{"id":1099,"date":"2022-09-21T11:04:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T01:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/?p=1099"},"modified":"2023-02-08T16:48:43","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T06:48:43","slug":"australian-traveller-mary-mackillop-canonisation-celebrations-penola-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/?p=1099","title":{"rendered":"Australian Traveller: Mackillop Canonisation, Penola SA"},"content":{"rendered":"

MACKILLOP’S SONS & DAUGHTERS<\/span><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Penola is a town of a little over 1500 people approximately five hours drive southeast of Adelaide. It\u2019s a charming place, but not exactly what you\u2019d call \u201con the map\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went to the Gold Coast and told people I was from Penola, they had no idea where I was talking about,\u201d says one local woman. \u201cEven when I say I\u2019m from Mount Gambier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Mount Gambier, glittering jewel of the border region and \u201cCity of Sinkholes\u201d? Surely not!<\/p>\n

Relatively obscure as it is, Penola does have much to boast of, primarily as the place where Mary Mackillop, with the inspiration of Father Julian Tenison-Woods, founded the Josephites, the first religious order to be established by an Australian. On October 17 Mackillop will become our only native-born saint and this little town in South Australia will have its biggest moment since a churchy girl from Melbourne arrived in 1860 and said, \u201cHey, why aren\u2019t you in school?\u201d<\/p>\n

Penola is an unexpected delight. Green and misty, much of the surrounding land is given over to the vineyards of the Coonawarra, lending it a vaguely European air. The town itself is modest but scattered with beautifully preserved colonial buildings and churches. There\u2019s a smart restaurant and even the rough pub serves Riesling by the glass, but Penola is too far from anywhere to be truly posh. In 1857 when Father Woods arrived he described a \u201cpretty retired spot\u201d with a \u201csedate air of prosperity\u201d. More than a 150 years later, that just about covers it.<\/p>\n

Arguably the biggest attraction in central Penola is the Mary Mackillop Interpretative Centre, a modern museum of unexpected architectural sophistication devoted to telling the story of the only nun since Sally Field to have penetrated the national consciousness. Next-door is a church and the Woods-Mackillop Schoolhouse, the first purpose-built structure for Mary\u2019s revolutionary educational program.<\/p>\n

Manning the complex are a team of energetic volunteers, including 86 year-old Father Paul Gardiner, an avuncular Jesuit intellectual, author of Mackillop\u2019s authorised biography and the man essentially responsible for writing the submission that will make Mary a saint. It was Father Paul who proved the two miracles that were eventually accepted by the Vatican as evidence for Mackillop\u2019s sainthood.<\/p>\n

As jobs titles go, proving miracles for a living invites a host of questions: Is there opportunity for promotion? How do you tell if someone didn\u2019t have a miracle and just got lucky? What do you tell people at cocktail parties who look at you like you\u2019ve just announced you\u2019re an alchemist or the King\u2019s Chief Soothsayer?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe occurrence of miracles doesn\u2019t contradict science,\u201d says Father Paul with the same slightly exasperated tone he says everything. \u201cIt just says that exceptions happen.\u201d To illustrate his point, the padre picks up a Milk Arrowroot from the plate in front of us. \u201cIf I drop this biscuit a certain number of times science can predict it will return to the plate. But it might not. Maybe, just one time, it will stay there\u2026 Physical science can\u2019t give you the cause of anything. It can\u2019t say why<\/em>. \u2018Cause\u2019 is a philosophical concept, not a scientific one.\u201d<\/p>\n

To secular eyes, it can seem a curiously anachronistic, even dangerous, view of the world. Before dismissing the possibility of a miracle, however, it is worth being reminded of the old line about there being more things in heaven and earth<\/em> etc., and of the fact that the number of people in the world who do believe in such occurrences still massively outweigh the small portion that don\u2019t. More to the point, isn\u2019t there something inherently exciting about the possibility of a miracle? The thought that here, in 2010, with quantum physics, missions to Mars and a 24 hour food channel, that among us lurks an older magic more mysterious and powerful than anything we can imagine?<\/p>\n

Miracles might seem like the preserve of hysterical Mediterranean grandmas, hair-gelled tele-evangelists and their couch-bound devotees, but doesn\u2019t part of me envy their sense of hope, their faith in the face of the apparently impossible?<\/p>\n

Penola seems, on the whole, keen to celebrate Mackillop\u2019s ascendency to the ranks of an elite few whose image can be seen in stained glass or hanging from the rear vision mirror of a taxi. It would be an exaggeration to say, however, that the place was in the grip of Mackillop fever: there are no messages of celebration in shop windows, no banner across the main street. If there was a sign on the highway welcoming me to \u201cMackillop Country\u201d then I missed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe seemed like a really nice lady,\u201d says one local woman, offering a typically understated insight into the place Mackillop occupies in the town\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

If this were Europe there\u2019d be guys selling flashing Mackillop statues, a new dessert called a Pain au Mackillop and you wouldn\u2019t be able to move for falling over some black-clad nanna shuffling by on her knees, weeping to the sky. Sure, a baker at the neighbouring town of Naracoorte is shipping a cake to Rome and the Coonawarra winemakers are sending 100 dozen bottles of red but, on the whole, there seems to be a slightly frustrating Anglo reserve to the whole affair.<\/p>\n

I mean: this is it. Penola\u2019s big shot. The chance to go to the Gold Coast, walk into Hooters and say, \u201cI\u2019m from Penola, you know the Mary Mackillop town you saw on Kerri Anne.\u201d I just hope Penola realises exactly how big his could be.<\/p>\n

