MORE than 1000 people filled St Stephen’s Cathedral on August 8 to reflect on the lifelong struggles that saw Mary MacKillop through to sainthood.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane concelebrated Mass with Bishop Joseph Oudeman, Bishop Brian Finnigan, retired Bishop John Gerry and otheir priests.
The Gospel reading for the feast day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop was from Matthew, where Jesus repeatedly reminded the disciples to not worry about their life.
Archbishop Coleridge commented on the perseverance of Australia’s first saint, who even amidst the greatest obstacles, remained “unfailingly thankful”.
“It’s all right for Jesus to say ‘I’m telling you not to worry about your life’. It wasn’t quite so straightforward for the woman who we celebrate this morning,” he said.
“You only have to read some of Mary MacKillop’s numerous letters to know just how many worries and anxieties that she had.
“And yet the extraordinary thing, and surely one of the greatest signs of her sanctity, was that none of this crushed her.
“In many ways it made her.
“In other words, the wound became a fountain.
“In the Gospel of Matthew we are told Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb on Easter morning and she is accompanied by a woman who is called simply ‘the other Mary’.
“I like to think that the ‘other Mary’ is in fact Mary MacKillop, who goes with Mary Magdalene and there, in the morning light, meets the risen Christ.
“She therefore stands forever, not just as a doer, not just as a woman who was beset by worries and anxieties and somehow survived the torment.
“She stands as much more, that’s why we named her saint.
“She stands forever as a witness to the Resurrection.
“Our prayer this morning is that witness, the witness of a woman who trusted in providence, who was not crushed by her burdens, and who in the end saw the risen Christ and led others to him.
“Let that witness never fail the Archdiocese of Brisbane, who claim Mary MacKillop not just as saint in some general sense, but as patron and mother of our life.
“May she always be for us witness to the resurrection, a sure patron and a loving mother.”
Brisbane archdiocese’s vicar general Monsignor Peter Meneely and 12 other priests from the archdiocese concelebrated, including St Stephen’s Cathedral dean Fr David Pascoe and Fr Michael McCarthy.
Members of the Sisters of St Joseph and the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, which was co-founded by Fr Julian Tenison-Woods, were present at the Mass.
After the Mass, a festival of ministries highlighted the work done by dozens of organisations around the archdiocese.
