Essay On Mary Helen Mckillop

Mary Helen MacKillop was born in the suburb of Fitzroy in Melbourne on the 15th of January 1842. MacKillop was born to Alexander and Flora MacKillop, Catholic migrants originally from the Highland area of Scotland. The young Mary was educated at private schools but, mostly by her father, up until the age of 14 when she quit school to work and provide for her family. Through her parent’s devotion to the Catholic faith she became more and more involved in the Church and Catholic practices.
In the 1840’s Australia was going through a religious revolution, up until the turn of the decade the Church of England was the official religion and the only recognized faith of the colonies but in 1947 the Governor of New South Wales dismissed the Church

Act and established more rights for people’s of other faith’s including Catholics and Presbyterians who were now able to set up their own churches legally. After the dismissal the Church of England lost its grip on the colonies and many Churches were built mainly in Sydney and Melbourne around this time.
When Mary was 19 she accepted an offer to act as governess at an estate in Penola, South Australia.

Whilst there Mary set up a school in a disused barn there she educated the young children without exclusion and also did not dispel those with a means to pay for an education and those that did not. Whilst in Penola Mary on the 19th of March 1866, also on the feast of St. Joseph, Mary became a nun and from that day adopted the title of Mary of the Cross. She also became the first Australian woman to establish an order, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart, to administer their faith and values to working class Australians especially young

children.
At the time especially in the poorer working class like Mary would usually have worked as domestic servants to wealthier people, some woman started to work as teachers. Still at the when women were married they would dedicate their services and themselves to their husbands, children and their homes. Mary’s work at this time in history was revolutionary in terms of the treatment of women and their roles in society at the time. Mary’s work inspired many other women to go out and help those in the most need.

The sisters were thriving and were spreading across the country with the Bishop of Brisbane asking the sisters to set up religious communities in Queensland in 1869.

In 1871 Mary returned to Adelaide where her order was at the time, not doing well. When she arrived back many of the sisters in Adelaide felt cast out by the priests which at the were taking control of the sisters. In 1871 Bishop James Quinn set up a commission to examine the life and work of the sisters in Mary’s order. The proposition that had come out of the commission included making more professional and longer serving sisters, lay sisters. The commission also established that that each of the sisters convents should be put under control of local priests, these propositions were against the orders and Mary’s ideals. She was excommunicated by the bishop until his death.
After the initial difficulties in Australia, Mary traveled to Rome in 1873 in order to gain support to undo the new rules and regulations set out for the Sisters by travelling to the capital of the Roman Catholic Church, whilst there she met the Pope of the time Pope Pius IX who referred to her upon the two meeting as the ‘excommunicated one’. Whilst in Europe she travelled to visit her relatives in Scotland and visited many schools and churches in England and France. In 1874 she set sail back to Australia with a letter of approval from Rome for the with the structure of the sisters

institute.
At the time of Mary’s travels throughout Europe the Catholic Church had just seen the development of the First Vatican Council, which coincidentally was assembled by Pope Pius IX, Pius was also the President of the council. It was the 12th ecumenical council to assemble in Roma and was presented way’s to deal with the influences of rationalism, liberalism and materialism on the Roman Catholic Church and Catholic’s as a people. It was the first council to meet inside the Vatican with all of the proceedings taking place in the Vatican Basilica and also St. Peter’s Basilica. The council is supposedly best known for it’s decision to define Papal Infallibility witch meant that the Pope was free from making a wrong decision or judgment, this concept is considered dogma by the Catholic Church.
Mary arrived in Sydney with the need for more schools to be established by the sisters in the city was rising dramatically. The current Archbishop Moran had been appointed by the authorities in Rome to keep an eye on Bishop Reynolds of Adelaide and the Sisters. Moran established the Diocesan congregations would be more suitable to govern the institute (a diocese is a community which is put under control of a local Bishop mostly used in the Christian Church) thus the Bishop ordered that the Sisters be appointed a Mother General and her Council, Sister Bernard Walsh was appointed as Mother General for the Sisters. Even after all these tests were put toward her Mary never lost her faith in God.
The work of the Sisters was catching on in New Zealand and Western Australia and rural parts of Victoria, and in 1886 Mary spent time assisting the sisters in these new found places. While in New Zealand she received news of Sister Walshes death, Mary as assistant Mother General would hold a Chapter for the election of a new Mother General. Mary was elected and given the role a second time. Afterwards she continued to visit the communities set up by the sisters in New Zealand and Australia.
Mary’s health was degrading and she was advised to travel to Rotorua in New Zealand to regain her health in the the thermal baths of the area, whilst there Mary suffered a stroke which led to her being left with a permanent disability. On returning to Australia Mary was put to being recuperated but she still had contact with the sisters around Australia and New Zealand, she did in her frailty continue on some days manage to see children at the schools and orphanages. Mary in 1905 was again elected as the leader even with her health failing at this time much more then before, many of her responsibility’s were given to her assistant Sister La Merci. Mary died on the 8th of August 1909, in North Sydney.
Mary was one of the most important religious and female figures of the 1800’s she changed many people’s views, of course with hard work involved but managed to establish an order that cherishes the need for help in community in Australia as well as around the world. She was canonized in the 17th of October 2010 in Vatican City, Rome by the then Pope Benedict XVI, her feast is held on the 8th of August and there is a major shrine to her and the institute in the place where she died more then 100 years ago.