I Have No Hands Now But Yours
September 6, 2019In this month’s reflection from the Little Brown Book Too, authors Sue and Leo Kane invite us to reflect on Saint Mary MacKillop’s deep love for those who lived in poverty.
Mary saw herself as blessed by the poor! Just as the Sisters named in this reflection were inspired by Mary’s love in action, we too are invited – and challenged – to live in Mary’s spirit today.
Mary certainly did this in her own life. ‘Our dear Foundress had an unparalleled love for God’s poor. I don’t think I’ve met any person with such great love for the poor,’ recalled Sister Cataldus*.
Sister Denis** fills out the picture: ‘One day. I happened to be her companion in Kent Street, Sydney. It seemed to me as if a great many poor people came to us in different parts of the street as we passed along. Many of them said, “God bless you.”
Mother said to me: “I love to get the blessing of these poor people.”
Mary understood that, deep down, we all have to face our own poverty. She had a real affinity with the poor, so much so that she saw herself as receiving from them. And, like Jesus, she set out to show them their own worth, while also assisting in practical ways.
In the tough environment of colonial Australia, Mary and her Sisters brought help to many in great need. Some even lived in tents on the goldfields among the miners. They valued and loved the poor.
We reflect today about what that means for us, especially in the affluent culture in which we now live.
The above reflection is an extract from The Little Brown Book Too, pages 34-35
© Sue and Leo Kane 2011
Used with the kind permission of the publishers, St Paul’s Publications
Available on line and from Mary MacKillop Centres —
Click here for locations and contact details
Download the print version of this reflection (PDF)
Art: © Hongbin Zhao
The artist has written:
Mary MacKillop’s commitment to the service of those in need knew no boundaries. She was willing to go anywhere she could be of help. She and her Sisters also happily endured the living conditions of the people they helped and the children they taught. I have depicted Mary in the goldfileds with a group of children, bringing them hope and support in a difficult situation.
From: Mary MacKillop: A Tribute: © Honeysett Press, NSW 1995, page 79
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
Excursion to Mary MacKillop Place
August 7, 2019
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)
Living from the Heart
July 6, 2019This month, as we continue mining the gold from Sue and Leo Kane’s Little Brown Book Too, we are invited to ponder a simple story about Mary MacKillop which provides yet another example of how she lived from the heart.
There were no limits to her love… how do I measure up?
Mary had managed only a very early cup of tea for breakfast before she arrived at the convent in the afternoon. The Sisters had prepared a meal for her. Sister Borgia Healy tells the story:
Just as she was about to sit to the table, a knock came to the door. I went to see who was there and a poor, half-starved, baby clothed old man stood before me. “Would you give me something to eat, miss?” he said. “I can get no work in this town, not anything to eat. I’m very weak.”
Mother Mary followed me to the door, and when she saw the man, she said:
For Mary, that hungry old man was Jesus coming to her door. She often told her Sisters:
Her compassion sprang from her spirit of love and self-forgetfulness.
It knew no boundaries!
The above is an extract from The Little Brown Book Too (pages 32-33)
© Sue and Leo Kane 2011
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)
Image of Mary, Sister and poor family: Artist unknown
Mary MacKillop: Patron of Brisbane Archdiocese
June 29, 2019Mary, Patron of the Brisbane Archdiocese
Mosquito plague, high humidity and heat greeted Mary MacKillop and her Sisters when they arrived in Brisbane on New Year’s Eve 1869 – just three and half years after the foundation of the Congregation in Penola. What warrior women they were, with hearts set on fire for God’s mission. Little did they know what indescribable challenge and pain Queensland would be for Mary and the Congregation.
Mary and the Sisters had been invited by Bishop Quinn to set up schools in Queensland, so they came well equipped with the proven Woods-MacKillop system of parish-based schools. They immediately hopped in, opened schools in Brisbane and very quickly expanded their presence to other places in country Queensland.
The story of the journey between 1869 and when the Archbishop John Bathersby petitioned Rome to make Mary MacKillop the Patron of the Archdiocese is told here.
Mary’s Words Still Inspiring Us!
June 6, 2019
Over many months, as we have pondered Val DeBrenni’s Stations of the Cross: a Journey with Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, we have reflected on the parallel journeys of Jesus and Mary MacKillop, and how their Way of the Cross can inspire and shape our own lives.
Last month, in our final reflection on this particular journey, we reflected on the Easter story, and how Mary MacKillop has shown us what it means to live in the light of Jesus’ Resurrection.
This month, as we turn to a new source of inspiration, we invite you to embark on a new odyssey! In the coming months, we shall mine Sue and Leo Kane’s The Little Brown Book Too, for the gold that they have discovered through reflecting upon snippets of letters penned by Mary, and recognising that her words, written so many years ago, can inspire us again and again in our everyday lives.
Raised from ‘Death’ to New Life
May 8, 2019
Jesus is raised from the dead! Most of us have experienced times when things have been grim: we have lost a significant other… our treasured hopes have been destroyed… we have been let down, even betrayed… and it seems like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is an on-coming train!
Generally these painful times pass and life returns to a certain equilibrium – until our next crisis or disaster! This, of course is the pattern, the ebb and flow of human life… ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’.
When we look back and reflect, we can often recognise that something good emerged out of those times of darkness… that we have, in fact, journeyed through a ‘death experience’ to new life! These ‘light-bulb’ moments are gifts: they are ‘Easter’ or ‘Resurrection’ moments… blessings that give us reason to shout, or sing, or say, or perhaps even whisper “Alleluia”!