Opinion Articles

SOUL MATTERS: Mary has battled her way into Aussie soul
By Sr Ellen Royan rsj

The interest raised by the announcement on Sunday morning that a second miracle had been attributed to Mary MacKillop, and so opened the way to the final stage of canonization by the church, is not surprising to anyone who is familiar with the story of this steadfast woman. Coverage of the facts of her life is widespread now and her name is a familiar one throughout the length and breadth of Australia and beyond. In many ways she epitomized the image of the ‘little Aussie battler’ that is part of the psyche of Australians.

From her earliest years she had the experience of struggle – struggle to keep the family together in the face of encroaching poverty, struggle to put enough food on the table, struggle to preserve the dignity of those she held dear. It was this struggle, I think, that put iron in the blood of Mary Helen MacKillop. Bishops might later call her a ‘very troublesome woman’ when they came up against the will and determination that so marked her efforts to meet the needs of poor rural families that she founded - with Father Julian Edmund Tenison Woods - an order of dedicated women who were fired up by the vision she shared.

The enterprise and courage that marked her early endeavours was not always appreciated at the time and, as so often happens, it is only in hindsight that the depth of her commitment and dogged battling spirit is seen for what it is worth. Much is spoken about her standing up to the authorities of the times who did not share her new fangled ideas about religious congregations and the suitability of how they should work.

But these incidents were only the public face of a much deeper commitment that ran through the grind of her daily life. In the light of glory shed backwards from impending canonization, we can see her heroically enduring ill health, betrayal by friends, misunderstanding by some of her own sisters, always ready to reach out to those in need, travelling immense distances to be with those in distress or sickness, begging for bare necessities to bring her dreams to fruition.

It also shows the playful Mary who enjoyed a wide circle of friends of all shades of opinion, religions and social standing; the Mary who could take on the august principalities of Rome to gain recognition for what she held to be essential for Australian conditions of the time; the Mary who delighted in reconnecting with her family roots in the Highlands of Scotland and the Mary who loved her family and grieved over all their sorrows. Hers was a life that was indeed marked by the Cross.

All this is what goes into the making of a saint, I’m sure. Yet it is the human face of Mary MacKillop that really appeals to me. Her letters reveal just how hard she found it to accept the mean little things of daily relationships that inevitably cropped up as she tried to meet all the needs that cried out to her. At this time when families come together to celebrate Christmas, it is often also a time when hurt and old wounds come to the surface to sour the festivities. This is the sort of thing that Mary knew . Saintliness was not for ‘wusses’! Biting back the quick judgement, quietly helping to ease a load, pretending deafness when harsh words could cut to the heart, refusing to be offended by careless remarks – these are the tools used to sculpt the outlines that in time become the statue of a saint.

But don’t let the beauty of statues and portraits seduce you! The real saint is the same flesh and blood that reads these words now. It is little wonder that the miracle we are now celebrating came about with a minimum of fuss in an ordinary suburb of the working class city of Newcastle in the Hunter Valley, coal mine for the world. Nor for Mary’s miracle the hallowed halls of capital cities and marbled mansions. But a miracle is a miracle and today a woman stands whole and well - years after doctors had written her off; an ordinary woman, a mother, wife and grandmother; a humble woman who doesn’t know why she was chosen but who quietly holds a flame in her heart that lights up her inner vision of this other woman whom soon we will call Saint Mary of the Cross.

Sr Ellen Royan RSJ is the Vicar General of the Sisters of St Joseph, Lochinvar.

This article is submitted by the Churches Media Association www.cmahunter.com.au.

*This article was published in The Herald, 23rd December 2009