click here to see all the Saints for today
Blessed Mary MacKillop
(also known as Marie Ellen MacKillop; Mother Mary of the Cross;Maria Ellen MacKillop)
Commemorated on 8 August
Eldest child of poor Scottish emigrants Alexander and Flora MacKillop.Her father had studied for the priesthood, but was never ordained.Educated at private schools and by her father.To help support her family, she worked as a nursery governess and store clerk while still in her teens. Tutor in Melbourne. Teacher at Portland School #510 in 1862.Established a Seminary for Young Ladies in her home.Known for her holiness, her constant work in the local church, and for turning to prayer before making decisions.Mary felt a call to the religious life, but felt obligated to continue teaching to help support her family.However, a scandal caused by a jealous and corrupt education official gave her reason to leave the school without guilt, and still have the backing of her family.Mary and her sister moved to Penola.There Mary met Father Julian Woods with whom she opened a free Catholic school for the poor.Co-founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart in 1866, Australia s first religious order, which was to educate poor children in remote areas; the order received episcopal approval in 1868.She soon had seventeen schools under her care.Her independence and social ideas concerned Church authorities, and she was ordered by her bishop, who believed some exagerrated stories about Mary, to turn over control of the schools and her order.She refused, and was excommunicated in 1871.Mary was crushed, but never blamed Church officials; she prayed some good would come from the action, and suffered through it.The bishop apologized in 1872, and returned her to full communion.Visited the Pope in 1873, and travelled through England, Ireland and Scotland to seek funds for her schools.Superior-general of her order in 1875.Travelled from house to house in the order for the rest of her life, working for improved education for the poor, and general conditions for the Aborigines.Her order continues its good work today with hundreds of sisters in Australia, New Zealand, and Peru.A prolific correspondent, over 1,000 of her letters have survived.In 1961 a woman with leukemia was cured after a group prayed to Sister Mary.Likely to become Australia s first native born saint.
Born: 15 January 1842 at Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia as Maria Ellen MacKillop Died: 8 August 1909 at Sydney, Australia following a stroke; relics transferred to a vault at the Mother of God in the Memorial Chapel, Mount Street, Sydney Beatified: 19 January 1995 by Pope John Paul II Canonised: pending