The Sisters of St Joseph, the Order of Catholic Sisters founded by Australia’s Blessed Mary MacKillop, have started a Twitter account for Blessed Mary.

The lady writing the daily tweet is Sister Annette Arnold. She also has a Mary MacKillop Facebook profile.

One recent tweet, for example, reveals that Pope Benedict XVI will meet cardinals in Rome on February 19 to announce the date for Mary’s canonisation, perhaps as soon as April 2010.

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Sister Annette says, “If Blessed Mary MacKillop were alive today she would be tweeting . . . Mary was an incredible communicator . . .  she would be using any form of modern communication.”

It’s true.  Mary MacKillop communicated non-stop, writing letters constantly. Over 1000 of her letters — to her family, to her Josephite Sisters, to bishops, to the Pope of her day — have been preserved intact.

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Sister Annette says, “It is all about getting her message out . . . Mary is an inspiration to people of all denominations.”

True enough.

Let’s not forget that her message to people of all denominations was that God wants every person to be  a Roman Catholic.

She was quite strong on that point.

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Mary had a Protestant friend, Joanna Barr Smith, who gave money generously to support the Sisters’ work.

In a letter to her mother, Blessed Mary mentioned Mrs Smith, saying, “Both she and her husband know that my earnest desire is for her conversion . . . pray for her to return to us as a Catholic.”

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When visiting Scotland in 1873, Blessed Mary enjoyed meeting many relatives, but was upset that one uncle, Archibald MacKillop, had abandoned his Catholic Faith and was bringing his children up quite anti-Catholic.

She wrote to the Sisters back in Australia, “Pray for the grace of repentance for this unhappy father and his family.”

She learned later, with delight, that at least one young member of Uncle Archie’s family did convert back to Catholicism.