Maria Helen MacKillop (1842 - 1909)

Born 15 Jan 1842 in Newtown (Fitzroy), Port Phillip District, Colony of New South Wales

Ancestors

Died 8 Aug 1909 at age 67 in North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Mary MacKillop is Notable.

Mary Helen MacKillop RSJ also known as St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, is the only Australian to be recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint.^[1] Mary and the Reverend Julian Tenison Woods founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a congregation of religious sisters who established a number of schools and welfare institutions throughout Australia. On 17 July 2008 Pope Benedict XVI prayed at her tomb. Pope Benedict XVI approved the Catholic Church's recognition of a second miracle attributed to her intercession 19 December 2009. St. Mary MacKillop was canonised on 17 October 2010 during a public ceremony in St Peter's Square at the Vatican.

Mary Helen MacKillop was born on 15 January 1842 at Newtown, ^[2] which is now called Fitzroy, in the Port Phillip District (Victoria) of the then British colony of New South Wales (Australia). Her parents were Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald. She was baptised Maria Ellen, although she was always known as Mary.

Alexander MacKillop, Mary's father, was born in Perthshire, Scotland. He wanted to join the Catholic priesthood and had been educated at the Scots College in Rome and at Blairs College in Kincardineshire, but when he was 29, he left just before he was due to be ordained. In 1838, he migrated to Australia and arrived in Sydney. Mary's mother, Flora MacDonald, was born in Fort William, Scotland. She had migrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1840. Mary's parents were married in Melbourne on 14 July 1840. Mary was the eldest of their eight children.

Mary was sent to private schools and also educated by her father. She received her first holy communion at the age of eight on 15 August 1850. In February 1851, Alexander MacKillop returned to Scotland after mortgaging his farm. He was away for 17 months. Alexander's family did not go with him. He never was able to make a success of his farm. The family had to survive on the small wages which the children were able to bring home.

Mary was 14 when she started work as a clerk in a stationery store in Melbourne in 1860.^[3] She worked as governess for her aunt and uncle, Alexander and Margaret Cameron ^[4] in Penola, South Australia^[5] where she was to look after and teach her cousins. Mary included the other farm children on the Cameron estate, as she loved helping the poor whenever she could. This is where she met Reverend Julian Tenison Woods, who had been ordained in 1857 after completing his studies at Sevenhill.

Mary was with her aunt and uncle for two years before moving to Portland Victoria in 1862, where she taught children. In 1864, Mary was joined by the rest of her family after opening her own boarding school, Bay View House Seminary for Young Ladies, now Bayview College.

In 1866^[6] Reverend Julian Tenison Woods invited Mary and her sisters, Annie and Lexie, to come to Penola to open a Catholic school. Father Woods was appointed director of education. Father Woods and Mary opened the school in a stable. Mary's brother renovated the stables^[7] and the MacKillops started teaching more than 50 children. Mary made a declaration of her dedication to God and began wearing black.

Mary and her sisters were joined by several other women on 21 November 1866, Mary adopted the religious name of Sister Mary of the Cross and she and her sister Lexie began wearing ^[8]simple religious habits. They moved to a new house in Grote Street, Adelaide and began to call themselves the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. There they formed the first religious institute to be founded by an Australian at the request of the bishop, Laurence Bonaventure Sheil OFM. The Sisters' school was dedicated to the education of the children of the poor.

Ten more women joined the Josephites.^[9] They wore a plain brown religious habit. Because of the colour of their habit and their name, the Josephite sisters became known as the Brown Joeys.

The Josephite sisters wanted to provide education to all the poor. A school was opened at Yankalilla, South Australia in October 1867. The Sisters of St Joseph had more than 70 members by the end of 1869, Mary and her Josephites were also involved with an orphanage, neglected children, girls in danger, the aged poor, a reformatory, and a home for the aged and incurably ill. The Josephite sisters were prepared to follow farmers, railway workers, and miners into the isolated outback and live as they lived.

Mary and several other sisters travelled to Brisbane to establish the order in Queensland. Two years later in December 1869, she was in Port Augusta, South Australia to also set up a order. By 1871, there were 130 Sisters were working in more than 40 schools and charitable institutions across South Australia and Queensland.

Mary met with opposition throughout her life, from some people within the Church and some from outside the Church. She refused to attack those who wrongly accused her and undermined her work, but continued in the way she believed God was calling her and was always ready to forgive those who wronged her. Reverend Julian Tenison Woods had problems with some of the clergy over educational matters.^[10] One priest who had some influence over the bishop declared he would ruin the director through the Sisterhood. Mary was^[11] excommunicated by Bishop Sheil on 22 September 1871 for alleged insubordination. Most of the schools were closed and the Sisterhood almost disbanded. On 21 February 1872, by order of the bishop nine days before he died, the excommunication was removed.

