Saint Mary MacKillop Feast Day 2019
August 8, 2019Greetings on the feast of Saint Mary MacKillop.
As we celebrate Mary MacKillop’s feast day, let us celebrate how she was a woman who raised the powers of love in her time and continues to inspire us to do the same in our day. Love was at the heart of all that Mary did. She recognised that the source of her love had its origin in God. She knew deeply within her that:
1 John 4:16
From this spiritual source she drew the energy to be a heartbeat of God’s love in the world especially for those most disadvantaged in our society.
Mary loved all with an undivided heart. As Pope John Paul II said during his 1995 visit to Australia for her beatification:
Hers was a spirituality of the heart, holding in balance a contemplative stance with a concern for justice. Mary entered the mystery of God’s love and allowed herself to be transformed by it in order to assist the voiceless to find their voice. Mary was indeed a woman who remained grounded in the reality of life, and through all her experiences learnt to ‘act justly, love tenderly and to walk humbly with God’ (Micah 6:8). She rolled up her sleeves, got her hands dirty and responded to the cries of those who struggled in life.
An example of how Mary MacKillop raised the power of love occurred when Mary and Sister Helena McCarthy were on their way to the city. Sister Helena shared this story. “We were waiting at the corner of the Street near Mount Street Post Office for a tram. A young woman came staggering along and at last reached and rested by the stone wall on the side of the footpath. I naturally thought the woman was intoxicated, but Mother’s quick eye detected something more serious. She said to me ‘Come along, dear and see what is wrong with this poor woman.’ On getting up to her we found the woman was very ill. Mother asked if she could do anything for her. The woman said if she could get to the chemist’s nearby, she knew what would relieve her. The three of us then went to the chemist’s where the patient was attended to and we waited until she felt better”. [2]
On this feast day let us, like Mary MacKillop, be women and men who raise the powers of love. Recently I was having a cup of coffee with one of our sisters and I asked her what she had been doing. She replied that she had just come from a meeting of ‘Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children’. Their work is based around the safety and protection for innocent children living in the experience of detention centres. On another day, I visited the office of the Sisters of Saint Joseph Congregational Administration Centre to find the staff knitting over lunch. They told me that they were joining others around our country who belong to the organisation ‘Wrap with Love’. Joining in movements such as these is one way of continuing to give expression to Mary MacKillop’s vision for living the Gospel.
On this feast day may you be inspired like Saint Mary MacKillop to make a difference in someone’s life by raising the powers of love through an act of everyday kindness.
May your day be filled with the joy and love that filled the heart of Saint Mary MacKillop.
Sr Monica Cavanagh rsj
Congregational Leader
[1] Pope John Paul II, 20 January 1995 at Beatification ceremony Randwick
[2] Sister Helena McCarthy – Memories of Mary by those who knew her p 71, 2010
A Day in the Life: Josephite Associate
The Vocation of being a Josephite Associate.
From being educated in Josephite schools and spending nearly 40 years as an educator in them I have truly been immersed in Josephiteness! I can’t recall who invited me along to an Associates’ gathering; I just seemed to slide into this movement and have remained deeply involved ever since.
To have a vocation is to have a mission in life, an inclination to follow a particular path. From a young age I felt drawn to teaching. Being a teacher in Catholic schools provided me with opportunities to deepen my own faith as I shared my knowledge and belief with the children I was teaching and through my involvement in school and parish life.
When I became an Associate, this added a further dimension and focus to my faith life. It provided me with the opportunity to meet and share my Catholic faith with others, enabling me to become more aware of Mary MacKillop’s story and learn about her legacy through the sisters who continued this legacy through their lives of commitment and service. Being a Josephite Associate has given me a sense of belonging, of feeling connected to like-minded people who share a spirituality that gives me focus and energy. There is great value in being surrounded and supported by others, both sisters and Associates, who share a common bond, namely that of living the Gospel with a Josephite Heart.
This connectedness has allowed to arise other opportunities that have given meaning and sustenance to my life and faith and have enabled me to feel valued and able to contribute to the wider Josephite story and so, ‘to further the reign of God’ (Associates’ Mission Statement). My involvement made it possible for me to develop my skills in leadership within SA Associates and beyond; it has helped to shape my contribution and leadership in schools in the Josephite tradition so as to ensure that those communities came to know and hopefully be inspired by the example of Mary MacKillop. In later years I have also felt drawn to become further immersed in the Josephite story through becoming a Covenant Josephite.
