It’s hard to miss Mary Cain when she wanders along the street. People stop and stare. Children point. Cars slow to a crawl. Dogs bark. Wherever she goes, the 83-year-old turns heads.
For the past decade, Mary, a catechist in the parish of St Brendan and St Michael’s, Annandale and Stanmore, has been dying her hair the colour of the liturgical season.
“Green for Ordinary Time, red for Pentecost, white with a little bit of gold spray for Christmas and Easter, and purple for Advent and Lent,” Mary explains. “I dye it myself over the bathtub.”
Mary, who was raised in Brisbane, is the eldest of five children. In 1964 she moved to Sydney on her own to work as a secretary. Later she completed a degree in social work and also worked in aged care.
After retiring, she became a catechist; a position she has held for the past 20 years.
It was while teaching her students a class about the seasons of the church that she came up with the idea to dye her hair.
“I thought of it as a teaching aid, but it has become much more than that,” says Mary.
“It’s really good for evangelising. Every time I go out, somebody will ask me about it. And it starts a conversation, so I’m able to share a little about my faith.
“Many people will tell me they used to be Catholic and start talking to me about the reasons they left. If someone in the church has hurt them, I tell them never let the weakness of another person interfere with your relationship with God.”
Mary says her hair means she is often approached by people of different faiths.
“I met a young woman who was really keen to be a catechist, and asked me all about it, but it turned out she was a Pentecostal…so of course she couldn’t be a catechist for us.
“And while I was in a Jeans West shop the other day a woman started up a conversation and tried to convert me to become a Baptist.”
Mary says getting the colour just right is not always easy, especially when it comes to the green of Ordinary Time.
“It went blue on me the last time, because of the pigment in my hair,” she laughs. “So, I had to get a yellow from a brand called Good Dye Young and mix it to together to get the green. It was so bright, people thought I was supporting the Matildas.”