BRISBANE Archbishop Mark Coleridge has delivered a powerful homily on the Solemnity of St Mary MacKillop, likening the “anxiety and negativity” faced today during the COVID-19 crisis with the pressures faced by St Mary of the Cross.
“Mary is given by God as a witness of hope and a word of the deepest encouragement,” Archbishop Coleridge said during his homily in St Stephen’s Cathedral yesterday, the feast day of Australia’s first saint.
Mary MacKillop, the patron saint of Brisbane archdiocese, faced many struggles as a 19th century educator, social reformer and foundress of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
“Time and again Mary, like the widow of Zarephath, faced situations where there seemed to be no way out and problems that seemed to offer no solution,” Archbishop Coleridge said.
“I can only say that I know the feeling. How often have I as a bishop and now as president of the Bishops Conference faced situations of the same kind – no way out, no solution.
“The pandemic is one of those; but so too is the Plenary Council which has been so impacted by COVID-19.
“Then there are the many challenges of dealing with sexual abuse in the Church and the various financial crises which have flowed from that.
“How to stir new energies in a Church which in many ways is under pressure and institutionally diminished in a way we never have seen before in this country?”
Archbishop Coleridge said, at times, he was left feeling “that I have only my need and my impotence… And that surely was something Mary MacKillop felt in her life”.
“She certainly knew anxiety for all kinds of reasons – how she would pay the bills, how she would deal with difficult bishops, how she would keep her Sisters on the right path, how she would manage the tensions with Fr Woods, how she would cope with ill health later in life and so on it goes. No wonder she was anxious,” he said.
“Yet through it all what marked St Mary MacKillop was an uncanny serenity of spirit.
“St Paul urges us in writing to the Colossians to clothe ourselves in ‘kindness, humility, gentleness and patience’; and that’s exactly what Mary did.
“Mary suffered in ways that would have broken others, leaving them locked in a world of bitterness and resentment.
“But far from breaking her, the suffering made Mary what she became.
“There are many crosses in the world, but only one cross creates rather than destroys; and that’s the cross of Jesus Christ.
“That’s the cross that Mary bore through her life, which is why it’s so right that she’s known as St Mary of the Cross.
“The cross that should lead to death led her to life.
“The wound became a fountain; and millions have drunk from its life-giving waters both during her life and since.”