Now as a part of our International Josephite Associate Leadership Team (IJALT) I am very aware of the privilege and responsibility that I and others who are Associates have in enabling others to know and share in the Josephite charism. I feel strongly that I carry this tradition in my heart and the challenge for me is to make a difference in the lives of others because of it and to assist our Associates to recognize this gift within themselves.
Two years ago I was invited to travel to Peru to meet up with Associates there. At that time, one of the Associates from Lima was the person who took Mary’s story to a distant town and showed me how, from that encounter an Associate group was established. Prior to Maria’s going there, no sisters had been to Cajabamba. It was Maria who carried the story and shared the charism in a new place to enable others to share in it. Happenings such as this provide me with the impetus to keep encouraging Associates to know that we too can make a difference. I truly have been blessed to be ‘caught up in the Josephite net’!
Mary Hemmings
Fr Julian: Man of Words – Letter Seven
August 7, 2019
Have you ever been into a large underground cave? This month Father Julian invites us to share his experience of exploring the caves of Mosquito Plains, near Naracoorte, South Australia in 1857.
Excursion to Mary MacKillop Place
Boundless, a young adults group from the Northern Suburbs of Sydney, recently visited Mary MacKillop Place, North Sydney to learn more about Saint Mary MacKillop.
With Saint Mary MacKillop’s Feast Day approaching on 8 August, I thought it was a great opportunity to organise and invite members of my young adults group ‘Boundless’ to an excursion to Mary MacKillop Place.
Sainthood Comes in Moments
August 6, 2019This month of August, during which we celebrate the 110th anniversary of Saint Mary MacKillop’s death, is a timely reminder that all of us are called to be saints – here and now! Mary understood this – and her entire life reflected this understanding.
In 1870, as an earnest 28 year-old, Mary shared her insights about living saints with her ‘own dear Mamma’:
Little could the youthful Mary have every imagined that she would become Australia’s first canonised saint so many years later!
In this month’s reflection from the Little Brown Book Too, the authors, Sue and Leo Kane, provide us with another reminder that Earth is meant to be full of living saints, and that our ‘Sainthood comes in moments’.
Sister Ethelberga, Mary’s nurse, said of her: ‘I never knew her to speak an unkind word to anybody. Neither would she permit any Sister to do so in her hearing.’
As we go about our days, we teach, not so much by preaching lessons, as by the way we are in this world. Our way of seeing things and people will come through in our responses. Mary knew this instinctively:
A very young Sister Laurence (who later became the third Superior General of the Sisters) once said to Mary: “Mother, I think you are especially kind to people who give you trouble and worry.” “Ah, you little rogue!” was the lovely reply of a compassionate and human Mary.
Sainthood comes in moments: of gentleness, of humour, of kindness, of times when we choose to do the loving thing. And for our ‘companions on the journey’, such moments help to keep their hope alive.
The above is an extract from The Little Brown Book Too (pages 32-33)
© Sue and Leo Kane 2011. Introduction Mary Ryan rsj.
Used with the kind permission of the publishers, St Paul’s Publications
Available online and from some Mary MacKillop Centres.
Download the print version of this reflection (PDF)
Pathways into Josephite Community and Commitment
August 4, 2019
National Vocations Awareness Week: 4-11 August 2019
Years ago, a young aboriginal boy, overhearing a conversation in our Josephite kitchen asked, “What’s a Chapter?” A sister replied, ‘It’s a kind of Nun’s Parliament!’ Though we chuckled, his question struck a chord and pushed us to a fuller, more reflective explanation:
Click here to continue reading
Pathways into Josephite Community and Commitment
Religious Life in a Time of a Paradigm Shift
National Vocations Awareness Week: 4-11 August 2019
Religious Life is evolving in a Context of a Paradigm Shift.
For me, Religious life has been a fulfilling, challenging, stretching, disillusioning, confusing, enlightening and personally transforming journey of the gradual discovery of the meaning of living to my full potential this ‘one wild and precious life’ [1] that I have been given. The phrase, ‘a vocation to Religious Life,’ when I joined the Josephites in the early 60’s meant to me the ‘giving of my whole self to God and to what matters to God’. The gospel call of justice for all peoples seemed simple and clear and with youthful enthusiasm, joy and trust I ventured forth with many others to be a gospel witness and to make a difference. Maybe in that attitude there was a hint of seeming arrogance of which I was completely ignorant at the time!
