Mary MacKillop Today Community Grants Program 2026
August 11, 2025
Applications for the Mary MacKillop Today Community Grants Program 2026 (Sisters of Saint Joseph Stream only) will open at 9am on Monday 25 August and close at 5pm on Thursday 25 September 2025 (AEST).
Eligible projects under the Sisters of Saint Joseph (SOSJ) Stream may apply for grants up to $10,000 AUD to deliver small, life-changing projects that promote life-long learning for Australians at the margins.
Converging Pathways
August 10, 2025
Each month, the Pope asks for our prayers for a specific intention. In August, Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention is for mutual coexistence.
Pope Leo XIV’s first words to the world were words of peace. He has seen violence. He has, as we all have, watched nations torn apart by crises. He writes, “There are so many conflicts, so many wars; there is need to work for peace, to pray with trust in God, but also to work”. What can I do? As Pope he can speak to world leaders. “Thank God the voice of the Church is still important,” he writes. He invites us this month to join with him in prayer for peace, for dialogue, for bridges to peace. I am reading the Gospel of the small amount of yeast that causes the whole of the dough to be leavened. Our troubled planet needs leavening. Could this call to prayer be the yeast?
Fanning the Flame of Hope
August 9, 2025
As part of the Jubilee year celebrations for 2025, in which Mary MacKillop Place also celebrates 30 years since its opening, members of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Mary MacKillop Place and the broader community came together on the evening of Thursday 24 July, to celebrate the opening of a new exhibition at Mary MacKillop Place Museum.
Titled Fanning the Flame of Hope, the exhibition invites each of us to reflect on what it means to carry hope forward in our world today. Drawing inspiration from the remarkable life of Saint Mary MacKillop, the exhibition weaves together the historical and spiritual into a compelling and immersive experience. It is also a joyous journey back in time which revisits some of the milestones, memories and moments which have shaped the story of Mary MacKillop Place over the last three decades.
International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
The United Nations was the institution that, in 1994, declared 9 August the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, thereby recognising their rights and their place in our ‘Common Home’ – the world.
This recognition is the result of valuing the contribution these peoples have made, and continue to make, by being guardians of nature and protecting their ancestral traditions. Their worldview has allowed them to keep their culture and customs alive, preserving the wisdom they have acquired over time.
Mary MacKillop: Role Model and Inspiration to the Josephite Companions
August 8, 2025
The liturgical feast of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, on Friday 8 August, confirms and proclaims worldwide that Mary MacKillop enjoys eternal peace, ‘nestled in the very heart’ of the God whom she loved and served so faithfully throughout her earthly life.
We can confidently pray for guidance through her intercession for our needs, both individually and collectively. This is something that the Sisters of Saint Joseph and those who seek to embrace the charism of Mary MacKillop in their daily lives, have always believed, well before her official canonisation.
Celebrating Mary MacKillop’s Charism in the Diocese of Toowoomba Catholic Schools
The charism of Saint Mary MacKillop continues to shape and inspire Catholic education across the Diocese of Toowoomba, particularly in its remote and rural schools. The Toowoomba Diocese is 487,000 m2 in size, covering the Darling Downs and South West region of Queensland from just east of the Great Dividing Range to the South Australia border.
Mary MacKillop’s connection to the Mary MacKillop Spirituality Ministry
As an organisation that carries Mary MacKillop’s name in our title, we take very seriously the need to be faithful to her life and vision. Mary MacKillop was a woman of deep prayerfulness and trust in God. Mary’s exhortation to her Sisters to “do all the good that they could with the means at their disposal and then to leave the rest calmly to God” (1888), is a quote that has been mentioned a number of times in our staff meetings and gatherings.
St Mary MacKillop: Reading the Signs of Her Times
A frequently quoted and a compelling invitation from the Vatican II Council is to “read the signs of the times”. For the many Catholics who heard or read this in 1965, it had an edge of newness about what it meant to be a follower of Christ, as it called for a more creative and relevant way of being in mission. However, as we explore our Catholic Tradition, we find that many of the great men and women of faith who have gone before us, were experts in reading the “signs of the times”.
Saint Mary MacKillop was one such person who did this with clarity and conviction. The fledgling colony of Australia into which Mary was born in 1842 was expanding. Education systems were beginning to take root. However, access to these schools varied, and was largely dependent on one’s social class and economic resources.