OUR Lady’s College at Annerley in Brisbane is celebrating the centenary anniversary of Blessed Mary MacKillop’s death with a tangible reminder of her life – and marginalised women have made it possible.
Each pastoral class within the college was presented this year with a stained-glass candleholder for use during prayer and worship.
Kay Gleeson, assistant principal religious education, said women at the Helena Jones Correctional Centre made the candleholders in the design of the Mary MacKillop rose.
She said the Mary MacKillop rose was developed in 1985 as a living tribute to Mary MacKillop and her followers – “to recognise the work they did in the nineteenth century in bringing educational opportunities to poor and disadvantaged children”.
“It symbolises the beauty that can be brought about by compassion, justice, service, love and integrity when a group of determined and passionate people come together to provide opportunities for others,” Ms Gleeson said.
She said the 20 glass rosettes were individually designed and constructed by women at the correctional centre over the Christmas holidays.
Ms Gleeson said the idea came from college campus minister Jo Murphy in 2008.
“One of the ideals of Our Lady’s College community is to uphold the ideals of Mary MacKillop by providing authentic experience of Catholic Christian community,” she said.
“This vision of school life includes modelling values of compassion, justice, integrity and service with and to the students.”
Ms Gleeson said it was decided in 2008 that members of the college staff would volunteer to work within the women’s prison system of Queensland on a regular basis.
“There is a clear bias within our community towards working with marginalised populations and working with inmates through art therapy and music ministry,” she said.
“This is how we came to know that many of the prisoners had a wealth of talent that they could share with teachers.
“Jo Murphy came up with the idea that it could be possible to harness the skills, talent and productivity of the low security Helena Jones centre to create the stained-glass rosettes for our classrooms.”
Kay said that Our Lady’s College had been naïve when it came to realising the difficulty of creating the small copper foiled stain glass rosettes.
“Luckily one of the artists from Helena Jones had developed considerable skill with stained glass in her time at Numinbah Prison and she was able to take up the challenge.”
Kay said the prototype glass rose with included a stem would be used in a play at St Elizabeth’s, Tarragindi, a Catholic Primary school in Annerley/Ekibin parish.
“Further afield but still within the charism of Mary MacKillop, the Catholic primary school in Birkdale has taken delivery of a larger stained-glass rose made by the women that will be turned into a light box made of rosewood, scented with rose oil and displayed in its entrance foyer.”
Kay said Our Lady’s College was thrilled with the way the project had turned out.
“We have been able to share a variety of valuable skills and we have now set up pathways to facilitate new even richer projects.
“Skills that have been developed can be shared between the school (and) the low-security prison and now the idea has spread to an OzCare rehabilitation centre called Lucinda House.”
Kay said further projects would be developed as women upon release from prison would be invited to learn about stained glass and become involved in the design and completion of more projects.
