Our People

Blessed Mary MacKillop

Feast Day Mass at Mary MacKillop Chapel, North Sydney

By Most Rev. Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
8/8/2007

I was reviewing some images of the journey of the World Youth Day cross and icon in Sydney during the first week of July and was struck by one photo that showed the WYD cross laid over the tomb of Blessed Mary MacKillop here in this chapel. In fact, the first place the WYD cross and icon visited was this shrine in honour of Blessed Mary MacKillop.

I recalled that Blessed Mary MacKillop took the name “Mary of the Cross” in religious life. In fact in a letter to her mother in 1867 she said, “My name in religion is Mary of the Cross. No name could be dearer to me, so I must endeavour, not to deserve it, for I cannot, but at least I must try not to disgrace it”. Disgrace it she did not!

Why did Mary choose this name in religion? Why was the name so dear to her? I asked the Sisters here the question and they told me that at her baptism there was a relic of the true cross. Did she know this and see it as a sign? Or was it that the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ was a central element in her personal spirituality?

In 1870 she wrote to her mother. “My title, the happy one given to me at my profession, implies a life of Crosses and afflictions, but indeed I do not know what these Crosses and sorrows are. The love of God and His wondrous mercy to me makes them so sweet”.

Mary clearly had a sense that her life would be marked by crosses and afflictions. This did not cause her any particular anxiety as she contemplated this possibility. Mary had an overwhelming confidence in the love and mercy of God.

Mary of the Cross was prepared to go to the cross and engage with the cross. Mary would link her understanding of the role of the cross in the life of Jesus as that of submission to the will of his Father. For Mary the Will of God was of paramount importance, and, almost inevitably, this would mean some form of personal suffering. She wanted to unite herself with the sufferings of her Lord.

Her prayer was quite clear about this when she wrote, “Even at this late hour, my Jesus, when you have carried your Cross so long for me. Ah, even now I come with sorrow to ask you to let me take it all, if it could be so, upon me”. Mary yearned for the cross. She wanted to be deeply united with her Lord in his suffering.

What do we make of this? Why did Mary so yearn for the cross?

She knew something saints know. She knew that the cross was the heart of the Christian mystery. She knew that in the cross lay the final and ultimate act of God for our salvation. Mary longed to be in the crucible of the work of God in Christ. She wanted, as St Paul said, “some share in the sufferings of Christ” so that Christ’s saving work would be accomplished through her.

She did not consider herself. She only thought of Christ and wanted to be united with him. She was prepared to give her all to him. In a meditation on the passion of Christ, Mary writes, “Ah since you then wish for my heart, take it, dearest Saviour, my sweet Redeemer, take it and strip it of all but what you love to see in it”.

Mary was offering herself completely, without hesitation, to the Lord. It was a total self-giving. It was an abandonment in trusting surrender to God in the same way that her Lord totally gave over himself to his Father. This surrender, this obedience led to calvary.

Let us pause as we honour this remarkable women, this Australian saint, and for a moment unite ourselves albeit imperfectly with her spiritual aspiration, and our prayer today may be less bold because we are less holy than she, and we could pray as we consider Mary of the Cross, “Lord, draw me a little closer to the mystery of your Cross. Let me share in your sufferings a little (for that is all I am capable of at this time) for I want to be like Mary of the Cross and enter into the work of salvation that you enacted on calvary”.