Guy De Tot is a loquacious 57-year old French-born local, the sort of cultured, slightly eccentric, type that seems to find themselves in refined country towns like Penola. After 25-years as an international ballet dancer he has reinvented himself as a successful sculptor. The Mackillop Foundation has commissioned him to make three reliquaries to hold strands of Mackillop\u2019s hair, one of which will be sent to the Vatican.<\/p>\n

Perhaps unexpectedly for one with many glamorous and decadent stories of his days on the stage, De Tot once trained as priest. These days he describes himself as agnostic but in his praise of Mackillop he is effusive. \u201cI\u2019m a big fan of Mary Mackillop,\u201d he says pronouncing it Mackil-oop and gesticulating with Gallic enthusiasm. \u201cShe didn\u2019t compromise on education for the lower classes. She rebelled and was excommunicated. That really spoke to me, as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an uncommon perception of Mackillop, but De Tot also hints at a barrier to her wider acceptance within the Australian national consciousness. \u201cI grew up in France listening to stories about saints. Every year I get a present on my patron saints\u2019 day. For me it was normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australians, generally speaking, don\u2019t do religion. We are, for the most, a nation of pragmatists, suspicious of strong passions \u2013 floating Arrowroots are just not our scene. It would be a shame, however, if Mackillop\u2019s status as a religious icon were allowed to cloud her status as an Australian icon because the two are inextricably linked.<\/p>\n

The Josephites were a specifically Australian response to specifically Australian conditions. They moved independently, free of the bishops in the distant capital and were given a fair bit of personal flexibility. The Josephites appeal to Australians precisely because, like their founder, they are pragmatic. Unlike many European orders they don\u2019t tend to have elaborate degrees or brew award-winning beer. The primary thing, then and now, is to get the job done.<\/p>\n

Sister Neisha is the only Josephite in Penola and principal of Mary Mackillop Memorial School. \u201cIt says that our experience in this land has validity,\u201d she says of Mackillop\u2019s canonisation. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s one thing Mary says \u2013 to be happy in who we are as Australians and not worry about what everyone thinks of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secular readings of Mackillop\u2019s life are not, however, viewed particularly favourably by the Catholic Church. Try, for instance, mentioning her status as a proto-feminist. \u201cShe\u2019d have been horrified!\u201d booms Father Paul.<\/p>\n

Probably, although she was one, whether she liked it or not.<\/p>\n

Mackillop also has some status as a figure of inter-faith harmony. The Josephites always taught everyone equally (notably, Aboriginal children) and in Penola, at least, there is a great deal of ecumenical support for her canonisation. But make no mistake: the transformation of Mary Mackillop into Saint Mary of the Cross is a specifically Catholic affair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about Mary,\u201d says Father Paul, \u201cis that they tend to stress her good works, her orphanages and schools etc. But she\u2019s not being canonised for that. You\u2019ve got to look into her heart, her soul, her devotion to god. That\u2019s the difference here.\u201d<\/p>\n

To many it would seem an obscure doctrinal matter. After all, most people do<\/em> just think of her good works. The matter, however, is clear \u2013 Mary is a saint because of her closeness to a Catholic god. It\u2019s the kind of detail that makes people uncomfortable, but there\u2019s no getting around it: at the centre of the Mackillop story is a capital-G God, complete, as Ned Flanders once said, with all the stuff that contradicts the other stuff.<\/p>\n

No matter how you slant it, canonisation is still a strange and rather ancient thing, a primitive swamp creature crashing the party of polite, liberal, secular Australia. Whether you approve or otherwise, it\u2019s impossible to deny that the Mackillop story represents a radical new chapter in our national story.<\/p>\n

Two days after I leave Penola a highly improbable thing happens \u2013 a tornado hits the town, destroys the bowls club, blows the roofs off several homes and launches a tree through the roof of the Mackillop Schoolhouse. The damage, I am assured, will not impact the canonisation celebrations, but it\u2019s an event with the kind of Biblical overtones headline writers can\u2019t resist \u2013 there are mentions of both miracles and divine wrath and a couple of people complain of a newspaper\u2019s description of the town as \u201ctiny\u201d.<\/p>\n

The nice thing about Penola is, of course, that is tiny. As in a miniature painting, details stand out: the flashing \u201cOPEN\u201d sign in a bakery; the obsessive arrangement of dusty costume jewellery in a shop window; the Indian and Cambodian seasonal workers getting into beat up vans in the supermarket car park.<\/p>\n

I think, too, of the display in the Schoolhouse, of the ribbons Mackillop would award children for behaviour \u2013 black for bad, red for good. I see the Josephite symbol on the front of her habit, appearing to me now, as it did in childhood, somewhat like the ABC logo, bringing with it a flood of nostalgia.<\/p>\n

All at once I am taken back to primary school, to the kindly nuns who taught us reading and the cranky ones who ran the choir. I remember singing the national anthem and marching into class and suddenly find myself unexpectedly touched by the Mackillop story and my own half-forgotten connection to it. And what was my sporting house called? Our colour was green and we always lost.<\/p>\n

Ah, yes. I remember now: Penola.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MACKILLOP’S SONS & DAUGHTERS   Penola is a town of a little over 1500 people approximately five hours drive southeast of Adelaide. It\u2019s a charming place, but not exactly what you\u2019d call \u201con the map\u201d. \u201cWhen I went to the Gold Coast and told people I was from Penola, they had no idea where I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[63,453,454,450,449,451,445,447,452,446,444,448,278,275],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brendanshanahan.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}