Today is the feast day of Australia’s first and only saint, Mary of the Cross, who was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI on 17 October 2010.
Mary Helen MacKillop (baptised Maria Ellen), the oldest of eight children, was born in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1842 to Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald who had migrated to Australia from Scotland.
With Father Julian Tenison Woods, Mary founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of female religious which was approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1888. The congregation established many schools for the education of children from poor families, particularly in rural areas.
In 1871 Adelaide Archbishop Lawrence Bonaventure Sheil excommunicated Mary for supposed disobedience and closed most of her schools, but the sentence was later rescinded and Mary was completely exonerated by an episcopal commission.
Mary died on the 8th of August 1909 in the Josephite convent in North Sydney and was interred at the nearby Gore Hill Cemetery. In 1914 her body was exhumed and translated to a vault in a newly built memorial chapel in Mount Street in Sydney.
Saint Mary of the Cross is the patroness of the city of Brisbane and of the Knights of the Southern Cross, a fraternal order of laymen which promotes the Catholic way of life and operates many aged care facilities throughout Australia.
Mary Helen MacKillop (baptised Maria Ellen), the oldest of eight children, was born in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1842 to Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald who had migrated to Australia from Scotland.
With Father Julian Tenison Woods, Mary founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of female religious which was approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1888. The congregation established many schools for the education of children from poor families, particularly in rural areas.
In 1871 Adelaide Archbishop Lawrence Bonaventure Sheil excommunicated Mary for supposed disobedience and closed most of her schools, but the sentence was later rescinded and Mary was completely exonerated by an episcopal commission.
Mary died on the 8th of August 1909 in the Josephite convent in North Sydney and was interred at the nearby Gore Hill Cemetery. In 1914 her body was exhumed and translated to a vault in a newly built memorial chapel in Mount Street in Sydney.
Saint Mary of the Cross is the patroness of the city of Brisbane and of the Knights of the Southern Cross, a fraternal order of laymen which promotes the Catholic way of life and operates many aged care facilities throughout Australia.
