In 1932, Fr LH Barry was the first Catholic priest to visit Tristan (he was Catholic chaplain on HMS Carlisle). Aggie hadn’t seen a priest for 23 years. He reported that “She heard Mass and went to the Sacraments, and her joy was great and touching to see.” The next recorded visit of a priest was in 1955. He wrote: “On Tristan da Cunha, the world’s loneliest island, I heard the first Confession of children too young to remember what a priest looks like. They were better prepared than many of the children who live within sight of city churches.
“ ‘Did they do all right?’ Agnes Rogers anxiously asked me.
“‘Yes, Grannie Aggie – God bless you – they did splendidly!’
“Agnes has lived most of her life beyond the reach of priest and sacrament.
Nevertheless, Sunday after Sunday, she tries, humbly, to instil into her kin something of her own simple greatness.”
We are now preparing to set Granny Aggie on the path to canonisation, but for the islanders she is a saint already.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/march-16th-2018/the-most-remote-parish-on-earth/I think we should all live the holiness that would set us on the path to canonization.