New Saint : Mary of the Cross

In Rome today, Pope Benedict XVI will canonise Mary MacKillop and she will become the first Australian-born saint.

Taken from the 26 Sept 2010 weekly newsletter of St. Bernadette's Parish Community.

Mary Helen MacKillop was born in Fitzroy, Victoria on 15 January 1842. When baptised six weeks later, she received the names Maria Ellen. Her father, Alexander, was educated in Rome for the Catholic priesthood but, at the age of 29, left just before his ordination. He decided to migrate to Australia and arrived in Sydney in 1838. Her mother, Flora MacDonald, left Scotland and arrived in Melbourne in 1840.

They were married in Melbourne on 14 July 1840 and eventually Mary was born, followed by another seven children: Margaret (Maggie) 1843-1872, John 1845-1867, Annie 184801929, Lexie (Alexandrina) 1850-1882, 1850-1882, Donald 1853-1925, Alick who died only 11 months old and Peter 1857-1878. Donald would later become a Jesuit priest and work among the aborigines in the Northern Territory and Lexie became a nun.

Mary, the eldest of their children, was educated at private schools and by her father. She received her First Holy Communion on 15 August 1850 at the unusually early age of 9. In February 1851, Alexander MacKillop left his family behind after having mortgaged the farm and their livelihood and made a trip to Scotland lasting some 17 months. Throughout his life he was a loving father and husband but never able to make a success of his farm. He was even worse as a politician or at any kind of job. During most of the times the family had to survive on the small wages the children were able to bring home.

MacKillop started work at the age of 14 as a clerk in Melbourne and later as a teacher in Portland. To provide for her needy family she took a job as governess in 1860 at her aunt and uncle's place at Penola in South Australia. She was to look after their children and teach them. Already set on helping the poor whenever possible, she included the other farm children on the Cameron estate as well.

This brought her into contact with Father Julian Tenison Woods, who had been the parish priest in the south east since his ordination to the priesthood in 1857 after completing his studies at Sevenhill.

Woods had been very concerned about the lack of education, and particularly Catholic education, in South Australia. When he started his school he was soon appointed director of education and became the founder, with Mary, of the Sisters of St Joseph who would teach in his schools.

MacKillop stayed for two years with the Camerons of Penola before accepting a job teaching the Cameron children of Portland, Victoria. Later she taught at the Portland school and, after opening her own boarding school, 'Bay View House Seminary for Young Ladies', now Bayview College, in 1864, was joined by the rest of her family. While teaching at Portland, Father Woods invited MacKillop and her sisters Annie and Lexie to come to Penola and open a Catholic school there. In 1866, a school was opened in a stable and, after renovations by their brother, the MacKillops started teaching more than fifty children. In the same year, at age 25, she adopted the religious name Sister Mary of the Cross.

In 1867, MacKillop became the first sister and mother superior of the newly formed order of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and moved to the new convent in Grote Street, Adelaide. There, they founded a new school at the request of Bishop Laurence Sheil. Dedicated to the education of the children of the poor, it was the first religious order to be founded by an Australian. The rules written up by Father Woods and MacKillop for the sisters to live by were: An emphasis on poverty, a dependence on divine providence, no ownership of personal belongings and faith that God would provide and the sisters would go wherever they were needed. The rules were approved by Bishop Sheil. By the end of 1867, ten other sisters had joined the Josephites.

In an attempt to provide education to all the poor, particularly in country areas, a school was opened at Yankalilla in October 1867. By the end of 1869, more than 70 Sisters were educating children at 21 schools in Adelaide and the country. MacKillop and her Josephites were also involved with an orphanage; neglected children; girls in danger; the aged poor; a reformatory (in Johnstown near Kapunda); a home for the aged and incurably ill. Generally, the Sisters were prepared to follow farmers, railway workers and miners into the isolated outback and live as they lived. They shared the same hardships whilst educating their children.

In 1871, they also established a school in Burra. During this eventful year, MacKillop was excommunicated by Bishop Sheil, who was against most of the things she had fought for, on the grounds that "she had incited the sisters to disobedience and defiance". The rule of life MacKillop had adopted when she founded the Josephites was a source of tension between the order and the church hierarchy. Bishop Sheil did not approve of the sisters' way of life, while MacKillop believed that she was following a call from God. As director of education, Father Tenison Woods came into conflict with other members of the clergy over educational practices, adding to the tension between the Josephites and the bishop.

In September 1871, the day after a meeting with Father Charles Horan, Sheil excommunicated MacKillop for insubordination and attempted to disband the sisters. Shortly before his death, Sheil instructed Fr Hughes, on 23 February 1872, to lift the censure on MacKillop. He met her on his way to Willunga and absolved her in the Morphett Vale church. Later, an Episcopal Commission completely exonerated her. Father John.