First Adelaide school opens in 1867
On 2 July 2022, the Sisters of Saint Joseph will celebrate 155 years since the opening of the first Josephite school in Adelaide, South Australia. “What,” they say, “can you expect from colonial girls, without any knowledge of a religious life, and no one to train them?”[1] Writing to Sister Mary MacKillop, Father Julian Tenison […]
Celebrating June Feast Days with Mary MacKillop
During the month of June, we have the opportunity as followers of Mary MacKillop, to recall and celebrate the great feast days of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (24 June) and St John the Baptist (25 June). Our Josephite constitutions expresses Mary’s hope that: God’s compassionate love, symbolised for Mary MacKillop by the Sacred Heart, […]
World Communications Day 2022
World Communications Day was established by Pope Paul VI in 1967, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, which sought to bring the gospel to light in the modern world. This annual celebration occurs each year on the Sunday before Pentecost. World Communications Day invites us to reflect on how we can best use […]
Mother’s Day
We all have some experience of being mothered and in some way we have all had some experience of mothering/fathering those for whom we have cared. Mary MacKillop had very positive experiences of being mothered and had a very close relationship with Flora, her “own loved mother”. [1] We can look to their relationship to […]
Remembering Mary MacKillop’s mother Flora
On Sunday 8 May, many families throughout our country will be celebrating the wonder and joy of experiencing motherhood and being mothered. For others, Mother’s Day brings sadness and a sense of loss. In troubled places throughout the world mothers are separated from children, and children are living with the awful memory of losing their […]
A pilgrim’s ‘light-bulb’ moment
Recently, the staff and volunteers of Mary MacKillop Museum in Adelaide were delighted to welcome a busload of interstate pilgrims, one of whom, after spending quite some time in the museum, was hungry for ‘the more’.
The Hope and Faith of Mary MacKillop
Why do you think that everything is hopeless, that no one can take away your own tombstones? Why do you give in to resignation and failure? Easter is the feast of tombstones taken away, rocks rolled aside. God takes away even the hardest stones against which our hopes and expectations crash: death, sin, fear, worldliness. […]
A Letter to Mary MacKillop
To commemorate the anniversary for when Mary MacKillop received Constitutions of the Institute (Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart) and when Central Government was accepted on 21 April 1874, Sr Maria Casey shares what she would have written to Mary if she was alive today.
Lent and the life of Mary MacKillop
CEO of Mary MacKillop Today, Jane Woolford, shares her personal reflections in this Lenten season. There is no doubt that hardship is all around us. Right here in Australia, people are enduring devastating damage from the floods. We are still feeling the difficult impacts of the pandemic, and overseas we are seeing a horrendous war […]
A woman ahead of her time
Celebrating International Women’s Day (8 March) is a great impetus for women around the globe to creatively and courageously encourage further, the growing surge for progress in the tussle for recognition and equality.
Mary MacKillop’s Experience with Illness
Recently I have heard our culture described as being ‘crippled with emotion and needing intensive care for hope’. There are many types of illness including, physical, emotional and psychological, pervading the environs that we mix in.
Birth of Mary MacKillop – 15 January 1842
In 1891, during a worldwide depression, the people of Melbourne city suffered greatly. Those who were rich lost their investments, those who were poor lost their work, the poorest were homeless and slept on the streets. The Archbishop of Melbourne had a heart for the poor and he talked to Mary MacKillop, the new Josephite […]