Mary MacKillop 2

Sunday 27th March 2022.

Mass:  Mary MacKillop Chapel, Melbourne.

Melbourne via Lara and Lorne to Apollo Bay.

Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre. 

Today we visited the Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre in East Melbourne, not far from St Patrick's Cathedral.  Mary had a home for destitute women on this site.  We were given an excellent presentation on the family life and spirituality of Mary by one of the Josephite sisters there, Sister Audrey.

Mary was the eldest of eight children to Scottish immigrants Alexander and Flora MacKillop.  Mary had a very difficult early life, as her father, although a well-educated teacher, had poor financial management skills, and lost all his money.  He left his family for long periods in search of work, usually without success, and by the age of 16, Mary had taken complete responsibility for the family.

Mary's siblings had varied lives - Maggie taught with Mary at Penola, but died of rheumatic fever at 39;  John contracted tetanus after a fall from a horse in New Zealand and died at 22;  baby Alick died at 11 months;  Annie taught with Mary at Penola, cared for Mary in New Zealand when she (Mary) had a stroke, and lived to the age of 81;  Lexie joined the Good Shepherd Order and died aged 32; Donald became a Jesuit and died at 72, and Peter died of a heart condition at the age of 20.  None of the eight MacKillop children married.  Mary died in Sydney in 1909 aged 67.

While living in Portland, Mary and Fr Julian Tenison Woods founded the Sisters of St Joseph, "women who worked in a simple ordinary way to bring to the poor the message of their human dignity and of Christ's saving love."  There will be more about Mary's life further into the pilgrimage.....

Mary's simple and profound spirituality makes her a wonderful role model for us today.  Her life was grounded on her faith, with a sense of God's abiding presence, and a commitment to discovering and carrying out God's will.  She is noted for her pithy sayings, such as "Never see a need without doing something about it."

Michael celebrated Mass in the chapel here - the first Mass which had been said here in the two years of the Covid lockdowns - what a privilege for us!

The centre then put on a fabulous morning tea for us.

Former Parade Christian Brothers' College.

A bonus for us was that Peter's former high school, Parade Christian Brothers' College (now a Catholic Theological College) was just around the corner.  These bluestone rooms were Peter's old classrooms.

Peter MacKillop's former house.

Then we had a big drive west to Mary's uncle, Peter MacKillop's former house, at a place called Duck Ponds, near the village of Lara.  Mary's mother and some of the children lived here while their father was away.  The children Maggie and Peter died here.  We then went and had sandwiches for lunch in Lara - a good day for the Lara bakery - then headed south towards the Great Ocean Road.

A fancy house at Airey's Inlet.

Memorial Arch,  Great Ocean Road, to honour Victorians who served in World War 1.

In 1917, the Great Ocean Road was begun to provide work for returned servicemen.  A total of three thousand ex-servicemen worked with pick and shovel, using the natural materials of the area.

This is the third arch built on the site.  The original was erected in 1939 and replaced in 1973 when the road was widened.  That second arch was destroyed by the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983.

              Peter on the beach at Eastern View, the official beginning of the Great Ocean Road.

Lookout on the Great Ocean Road.  

From here we twisted and turned, with a well-netted (to stop rocks falling on us) steep cliff on our right, and the beautiful blue sea on our left, all the way to Apollo Bay, where we stopped for the night.