Behold, Vatican 2 Council (1961 – 64) called for Renewal in the whole of the Catholic Church including the renewal of Religious Congregations! This initiated us into the beginning of a paradigm shift in how we understood our Christian story, church, mission and religious life in a wholly different way. The Church and therefore Religious Life was now seen to be IN the Modern World not apart from it. Again, with youthful confidence I, with many others, became involved in Renewal Groups, new Catechetical approaches, justice and peace groups, theology courses/degrees and social justice action.
It turned out to be a journey of over 55 years where the new horizons and renewal could be described as bringing both ‘light and darkness’. In a paradigm shift everything changes. Reaction to the changes in society, Church and Religious Congregations soon became evident. The ministry of sisters was more concentrated on the individual’s passion and gifts as a response to the seen ‘need’ rather than belonging together as a group of sisters in a school or other mission. Sisters and others experimented in ways to be an ‘intentional community’ for mission. Others found their passion in justice ministry, pastoral ministry, spirituality ministry, administrative ministry, rural ministry and others. Sister-companions left to follow the gospel call in a different way, priests argued to have the option of marriage, young people explored other spiritualities or found the Church not relevant to their lives and most challenging of all the acknowledgement eventually came of Church cover-ups of Priest child abuse. I wavered, like many others, from certainty to uncertainty, trust to doubt and experienced the call of courage to stay in the ‘shadow’ or darkness where transformation often takes place. As the Psalmist says: ‘To God the light and darkness are the same’.
Katrina Brill rsj
Continue reading article here:
Religious Life in a Paradigm Shift
Beyond the Crossroads Book by Amy Hereford, CSJ, JD, JCD might be of interest
Photo by Ulrike Mai obtained from Pixabay. Used with permission.
In Search for A New Vocation Pathway
National Vocations Awareness Week: 4-11 August 2019
As I reflect on my discernment journey as a Covenant Josephite, I have come to realise that God’s call in my life manifested itself through my desire to respond to the needs I see in the world and my practical and joyful capacity in doing so. It is not simply a call to a way of life that only God wants for me, but also a way of life that I so desire. In this covenant relationship with God, I see myself as mutually responsible to the commitment that we (God and I) have both made. Affiliation with the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart has helped me to remain focused on God’s call for mission and be guided by the charism of Mary MacKillop in my everyday life. In my view, I believe it is by God’s providence that the Sisters of Saint Joseph are available to support this new pathway.
A question that I get asked often is why not either choose a vowed life or simply choose a single/married life? Why Covenant Josephite? Traditionally within the Catholic Church we are given an either-or choice. Those who are called to become vowed religious live in a separate community that is distinguished from those who are single or married. The vocation of a single or married life is often seen as a half-hearted devotion to God’s mission due to other life commitments. However, I believe that one can still fully devote oneself to God’s mission and bring it to other aspects of life whole-heartedly. For many Catholics it seemed difficult to comprehend a calling to fully devote one’s life without living in the conformity of a vowed religious life. As a result, I have found that spiritual formation, ministry and discernment support are often lacking for single and married people. With a heart that desires a deepening of my relationship with God, I began my discernment journey in 2009. After several failed attempts in finding a congregation that has a place for the vocation that God has whispered into my heart, I gradually came to know of the Sisters of Saint Joseph where a new vocation pathway called “Covenant Josephite” was shown to me. Through the support of a discernment guide and a discernment team that offered me the opportunity to explore with an open heart all possible pathways, I came to recognise my place as a Covenant Josephite and made my first commitment in 2016. Since then, the discernment journey has not ended but rather continued in a challenging way as God continues to lead me into a life that I have not planned for myself.
What does it mean to be a Covenant Josephite? This is a question I try to be mindful of everyday, before making a decision and for every circumstance in my work, social and family life, thus furthering the guidance of Mary MacKillop to, “Never see a need without doing something about it.”
What is the need in this very moment that is calling me, and will I be joyful in my response to it? In discerning my answer to this question, I believe is the place for my vocation.
Cecilia King
Photo of Winding Road Travel by JanBaby obtained from Pixabay. Used with permission.