IT’S strange that it seems to make a difference that we now have an Australian among all the people that the Church recognises as saints.
It must be because, in Mary MacKillop, we have someone we can easily relate to, not just because she lived where we live, walked the streets we walk and prayed in the places where we now pray, but because of the kind of person she was.
There’s also the added appeal that many of us have known or had contact with Sisters of St Joseph who have personally shown us a glimpse of who Mary was, how she lived and what mattered to her.
Some of those women – Sr Callistus, Sr Joseph, Sr Dolour, and Sr Miriam – did that for me when I was in primary school. God bless them and all like them.
PETER BUGDEN
Editor