St. Mary MacKillop

Who they were

Mary MacKillop was a Melbourne born daughter of Scottish immigrants who, with Fr. Julian Tenison Woods, founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart in 1866: an order designed against type, with sisters living poor among the poor, in twos and threes across the outback, teaching any child who came, governed centrally by their own superior rather than by each local bishop.

That last provision lit the fuse. In 1871 the Bishop of Adelaide, misadvised by clergy hostile to the Josephites, a hostility historians link in part to the sisters' role in exposing an abusive priest, excommunicated her for alleged insubordination. Mary, thirty nine, made no public defence, forbade her sisters to campaign, and waited. Five months later the dying bishop rescinded the sentence and an episcopal commission fully exonerated her. She went to Rome, secured papal approval of her rule over local opposition, and spent the rest of her life expanding the schools. By her death in 1909 there were over a hundred across Australia and New Zealand.

Why people turn to St. Mary MacKillop

Anyone wrongly disciplined by an institution they still love: the employee, the volunteer, the priest. Her five silent months are the patronage and her vindication is its promise. Teachers in poor, rural, and underfunded schools.

How to ask their intercession

Under the unjust sanction, her discipline is the hard grace to ask for: no campaign, and full continuance of the work. Her own motto is the other half. Never see a need without doing something about it.