THE CANONIZATION OF MARY MACKILLOP

[RonPrice]

Two or three nights ago, after a day of writing and reading, editing and posting on the internet, research and what I have come to call independent scholarship, I settled down with my after-midnight snack. I watch TV at that time to help turn my brain off and so get into alpha waves after what has been a busy day of ratiocinative activity. I chanced upon a movie entitled The Magdalene Sisters.(1) It was set in Dublin in 1964 and portayed the sexual, physical and emotional abuse by nuns, priests and others in church-run residential schools or asylums, incredibly horrific Dickensian institutions.

Part of the reason for making the film, wrote the director Peter Mullen, was the need for closure by the victims of these institutions. The film received the British Independent Film Award in 2003 and the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2002. For my money, for my television and cinema tastes, this film deserved both awards.-Ron Price with thanks to (1) SBS1 TV, 14 October 12:05-2:15 a.m. and Sarah Lyall, “Report Details Abuses In Irish Reformatories,� The New York Times.com, 20 May 2009.

Where will I start with my comment
on this moving account of fallen and
abused women needing redemption
for their so-called sins in old systems
of homes maintained by religious orders
in Ireland’s Roman Catholic Church?!*
How can believers reconcile their faith
with these historically oppressive facts?

Where will I start on this special day of
the canonization of Mary MacKillop??
The declaration of heroic virtue in 1992?1
Your beatification on 19 January 1995?2
The decree of 19 December 2009 by the
Congregation for the Causes of Saints who
issued the papal statement recognising that
second miracle: the complete and permanent
cure of a woman with lung and brain cancer?

Will I mention that by October 2010 your
official website was receiving an average of
9,000 visitors per day? I’ll have to see that
1994 film Mary, the 2008 play Her Holiness
and that musical of 2008 Mary MacKillop for
Australia’s first saint: what does it all mean???

Perhaps--that one can not use the words and
deeds of mortal-men as a standard for the true
understanding and recogniition of God & His
Prophets. It’s a very difficult lesson to learn
on life’s path of faith, eh Mary? Putting one’s
trust in God has never been easy, has it Mary?
I wish you well wherever you are leaping and
soaring, perhaps, in the land or ocean of light!!

1 This is a process internal to the church and conducted by some of its senior members.
2 Pope John Paul II performed this beatification. For the occasion the acclaimed Croatian-Australian artist Charles Billich was commissioned to paint the official commemorative portrait of Mary MacKillop.

Ron Price
17 October 2010

[bernee51]

Two or three nights ago, after a day of writing and reading, editing and posting on the internet, research and what I have come to call independent scholarship, I settled down with my after-midnight snack. I watch TV at that time to help turn my brain off and so get into alpha waves after what has been a busy day of ratiocinative activity. I chanced upon a movie entitled The Magdalene Sisters.(1) It was set in Dublin in 1964 and portayed the sexual, physical and emotional abuse by nuns, priests and others in church-run residential schools or asylums, incredibly horrific Dickensian institutions.

Part of the reason for making the film, wrote the director Peter Mullen, was the need for closure by the victims of these institutions. The film received the British Independent Film Award in 2003 and the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2002. For my money, for my television and cinema tastes, this film deserved both awards.-Ron Price with thanks to (1) SBS1 TV, 14 October 12:05-2:15 a.m. and Sarah Lyall, “Report Details Abuses In Irish Reformatories,� The New York Times.com, 20 May 2009.

Where will I start with my comment
on this moving account of fallen and
abused women needing redemption
for their so-called sins in old systems
of homes maintained by religious orders
in Ireland’s Roman Catholic Church?!*
How can believers reconcile their faith
with these historically oppressive facts?

Where will I start on this special day of
the canonization of Mary MacKillop??
The declaration of heroic virtue in 1992?1
Your beatification on 19 January 1995?2
The decree of 19 December 2009 by the
Congregation for the Causes of Saints who
issued the papal statement recognising that
second miracle: the complete and permanent
cure of a woman with lung and brain cancer?

Will I mention that by October 2010 your
official website was receiving an average of
9,000 visitors per day? I’ll have to see that
1994 film Mary, the 2008 play Her Holiness
and that musical of 2008 Mary MacKillop for
Australia’s first saint: what does it all mean???

Perhaps--that one can not use the words and
deeds of mortal-men as a standard for the true
understanding and recogniition of God & His
Prophets. It’s a very difficult lesson to learn
on life’s path of faith, eh Mary? Putting one’s
trust in God has never been easy, has it Mary?
I wish you well wherever you are leaping and
soaring, perhaps, in the land or ocean of light!!

1 This is a process internal to the church and conducted by some of its senior members.
2 Pope John Paul II performed this beatification. For the occasion the acclaimed Croatian-Australian artist Charles Billich was commissioned to paint the official commemorative portrait of Mary MacKillop.

Ron Price
17 October 2010

Hi Ron

Not sure of the point of your post...personally Mary McK is to be held in esteem for the work she did with the poor and the dispossessed. Whether she contributed to, or was blind to the abuse is moot. I note she was apparently at one time excommunicated for 'outing' an abusive priest.

Al lthat said...Joni Mitchell wrote on the opic of the "Magdelene Laundries"...

I was an unmarried girl
I'd just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me
Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries

Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers
Bridget got that belly
By her parish priest
We're trying to get things white as snow
All of us woe-begotten-daughters
In the steaming stains
Of the Magdalene laundries

Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me--
Fallen women--
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery ...
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Oh charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their groom
Then they'd know, and they'd drop those stones
Concealed behind their rosaries
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room
They'd like to drive us down the drain
At the Magdalene laundries

Peg O'Connell died today
She was a cheeky girl
A flirt
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring!
One day I'm going to die here too
And they'll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms come any spring
Not any spring
No, not any spring
Not any spring

[RonPrice]

Belated Thanks bernee51....I just saw your post tonight and enjoyed the read.-Ron