MASS CELEBRATED BY ARCHBISHOP DENIS HART AT SAINT PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, MELBOURNE, ON TUESDAY, 17 AUGUST 2010 AT 1PM, FOR THE RECEPTION OF THE MARY MACKILLOP CROSS

INTRODUCTION

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We have just welcomed the Mary MacKillop Pilgrim Cross into the Cathedral to help us to prepare for the Canonisation of Australia’s first Saint on 17th October. 

The Cross is made of timber from the first schoolhouse at Penola.  Mary MacKillop herself took the name ‘Mary of the Cross’ because she saw that it is in Jesus Christ and his Cross that redemption and entry into eternal life are to be found.

Today we will celebrate the Mass of the Holy Cross, remembering that gift in which Mary MacKillop leads us and praying for her Canonisation that it is in the Cross we find hope and salvation and forgiveness of sin.

In this spirit, let us call to mind our sins.

HOMILY

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we welcome the MacKillop Pilgrim Cross to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.  In doing so we look at the cross as the instrument of salvation where our God humbly accepted to be one of us even to going to his death on the cross.  The cross is a reminder of God’s personal love for each of us, so that everyone may look at the cross and know eternal life.

In the Old Testament the Jews looked up at the serpent.  In the New Testament we look up to Jesus and we are inspired by the example of Blessed Mary of the Cross, soon to be Australia’s first saint.

Again and again, Blessed Mary of the Cross showed her faith in the providence of God and his constant care for every human being.  She established the Sisters of Saint Joseph because of her concern for the poor, orphans, people in need, old people, girls in danger, the friendless, of all ages.

Likewise, in the life of Blessed Mary of the Cross she embraced the cross in all forms; her own ill health, frequent long journeys in primitive conveyances on land and sea in oppressive weather, the writing of thousands of letters, struggles to obtain the necessities of life, the hardships of real poverty. 

Her most distressing crosses came from people.  She is a shining example to us in her charity and forbearance towards those who were unjust to her.  She judged nobody.  She blamed nobody.  She was never heard to offer a word of criticism or bitterness and her reverence for the sacred character of priests and bishops was never diminished.  She always tried to excuse those who had wronged her, called attention to their good qualities and reminded the Sisters of favours received from them in the past.

Blessed Mary MacKillop is a remarkable example of how the cross is transforming in her life and the mercy of endurance and forgiveness is powerful if we too embrace the cross.

We can look at the cross and draw life as Blessed Mary did.  We can see beyond our sufferings to what God has promised us.  So often crosses in our life are the acceptance of little or individual things and once we have accepted then we can see beyond to the wonderful hope our God has given us.

God sent his Son, Jesus, not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.  Acceptance of our crosses gives us the way to salvation, new hope and new life.

May this pilgrimage with the Cross remind us of the true power of Jesus Christ in our lives and the example of the remarkable woman, Mary of the Cross, so that we, like her, might bend our knee at the name of Jesus and acclaim him as Lord of our life to the glory of God the Father.

+ Denis J. Hart,
ARCHBISHOP OF MELBOURNE.