Vision, Mission and Purpose
History
Mary MacKillop
Co-Founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph
Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne in 1842 the eldest of the eight children of immigrants from Scotland. Mary's childhood was one of poverty, debt and constant moving from place to place in her father's search for a livelihood. Schools were often not available to the MacKillop children and they were educated by their parents, Alexander and Flora. Mary began work as a governess to help support her family and later became a teacher.
In 1861 in Penola South Australia, she met Father Julian Tenison Woods a missionary priest who shared Mary's vision of educating the children of the poor. Together they established an order of religious women, the Sisters of St Joseph, who would follow the railway builders, miners and farmers out into isolated areas sharing their hardships while providing education and religious training for their children.
Mary's determination and insistence that the order be self governing, and the Sisters free to travel to wherever they were needed, led her into conflict with Church leaders of the time. She was excommunicated and accused of alcoholism. Begging her passage she travelled to the Vatican to present her case before the Pope.
She endured constant physical suffering while travelling the immense distances that separated her numerous foundations. Besides establishing hundreds of parochial schools for the children of the poor, she also founded orphanages and refuges for the needy and the neglected elderly. Her personal creed was "Never see a need without doing something about it"
Mary MacKillop died in North Sydney in 1909. In 1995 Pope John Paul II declared Mary MacKillop Australia's first saint.
The Mary MacKillop Foundation
In 1993, The Sisters of St Joseph made the decision to establish the Mary MacKillop Foundation to carry on the work of Mary MacKillop, and to support the endeavours of those who, with the drive that engaged the passion of Mary, continue to commit themselves to the needs of our time.
Mary MacKillop's dream envisaged an Australia possessed of a respect for the dignity of each person, a decency, enlightenment and spirituality which alone would give the tiny developing nation some claim to civilised self-respect. She read the Australian environment, interpreted its meaning, and demonstrated how we can live at our best in it.
She has been described as a "nuts and bolts" saint, a toiler and a battler. She saw the gigantic pastoral problems of rural poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, and with her Sisters set out to educate children, women and men as to their latent possessions of mind and spirit. She went out into the male survivalist world and did the work of heart, mind and spirit in the hard places of the environment. She gave inspiration, spiritual sustenance and activist support to many. She didn't react; she anticipated….... and realising that all history is made in conflict, she strove not just to reconcile it but to understand it.
Her personal creed - "Never see a need without doing something about it" continues to challenge us today.
In establishing the MacKillop Foundation, we have been impelled by the vision of this young woman whose goodness inspired the lives of so many. As we stand at the threshold of the twenty first century, we are conscious that we follow in the footsteps of Mary MacKillop, who walked here before us, changing the lives of many Australians because of her passion for justice and the dignity of each person.
As in Mary's day, this country is not so lucky for those who live in poverty, suffering or need. The Foundation aims to anticipate, as she did, the signs of our time, and from a sense of justice and fair play, to support those without power, those suffering from loss or hardship, those without voice in their call for justice. We stand with them, giving them a pledge of our solidarity.
The Mary MacKillop Foundation was officially launched by the Governor-General, Sr William Deane, on 22 July 1997 at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Foundation is responding to the following areas of contemporary need:
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Meeting the needs of people in rural and isolated areas.
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Providing support to people with mental illness or disabilities.
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Working in partnership with aboriginal Australians.
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Responding to the needs of people coming to o ur country without support.
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Relieving the effects of physical emotional and spiritual distress.
As we work with the Foundation, Mary MacKillop continues to challenge us today. She remains for us a symbol of the good one person can do, when that person is passionate about a cause and able to inspire others to share in that passion. She challenges us:
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to own the deeply compassionate, human side of ourselves.
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out of the joys and difficulties of our family lives, and out of our own experiences of deprivation and pain, to reach out to others.
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to look at who and what we embrace in life.
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to clarify our vision and to create a better future and a better world for the young Australians of tomorrow.
Above all, in our struggles towards being fully human, fully alive, she challenges us to "Never see a need without doing something about it".
