SO inspired by Blessed Mary MacKillop, whose feast is today (August 8), Brisbane’s Mary Fletcher responded musically.
“Music has always been a very big part of my life,” the drama and music specialist at Mary MacKillop College, Nundah, said.
“When I first began teaching at (the then) Corpus Christi College I was asked by a Sister of St Joseph if I could possibly write a song about Mary MacKillop.
“(She hoped it) could be sung by the girls attending this Josephite school.
“As I did the reading and research … I became more and more inspired and awe-struck by the story of this incredible pioneering woman.
“My spirit was moved.”
The result of that inspiration was A Woman for Our Time, a song Mary said “describes the love Mother Mary had for her people and the passion with which she fought for the rights of the poor and for justice”.
It was “aired”, she said, with the backing of The Queensland Symphony Orchestra and “became almost an anthem for the Josephite order and its schools in Australia and New Zealand”.
That beginning heralded nine other songs related to Blessed Mary’s “values and charism”.
Stanthorpe-born Mary, one of four siblings, said her upbringing was testament to such outcomes today.
“I was very lucky to be born into a family where faith and prayer were always important and shaped so much of who I am today,” Mary said.
“Both sets of grandparents were musically gifted as is my mother – a talented pianist who has worked for the Queensland Conservatorium of Music for the past twenty-five years.”
Mary began piano lessons at age six with the Sisters of Mercy, soon progressing to the violin.
“I learnt some hard lessons from them (the sisters) but am so grateful for the persistent dedicated push they gave me to achieve my best in the field of music,” she said.
“Achieving well” musically, this “early dedication to music” prepared her for the future.
“When I was fifteen I decided that I wanted to branch out musically,” Mary said.
“I saved up to buy my first guitar and taught myself to play.
“I never looked back as this instrument led me into writing my own music.”
As such, Mary has been “heavily involved in the folk scene” performing solo and with a band at festivals and events “all around the country”.
She’s also taught at St Joseph’s College, Toowoomba, and All Hallows’ School, Brisbane.
“Music is very important to me in my chosen career as a teacher,” Mary said.
“I am a drama teacher but have always involved myself heavily in the music area of schools in which I have taught.
“My particular interest in music has expressed itself in writing and singing songs relating to issues of social justice and I’m particularly interested in composing songs for youth.”
That platform led to the “eCCCos singing group” at Mary MacKillop College.
“I formed the eCCCos group in the 1990s together with (Josephite) Sister Patricia Boman,” Mary said.
“(It was) a small singing group that would concentrate on singing justice material and songs relating to MacKillop values.
“It would also be a group to foster self-esteem and self-confidence in girls – especially those who could be ‘at risk’.
“The main aim for the group is to ‘give joy’ through music.
“(And) along the way various staff members have also joined.
“It is a true ‘community’ group.”
eCCCos members, accompanied by Mary, were at a parliamentary reception for Catholic Education Week at the Francis Rush Centre on July 27.
They have also performed at Mary MacKillop Place, Sydney, and Brisbane City Hall, while their compositions are known from Nundah to “the Andes in Peru (and) to the Highlands of Scotland”, Mary said.
As well as taking part in the college’s activities for today’s feast day Mary is “really excited” about the October 17 canonisation in Rome.
“We are talking about an incredible Australian woman who isn’t this ‘inaccessible’ saint that we’ve seen depicted in Christian art from a medieval age who lived in another world, another land,” Mary said.
“Here is a woman that we actually have photos of and letters and things that belonged to her.
“She was a woman who inhabited and lived in and walked in the same places that we might go or have been in our own country, even here in Queensland.
“She was an ‘ordinary’ woman who achieved ‘extraordinary’ things.
“Mary MacKillop saw goodness, saw God in all of us and I think she would say ‘there’s a saint in all of us’, too.”
