Mary MacKillop

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Portrait from 1869

Mary Helen MacKillop , b. Maria Ellen MacKillop , religious name Maria of the Cross , (born January 15, 1842 in Melbourne , † August 8, 1909 in Sydney ), was an Australian religious sister . Sister Mary of the Cross was a co-founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart ("Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart"). She is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church .

Life

Childhood and first job

Mary Helen MacKillops parents, Alexander MacKillop (1812–1868) and Flora Hannah MacDonald (1816–1886), emigrated from Scotland to Australia in the late 1830s , where they married on July 14, 1840 in Melbourne . Her father, who was born on Ardnamurchan , had arrived in Sydney on January 20, 1838, on board the Brilliant . Flora had come to Australia with her mother Catherine and brother Donald aboard the Glen Huntley . She came from the small town of Glenfinnan .

Mary Helen was born on January 15, 1842, the eldest of eight children in Fitzroy, Melbourne. At her father's instigation, Mary Helen enjoyed a good education at private schools and was also taught by her father, who had studied as a seminarian in Rome for several years. He is described as an intelligent and hardworking student. He was also carefree about financial issues and was often fired for his stubbornness. When Mary was nine years old, he took out a mortgage on the family farm to pay for a trip to Scotland to see a dying friend whom he had long since promised this assistance. When he returned after seventeen months, the family had lost the farm. On the one hand, Mary learned to appreciate integrity and strength of character through him, on the other hand, as the oldest child of the chronically lacking family, she was forced to look after her siblings and support the family financially from an early age.

Therefore, Mary MacKillop started working as a saleswoman at the age of 14. For a short time she also worked as a teacher in Portland , Victoria , before she was hired as a nanny for relatives in Penola, South Australia . In addition to their children, she also looked after and taught other farm children from the area. Through this activity she came in contact with Father Julian Tenison-Woods, who was very concerned about education in his area. He founded a school and offered her a job as a teacher, which she was initially unable to accept because she still had to support her family. With the help of some family members, Mary MacKillop opened a boarding school and thus ensured that her family could look after her long term. In 1866 she and her sisters Annie and Alexandrina founded a Catholic school in Penola at the invitation of Father Tenison-Woods. The school was housed in a former stable that one of her brothers had restored. At times they taught more than 50 children.

Founding of the order

In 1867, Sr. MacKillop and Fr. Tenison-Woods founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart , which was active in the education of children from poor families. The Rule of the Congregation was approved by Bishop Sheil, and by the end of the year ten sisters had already entered the new community led by Sr. Mary of the Cross. In the years that followed, the congregation grew rapidly. By the end of 1869, 70 sisters were teaching in a total of 21 schools in different parts of Australia and New Zealand . The order now also ran an orphanage and looked after the poor.

Excommunication and trip to Europe

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In 1871 Sr. Maria von Kreuz was excommunicated by Bishop Sheil on the grounds that she incited her sisters to disobey in schools. Shortly before his death in February 1872, however, he reversed the excommunication six months later. The following year Sr. Maria traveled to Rome because of the papal approval of the rule of the order. In several audiences she was welcomed by Pope Pius IX. encouraged. She also visited numerous schools to find out about the latest teaching methods. After almost two years of absence, she returned to Australia in 1875 with a heavily modified rule of the order. She also brought with her several priests and 15 new candidates from Ireland for the Congregation. On her return, she was unanimously elected Superior General.

Opposition from priests and deteriorating health

By 1877, the Order had grown to 40 schools in Adelaide and the surrounding area alone . Despite her successes, Sr. Maria was unpopular with priests and bishops. They favored a hierarchical structure and criticized the egalitarian approaches in the internal organization of the congregation. Some bishops tried to bring the sisters in their respective dioceses under their influence and opposed Sister MacKillop leading the community from Adelaide. Bishop Reynolds of Adelaide was also unhappy with Sr. Maria's leadership of the congregation. He ordered Sr. Maria to leave his diocese. Because of this, the Congregation moved its seat to Sydney, even though the Archbishop of Sydney was unsatisfactory. Without legitimation, he appointed another sister to lead the congregation. After her death 14 years later, Mary MacKillop was re-elected Superior General, an office she held until her death.

Her health deteriorated noticeably in the last years of her life. Sr. Maria itt with rheumatism . In 1902 she suffered a stroke that paralyzed her on one side and confined her to a wheelchair. Nevertheless, a few years later she was confirmed in her office as Superior General in an election. She died on August 8, 1909. By this time the congregation had already grown to almost 1,000 sisters.

Adoration

Because of numerous complications in the beatification process , it was not until 1992 that a miracle at the intercession of Mary McKillop could be demonstrated. The surprising recovery of a dying woman with leukemia in 1961 was selected from a variety of reports . Her case was examined in 1992 by the Consulta Medica medical commission of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. In November 1992 the Congregation, after examining all records including hospital records, confirmed that there was no medical explanation for the subsequent recovery. On January 19, 1995, Sr. Mary of the Cross was beatified as the first and so far only person from Australia and Oceania by Pope John Paul II at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney. Pope Benedict XVI canonized MacKillop on October 17, 2010 . Her feast day in the liturgy of the Catholic Church is August 8th. When the first Australian saints were canonized, around 8,000 Australians were present in St. Peter's Square.

As earth was continually being removed from her grave by pilgrims, her remains were moved to the chapel of the Motherhouse of the Joseph Sisters in North Sydney in 1914 . The chapel is now a popular pilgrimage site as Mary MacKillop Place . During World Youth Day 2008 , the chapel was the main place of pilgrimage. In addition, Sister Mary has been named a Patron Saint for World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008.

Numerous institutions in Australia are subordinate to the patronage of Mary MacKillops, including several colleges. St. Mary MacKillop is the patron saint of the Knights of the Southern Cross - Australia, a Catholic brotherhood .

See also

literature

  • Osmund Thorpe: Mary McKillop: The Life of Mother Mary of the Cross, Foundress of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart . London: Burns & Oates, 1957
  • William Modystack: Mary MacKillop. A Woman Before Her Time . Adelaide: Rigby, 1982
  • Paul Gardiner: Mary MacKillop: An Extraordinary Australian . EJ Dwyer, 1994

Web links

Commons : Mary MacKillop  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Notes / individual evidence

  1. ↑ MacKillop, Mary
  2. ↑ http://www.zenit.org/article-13692?l=german  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.zenit.org  
personal data
SURNAME MacKillop, Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mary of the Cross; Mary of the Cross; MacKillop, Mary Helen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian sister, founder of the order
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH Melbourne
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1909
Place of death Sydney