Our People

Address to Gathering for the Arrival of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon

Mary MacKillop Shrine, North Sydney

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
1/7/2007

On behalf of our Cardinal-Archbishop George Pell, the President of the Australian Bishops Philip Wilson, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the New Zealand John Dew, Bishop Finnigan and all the other distinguished guests, friends and collaborators here today, the leaders and staff of World Youth Day 2008, I want first to thank Sr Katrina and the Sisters of St Joseph and their friends for the welcome we have received. Today is a momentous one in the history of the Australian Church in Sydney and so after the handover of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon at Sydney International Airport this morning, it was our first instinct to bring them – and the team who will lead them on pilgrimage around Australia – here to our premier site of pilgrimage, to the tomb of Blessed Mary MacKillop.

Even were she not our first recognised saint, the very name in religion of Mother Mary of the Cross would make her the ideal person to whom to bring our Cross and Icon. At a convent of her sisters, in a shrine for people searching for solace, healing and strength, and before the resting place of our beata, we consecrate the twelve month journey ahead. We dedicate it to our Saviour Jesus Christ who hung upon a Cross such as this; to Mary whom we honour here with the title Our Lady of the Southern Cross, Help of Christians, and with our Icon; and to Blessed Mary MacKillop, ‘Mother Mary of the Cross’, present with us in this place.

Here today we recall that God set the sign of the cross in the skies of the Southern Hemisphere almost at the dawn of the cosmos as a promise of salvation to come. Now another cross will be touching every corner of our land. The World Youth Day Cross and Icon are new portents of an extraordinary grace long promised to our country.

In her many journeys throughout Australia, going ahead of our JCI team on horse-back rather than Mercedes truck, Blessed Mary MacKillop must often have looked up at the Southern Cross, and seen in that heavenly constellation a reminder of Christ crucified and a call to believe in his risen power and glory. She truly set her heart on the Kingdom of God, and trusted, often in the face of great opposition, that everything else that she needed would be given to her. As we read upon her tomb, she knew herself and all of us, to be pilgrims through this world and this life, to a new and glorious world and a new and eternal life.

We come today to ask for her intercession as we place the pilgrimage of the Cross and Icon under her patronage and protection. We pray for a similar trust in the providence of God for all who are working to make the journey a story of rich encounters with the person of Christ. As we re-read Mother Mary MacKillop’s favourite Gospel passage today we heard Jesus’ counsel not to worry about what you are to wear or eat! So to our merchandising, pilgrim services, accommodation and uniforms departments, have no fear: tomorrow will take care of itself, each day has trouble enough of its own!

World Youth Day is in fact the largest scale endeavour of the Australian Church since our leaders and people decided to build the extraordinary network of Catholic parish, regional and congregational schools. Interestingly, just as with World Youth Day, the Church of more than a century ago was focussed on the next generation, on its young people, as it embraced this enormous task. We are particularly gratified that our first saint was at the heart of this first great Australian project of education and evangelisation, catechesis and pastoral care of young people. Blessed Mary of the Cross gave her life that young Australians might discover Christ. May she be with them as they carry and see and touch this Cross and Icon. May she inspire them to be the witnesses Christ calls them to be in this new century.