MARY MacKILLOP AND HER EARLY COMPANIONS – A COLLECTION OF LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1870
Arranged and edited by Sheila McCreanor RSJ; Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, North Sydney, 2013.
IMAGING MARY MacKILLOP – WITH WHISPERINGS FROM MARY
Patricia Snudden RSJ; Wilkinson Publishing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2010.
Reviewed by Barbara Flynn
AUGUST 4 marks the fourth anniversary of the canonisation of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, a remarkable Australian.
Many books are dedicated to celebrating her life. Among these are five collections of her letters arranged and edited by Josephite Sister Sheila McCreanor and the delightfully illustrated small book “Imaging Mary MacKillop”, by Josephite Sister Patricia Snudden, with reflections provided by Josephite Sister Colleen O’Sullivan.
“Mary MacKillop and Her Early Companions”, the fifth collection of letters authored by Sheila McCreanor, provides a lens to focus on the first vital years when Mary’s emerging dream to pursue a “penitential form of religious life” ministering to the disadvantaged and marginalised in South Australia is openly discussed with her mother, her siblings, Fr Julian Tenison Woods and other clergy.
Difficulties and constraints do not deter Mary and Fr Woods to achieve their vision to provide secular and religious education for children while also assisting families from disadvantaged backgrounds in whatever ways possible.
Mary’s ideals and her compassion for the poor quickly attracted young women to the nascent religious order.
Mary possessed an innate capacity to empower others and to inspire them through words of encouragement and instruction.
Some were her companions as teachers dutifully working in resource-deprived settings of the colony.
However, Mary’s letters reveal that human failings and eccentric behaviours of some women who joined between 1866 and 1870 demanded her patience, charity and tolerance as she sensitively negotiated individual problems and circumstances.
These letters are fascinating in content.
Sheila McCreanor’s edited collection of letters reveal Mary’s outstanding Christian qualities identifiable at a comparatively young age.
Significant in the correspondence is her Circular Letter of instruction written from Brisbane in 1870 to all the Sisters working in South Australia and Queensland.
In it she encourages the Sisters to be singularly dedicated to their work for God, to be people of prayer and intercession for others particularly asking the intercession of St Joseph, “Mother Mary” and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The anecdotal evidence of her life exposed through correspondence between 1866 and 1870 discloses a holiness of life centred on frequent trusting prayer.
“Imaging Mary MacKillop” uses written material extracted from Mary’s letters during her life’s work.
Words by Mary organised as chapters of the book are grounded under metaphors interpreted as periods of Mary’s life.
The exquisite art work by Patricia Snudden, in symbolic format using the mandala genre, portrays periods of Mary’s life.
This artistic portrayal of Mary presented on each alternate page evokes an emotional response from the reader as the delicate shaping of the figure reiterates messages given in her letters.
These extraordinary representations are painted in shades and tones of brown connecting metaphorically to the clothing worn at that time by Josephite Sisters and to their work in the sunburnt environment.
I found these books compelling reading and recommend each.
Barbara Flynn is a Josephite associate.
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