Last week a new site appeared calling itself  www.marymackillop.org.au

It covers Blessed Mary’s life under the headings: Beginnings, Growth, Challenge, Influences, Legacy and Canonisation.

It’s chockers with information. But what is it actually trying to do?

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The last page about Blessed Mary’s Canonisation is a sort of summary, asking “what aspects of her faithfulness to God we can imitate.”

 *  it calls the Canonisation “a gift of Spirit” — a bit of jargon meaningless to ordinary Aussie battlers. “What Spirit?” they might ask.

 *  it says to “embrace all of Mary’s people” – particularly migrants, Aborigines and “infaith groups”. What is an “infaith group”? Never mind.

 *  “celebrate the gift of religious life,” it says. Yes, we do need more people to consider the vocation of nun, priest or brother.

*  fourth question: “how can the youth of our countries be set free to carry the good news of the gospel to the poor etc.?”

A last paragraph suggests some answers:

(1) a new conversion of heart . . . .

Leading to (2) making a difference in our world . . . .

Which will work best if we (3) see ourselves as “a living portrait of her in our world . . . reflecting the Gospel Christ living the essence of love”.

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OK, so the site does make some sense.

What would Mary MacKillop say about it?

First, she would ask, why don’t you tell them that God wants everybody to be a Catholic?

And why don’t you talk about the Cross of Christ more? One chose as one’s name in religion, “Mary of the Cross”, for a reason. Nobody can enter God’s eternal presence except though Our Lord’s Cross — social work and earthbound multicultural noises are no substitute.

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Blessed Mary would say that we need a site (and a book) about NOT the let’s-please-everybody misrepresentation of Mary MacKillop so easily fallen into . . . .

We need something more along the lines of this site: www.marymackillop.org.  Skip the au.

That’s where to find how to apply in today’s world the REAL message of the REAL Mary MacKillop — the Catholic Mary MacKillop.