Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop

Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop was a teacher and the foundress of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart, who taught the children of poor families in rural Australia. She is the first canonized saint of Australia. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her as a virgin on August 8, the day of her death.

She was born on January 15, 1842, in Melbourne, the eldest of the eight children of Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald, Catholic immigrants from Scotland. The family lived in poverty, so already as a teenager Mary went to work, first in a stationery shop and then as a governess. She felt called to religious life, but she had to support her family.

In Penola, South Australia, she met Father Julian Tenison Woods, who became her spiritual director. Both of them wished that children from poor rural families could be taught free of charge. In 1866 Mary and two of her sisters began teaching in Penola in a stable converted by their brother; March 19, the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, is regarded as the beginning of the congregation. On August 15, 1867, in Adelaide, she professed religious vows and took the name Mary of the Cross.

The sisters lived simply and went wherever there was need: they taught without payment, and in Adelaide they opened the House of Providence for the elderly and for abandoned children. By 1869 there were already sixty of them. In 1871 the Bishop of Adelaide, formerly her friend and benefactor, excommunicated her for alleged disobedience, and many sisters were sent away. Mary accepted this calmly. The bishop lifted the penalty before his death, less than six months later.

In 1873 she traveled to Rome and met Pope Pius IX three times. She sought to have the sisters placed under one Mother General so that they could work in any diocese. In Sydney, where she had to move, she was removed from the office of Mother General in 1885. The congregation received final approval in 1888, and the sisters were able to elect her again only in 1899. Yet she kept her respect for bishops and priests. She often said: “Never see a need without doing something about it.”

All her life she suffered from severe headaches. In New Zealand, at about the age of sixty, she suffered a stroke, after which she learned to write with her left hand and continued to lead the congregation. She died in Sydney on August 8, 1909. Cardinal Moran said that he had attended the deathbed of a saint. Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI prayed at her tomb in North Sydney.

John Paul II beatified her on January 19, 1995, in Sydney; she was the first Australian declared blessed. Benedict XVI canonized her on October 17, 2010, in Rome and recalled that her prayers to Saint Joseph and her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus helped her remain faithful to God and to the Church.