Faith

St Mary of the Cross, Mackillop

St Mary of the Cross, MacKillop

August 8th is the feast day of our first Australian saint, St Mary of the Cross, MacKillop.

Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne on

15 January 1842. Along with her Scottish parents, Alexander and Flora, and her seven siblings, Mary grew up in Victoria "with a strong love for God and a desire to do what she could for people in need."

At 18 Mary became a governess for her cousins in Penola, South Australia and she started teaching and caring for the local children. There she met Fr Julian Woods, who was ordered to establish a Catholic school in the region. Fr Woods sought Mary to run the school and she accepted his invitation and became a nun of the Sisters of St Joseph. The Penola school was established in Adelaide SA, and run by the Sisters of St Joseph for many years . The sisters spread their work through Australia and New Zealand and established many new Catholic schools that are still run by the Josephites.

At the time of Mary's death, there were more than 600 sisters throughout Australia and New Zealand, caring for 100 needy children and adults in 12 charitable institutions, and teaching 12,400 children in 117 schools. Sr. Mary died on 8 August, 1909. She was canonised on 17 October, 2010.

For more information visit the official website of Mary's Story

At 1pm on Monday 10 August, 2020, St Anthony's school celebrated the life of St Mary of the Cross with a Prayer Liturgy via Google Meet. 67 families joined the meet to honour

St Mary, which demonstrates a great devotion to our Catholic faith through prayer. The meet was very successful and paves the way for many more Prayer Liturgies through this medium in the future.

Prayer Liturgy for Grandparents and Special Friends' Day

On Friday 31 July, St Anthony's school celebrated the Feast of St Joachim and St Ann, grandparents of Jesus. We prayed for all grandparents and special friends with a Senior school meet at 10.00am and a Junior school meet at 10.30am.

It was pleasing to see a total of 96 families log on to share in this prayer liturgy. All students were invited to complete an activity for or with their grandparents or special friends.