Mary had many health problems during her life. She suffered from rheumatism. She had a stroke while she was in New Zealand and became paralysed on her right side. She had to rely on a wheelchair to move around for seven years. Mary died in the Josephite convent in North Sydney on 8 August 1909. The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Moran, said that he considered the day he was with her as onein which he assisted at the deathbed of a Saint. Mary was buried at the Gore Hill Cemetery. Her remains were exhumed on 27 January 1914, as people continually took earth from around her grave, and transferred to a vault before the Altar of the Virgin Mary in the newly built memorial chapel in Mount Street, Sydney.

The Mother Superior of the Sisters of St Joseph, Mother Laurence, began the process to have Mary MacKillop declared a saint in 1925, and Michael Kelly, Archbishop of Sydney, established a tribunal. The process for Mary MacKillop's beatification began in 1926. It began again in April 1951 and was closed in September of that year. After further investigations, Mary MacKillop's heroic virtue was declared in 1992. That year the Church endorsed the belief that Veronica Hopson, who was dying of leukaemia in 1961, was cured by praying for Mary MacKillop's intercession Mary MacKillop was beatified on 19 January 1995 by Pope John Paul II. On 19 December 2009, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued a papal decree formally recognising a second miracle, the complete cure of ^[12] Kathleen Evans of inoperable lung and secondary brain cancer in the 1990s.

Mary MacKillop was canonised on 17 October 2010. Over 8,000 Australians were present during the public ceremony in St Peter's Square at the Vatican.^[13] Mary MacKillop became the first Australian to be recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.

Sources

1. ↑ SBS News -The life of Mary MacKillop
2. ↑ Port Phillip Pioneers Group - NEWTOWN (FITZROY) IN THE 1840s Colony of New South Wales
3. ↑ Michael Journal.org - Mary of Australia St. Mary MacKillop (1842-1909) Beginnings
4. ↑ Penola Centre - Preserving Mary’s Early History Plans are well underway for the restoration of the Early Cameron Home where in 1860, an 18 year-old Mary MacKillop spent her early years as governess to her uncle and aunt Alexander and Margaret Cameron’s seven children
5. ↑ Visit Mary MacKillop.com - Where it all began - Penola
6. ↑ Catholic Australia -Father Julian Tenison Woods
7. ↑ ABC News -Photo of Mary MacKillop school site the stable where Mary MacKillop is believed to have established her school
8. ↑ Pamela Freeman books - Mary McKillop and The Black Dress
9. ↑ Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney - Mary MacKillop - 100 Years as Australia's Inspiration & Role Model
10. ↑ The Australian - Cover-up held back Mary MacKillop's cause for decades - Mary MacKillop's recognition as Australia's first saint might have come 20 years earlier if not for a delay that is still formally unexplained.
11. ↑ Saint Johns Reformatory Research Project - Mary MacKillop, the excommunication & the episcopol commision
12. ↑ The Sydney Morning Heald - Cancer survivor Kathleen Evans speaks of her Mary miracle
13. ↑ Cam.org.au -Mary MacKillop Australia's first canonised saint 17 October 2010

See also

• South Australia - Mary MacKillop Penola Centre - At the Mary MacKillop Penola Centre there is an interpretive centre with major exhibitions explaining the lives of Mary MacKillop and Julian Tenison Woods, priest and scientist. An exhibition in the Schoolhouse explains the early teaching methods of the Sisters of Saint Joseph that they co-founded in Penola.
• Mary pages.com - Saint Mary MacKillop first Australian Saint best known as Mother Mary of the Cross
• Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart- Mary MacKillop's Story 1842 - 1909
• Biography Mary Helen MacKillop - MacKillop, Mary Helen (1842–1909) by Osmund Thorpe This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, (MUP), 1974
• St Columban's Mission Society - Mary MacKillop - A mother's love among these letters, now kept at the archives of the Sisters of St Joseph in North Sydney, are many written between Mary and her mother .
• ABC News Mary MacKillop - Mary MacKillop Biography
• ABC Compass- 10 October 2010 Mary, Miracles and Saints - Story Presenter - Geraldine Doogue , Story producer - Mark Edmondson,Story researcher - Francoise Fombertaux
• ABC News - A bronze statue of Mary MacKillop stands in Adelaide as a reminder of her life's work.
• ABC News - Government to protect MacKillop's name The Federal Government says it will force companies to get ministerial approval before using or making a reference to Mary MacKillop in their name.
• Mary MacKillop Wikipedia