This cache is about a great Australian who became a Saint!
The cache is located near Mary Mackillop College, Nundah
. Please bring pen/pencil to sign log as none is provided in cache.
Mary MacKillop, the eldest of eight children to a Scottish migrant couple, was born in Fitzroy (Victoria) in 1842. After completing a basic education, she found work as a governess in Penola (South Australia). In 1860, Mary met Father Julian Tenison Woods, an intelligent and flamboyant priest, with whom Mary shared a common concern for the children of local settlers, deprived of educational opportunity. It wasn't until 1866 that Mary was sufficiently free of family obligations to begin her life's work: the Institute of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. From very humble beginnings in a disused stable, the Sisters first school flourished and Fr Tenison Woods was subsequently appointed diocesan Director of Education in Adelaide.
At the age of 33, Mary MacKillop became Superior General of the Institute. In that role, she found herself doing battle with several of the local bishops and, at one stage, was temporarily excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Mary and her Sisters pioneered the Catholic education system as we know it today. Between 1869 and 1890 the Sisters had established convents in Brisbane, Bathurst, Sydney, Armidale, Victoria and New Zealand in addition to those already operating under their care in South Australia.
The Sisters of St Joseph were founded to teach the poor; the Institute was open to anyone who felt herself called, regardless of background or education; their convents were poor and simple, and they relied on alms for their material needs.
Mary epitomises qualities that Australians value and strive for, and lived with integrity by consistently expressing these qualities. Mary's pragmatism was balanced by compassion; she was down to earth, and yet deeply spiritual, even mystical; she was brave, and could be brutally honest, but always humble; firm and disciplined; she was impatient of blind and harsh authoritarianism. Her clear vision of the emerging Australian spirit and of Australian needs triumphed over the unbalanced Irishness and brash sectarianism of her age.
Mary suffered a stroke in New Zealand in 1901, and died in Sydney on August 8, 1909.
Mary MacKillop became a Saint on 17 October 2010.