Rome 17 October 2010
Mary MacKillop, born 1842,
what are the clergy giving you
on my birthday, Mother Mary?
Sainthood? So long after God did?
Independence? But you’re your own Scot.
The job of Australian icon?
Well yes. Black flies in the buggy.
Bush pianos. The cheek-sawing wimple
in summer: you did do local penance.
Your vow to “educate poor children””
might you now say “to heal n
the education of poor children”?
Who says a woman can’t rise
in the Church? Mother Mary,
awake in Heaven, pray for us.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Artful Faith (ft. Stephen Auth)
In the latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Stephen Auth joins…
In Praise of Translation
This essay was delivered as the 38th Annual Erasmus Lecture. The circumstances of my life have been…
Caravaggio and Us
Nicolas Poussin, the greatest French artist of the seventeenth century, once said that Caravaggio had come into…
