Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillopPrint Page

The stained glass window commemorates Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop. The Mary MacKillop Shrine at the rear of the church was completed in 1998 and is a quiet place for reflection featuring a striking stained glass image of Mary. An earlier example of such craftsmanship, one of the ‘beautiful Gothic windows of stained glass’ from Woods’ church, can be seen in the MacKillop Exhibition.

Mary Helen MacKillop RSJ (1842 – 1909), now known as St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, was an Australian nun who has been declared a saint by the Catholic Church. Of Scottish descent, she was born in Melbourne, but was best known for her activities in South Australia. Together with Reverend Julian Tenison Woods, she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of religious sisters that established a number of schools and welfare institutions throughout Australasia, with an emphasis on education for the rural poor.

With the process to have MacKillop declared a saint having begun in the 1920s, she was beatified in January 1995, by Pope John Paul I. She was canonised on 17 October 2010, during a public ceremony in St Peter's Square at the Vatican. She is the first and only Australian to be recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint.

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