By Peter Rosengren
Approximately 900 people turned out in Mary MacKillop parish in Ballajura on Sunday for what proved to be a double-barrelled celebration – all to do with Australia’s first official saint, Mary MacKillop.
The occasion was the twentieth birthday of Mary MacKillop Primary School but it happened to fall just two days after Pope Benedict gave Australian Catholics the news they had been longing to hear.
On Friday, he announced the historic canonisation of Blessed Mary MacKillop would take place in Rome on 17 October this year; the news was widely reported by media around the nation.
On the weekend, all three past and present school principals were present, one of whom is Irish Sr Margaret O’Sullivan, the foundation principal of Mary MacKillop Primary school who served from 1989 to 1996. Sr Margaret is also a Sister of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, the religious order founded by Mary MacKillop, and now serves as congregational leader of the Josephites in her native Ireland.
Parish Priest Fr John Jegorow told an overflowing congregation of parishioners, many of them young families, that the occasion showed how good God was; the parish had begun with nothing to show for itself other than vacant land. Many obstacles to establishing what exists today had been overcome, including saving money with lots of generous volunteer labour. Now a distinctive church and a primary school are central and established features of life in Ballajura.
To show how far things have come since the beginning, he introduced past pupils Anthony, Lana and Gerard Aboud, now grown up, and one of the first School Board chairmen, Wally Gagano, as well as Lina Bertolini (principal from 1997-2002) along with Sr O’Sullivan and current principal James Danaher.
Later, he told The Record 44 parishioners have already booked to join an October pilgrimage to Rome for the canonisation ceremonies and to visit the Holy Land.
At the conclusion of Mass, Sr O’Sullivan told parishioners she was delighted to be back and that the timing couldn’t have been more fortunate.
“What a momentous weekend to have chosen to celebrate Mary Mackillop’s patronage of this community,” she said, adding that it had been an honour to be part of the seeding of the parish community “that is now growing into a strong young tree.”
If there was one thing she would urge people to recommit to on the occasion, it would be that the parish safeguard and treasure the gift of community.
“In a world where many people are lost, isolated and alienated, the call of the Gospel is for us to provide places of belonging and identity,” she said.
The Sunday morning Mass was the beginning of a day of celebrations in the school enhanced by the news of the parish patron’s looming official sainthood.
With classrooms open for inspection and a series of performances presented by students and staff, sausage sizzles kept the hungry multitudes filled as past and present pupils caught up with each other.
Sr O’Sullivan, who leads 40 Josephites engaged in a variety of ministries in Ireland, told The Record she was delighted with the news of the canonisation.
“It’s wonderful, just tremendous,” she said.
“We’ve always known what a great woman Mary MacKillop was and we’ve just been waiting for the Church to officially ‘rubber stamp’ it.”
Blessed MacKillop had developed a tangible and very practical holiness, she told The Record.
“She wasn’t saying ‘because I’m a Religious I’m above others.’ Instead, she had a very practical holiness and spirituality that tapped into that Australian egalitarian spirit,” she said.
Her Order’s establishment in Ireland is recent, dating from 1996. But since the Josephites, as the Sisters are usually known, were established at Penola, South Australia, in 1866, more than 700 women from Ireland joined Mary MacKillop’s Order.
In her own country, Josephites work mainly in rural areas, she said, and are engaged in working with the elderly, parishes, in bereavement ministry and in aged care. There are approximately 1,200 Josephites active around the world in Peru, Australia, New Zealand, East Timor and Brazil.