarkable network of “11 Regional Units, 1,000 sister-doctors, 25,000 sister-nurses and 10,000 plus para professionals (who) effectively reach out to the needy and the poor across all states of the country”.
Dr Mary died in Bangalore in 1957 after which her order and the Church in India immediately recognised her holiness, and over the decades would build up the promotion of her cause for sainthood in Rome.
In Australia an interactive experience with the Venerable Dr Mary’s life is available at a museum established near one of her original workplaces in Melbourne.
A pictorial and historically annotated version of Dr Mary’s autobiography, The Autobiography of Dr Sr Mary Glowrey JMJ: ‘God’s Good for Nothing’, is available for purchase here.
TMC Wagga Day Conference, December 6, 2025
It is precisely encouraging people to truth and excellence that informs our “Out of the Shadows into Truth” Conference coming next weekend.
There is still time to book for this event.
The conference is designed to be a compact, helpful and hope-giving time for different age groups. Speakers include Monica Doumit, Patrick J. Byrne, Bernard Toutounji, the Conventual Sisters of St Dominic and myself.
See my discussion about the theme from a recent newsletter.
Download the program/poster here, and book via TryBooking here.
Please keep the Wagga Conference in your prayers. If you cannot attend but would like to support it financially, please give a donation to the TMC.
A blessed start to Advent to everyone!
Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre
