St Dominic and St Mary MacKillop

Founder of the Dominicans.
Saint Dominic was born at Calaruega in Castile in 1170, the youngest son of the town warden. His uncle educated him and he became an Austin Canon at Osma cathedral. In 1201, he was made sub-prior. Three years later, on his way to Denmark he met the Cathars for the first time. These were a popular sect that lived communally and had a number of extreme beliefs including the idea that the body was of no importance.

While Simon de Monfort set about bringing them back to Christianity by brute force, sacking fine cities, burning them to the ground and slaughtering the inhabitants, Dominic dedicated himself to their reconciliation through patient and gentle argument. He didn't convert many Cathars but he saved a few lives. One day, he interceded in court on behalf of a Cathar about to be condemned to death. That young man became a Christian and later joined the Dominican order.

Three times Dominic refused a bishopric, as he believed he was called to other work. He took a leading role in the foundation of Toulouse University and then set about establishing communities of sacred learning where members could be devoted to study, teaching and preaching, as well as prayer. He retained the Divine Office but it was chanted in a simpler form.

The Dominican order rapidly spread all over Europe and became a pioneering missionary force in Asia and later the Americas. St Dominic spent his last years travelling, preaching and establishing communities and churches in Italy, Spain and France.

St Dominic died in 1221. Popular devotion to this gentle saint sprang up soon after his death. He was canonised in 1234. His tomb, at Bologna, was built 30 years later by Pisano and embellished by Michelangelo. There are many fine images of him by other artists of the time including Fra Angelico at Fiesolo and Florence.

His usual attributes in art are a lily and a black and white dog, a pun on the name of Dominic and the Dominicans (Domini canis).


Read more about the English Dominicans here: http://english.op.org/

and

St Mary MacKillop

Foundress, educator, and social reformer, Mary MacKillop is Australia's first canonised saint.

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Mary was one of nine children born to Scottish immigrants on January 15, 1842.

When she was 14, MacKillop began working, and she was often her family's main source of support. In 1860 she moved to the small rural town of Penola to serve as governess for the children of her aunt and uncle. There, MacKillop provided her cousins with a basic education and soon extended this to the poor children of the town. A young priest, Father Julian Tenison Woods, encouraged her to continue this work, assuring her that educating the poor would be an ideal way to serve God.

In 1866, Mary and Fr Woods founded Australia's first order of nuns, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, and also established St.Joseph's School in a converted stable in Penola, providing a free education to children from the area. In 1867 MacKillop took vows and became the first mother superior of the sisters. In the following year the sisters opened schools in other Australian cities, as well as an orphanage and a refuge for women released from prison.

MacKillop intended that the order be self-governed and devoted to teaching and charity. She and Fr Woods, who composed the rule for the order, insisted that the sisters would accept a life of total poverty, trusting in Divine Providence. Her schools provided secular as well as religious education, regardless of the religious affiliation of the students, and accepted no money from the government, remaining open to all and accepting only what tuition parents could afford, at a time when the government still provided funding to religious schools.

Some Australian priests and bishops were openly hostile both to the degree of autonomy that the Josephites enjoyed and to MacKillop's rejection of federal funding. In 1871, perhaps intentionally misinformed by his advisers, Bishop Laurence Sheil of Adelaide excommunicated MacKillop for insubordination. The next year, however, on his deathbed, Sheil acknowledged that he might have been misled, and he reinstated MacKillop.

The remainder of Mary MacKillop's career was marked by some clashes with priests and bishops of the Australian church. After an 1873 meeting with Pope Pius IX, she won papal approval for the Josephite rule, with modifications that relaxed the degree of poverty imposed upon the sisters. MacKillop expanded the order's educational and charitable endeavours and attracted new sisters.

In 1875 she was appointed superior general of the order. Despite her elevation, she continued to meet with hostility from a number of priests and bishops, and the sisters' work was circumscribed in certain cities. In 1885 she was removed as superior general, though she was reinstated in 1899 and remained at the head of the order until her death.

Mary died August 8, 1909, North Sydney, New South Wales. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in June 1995. In February 2010, after evaluating the testimony of an Australian woman who claimed that her terminal cancer had disappeared after she called upon Mary MacKillop in prayer, Pope Benedict XVI recognized her as a saint. She was canonised that October.

Mary MacKillop is remembered in numerous ways, particularly in Australia. The electoral district of MacKillop in South Australia and several colleges are named after her. In 1985, the Sisters of St Joseph approached one of Australia's foremost rose growers to develop the Mary MacKillop Rose. MacKillop was the subject of the first of the 'Inspirational Australians' one dollar coin series, released by the Royal Australian Mint in 2008.

Several Australian composers have written sacred music to celebrate her. In 2009 Nicholas Buc was commissioned by the Shire of Glenelg to write an hour-long cantata mass for the centenary of the death of Mary MacKillop. It was premiered by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic in Portland, Victoria. The Mass of Mary McKillop is a setting for congregational singing, composed by Joshua Cowie.

MacKillop is also the subject of several artistic productions, including the 1994 film Mary, directed by Kay Pavlou with Lucy Bell as MacKillop; Her Holiness, a play by Justin Fleming; and MacKillop, a dramatic musical created by Victorian composer Xavier Brouwer and first performed for pilgrims at World Youth Day 2008 in Melbourne. Novelist Pamela Freeman's The Black Dress is a fictionalised biography of MacKillop's childhood and young adulthood.

Read about the Sisters of St Joseph: www.sosj.org.au