World Humanitarian Day – A Good Samaritan
August 8, 2023
Annually on 19 August, we commemorate World Humanitarian Day. Twenty years ago on 19 August 2003, the United Nations lost 22 colleagues in an attack on the United Nations in Baghdad, Iraq. The tragedy profoundly changed the way in which humanitarians operate – from being respected, to being targeted – and led to the creation of World Humanitarian Day. (World Humanitarian Day)
For this day, we share Sr Helen’s story on a ‘Good Samaritan’.
Closing Mass for New South Wales Region Sesquicentenary
The quotes by Mary MacKillop, “Gratitude is the memory of the heart” (1907) and “We have much for which to be thankful” (1873) were the mantras from the Litany of Gratitude spoken by all at Mass on Saturday 15 July, marking the conclusion of celebrations during our Sesquicentenary year.
The Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel, located in North Sydney, was filled with a beautiful spirit of joy and togetherness, and we were lifted to a place of grace. We knew we were on holy ground.
A Favourite Christian Feast – The Assumption of Mary, Mother of God
Do you have a favourite Christian feast? St Mary MacKillop claimed the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or Mother of God) as hers.[1]
This feast has its origins in Jerusalem before the end of the fourth century. The early Christians held Mary, the loving and courageous Jewish Mother of Jesus, as one of their own. They had prayed with Mary. Together they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The feast “The Passing of the Mother of God’’ commemorated her death.
Saint Mary MacKillop Feast Day 2023
A Message from Sr Monica Cavanagh, Congregational Leader, Sisters of Saint Joseph.
Let us rejoice in the gift of Mary MacKillop to our Church and our world as we celebrate her feast day.
Why would some people choose Religious Life today?
August 7, 2023
Annually in the Australian Catholic Church, we celebrate National Vocations Awareness Week, this year being held from 6-13 August.
Why do some people choose chastity? To live a life of poverty? To life a life of obedience?
The goal in each vocation is to love God with all one’s heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love one’s neighbour like one’s self. To each person, God will give the graces necessary to grow in holiness.
The Other Mary
In the Gospel of Matthew, we are told that “towards dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.” (28:1) Earlier we had been told that, after Joseph of Arimathea had placed the body of Jesus in a new tomb and sealed it, “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb”. (27:61)
Now, there are so many Marys in the Gospels that one scholar even suggested that Mary was not a name but a title given to a number of women in the New Testament, signifying a particular function in the early Christian community. Whatever about that, there is a certain mystery about “the other Mary” who figures at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.
By metaphoric leap and midrashic application, I want to apply it to St Mary MacKillop, since we begin to understand her if we see that she, like any other of the saints, is a saint precisely because she is a witness of the Resurrection; she was and is a woman who sat and sits “opposite the tomb”, a woman who went and still goes “to see the tomb”.
In going to see the tomb, we are told, the two Marys meet an angel who says to them, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.”
Mary MacKillop, An Example and Inspiration
We know that a saint is someone whose life is lived in intimate union with God, and for God, accepting God’s will in all events of life. (One’s life is examined to be considered worthy by the Church to be honoured and imitated). This is what Mary tried to do throughout her 67 years of life, and she also urged her mother Flora to be a saint.[2] Living holy lives would seem to be in the DNA of the MacKillop family, as their lived history demonstrates.
Mary MacKillop’s Virtues, Values and Time in Arrowtown, Aotearoa New Zealand
How do Mary MacKillop’s virtues and values inspire the happenings of everyday life?
Sr Margaret Mary Sexton wrote: