August 8 is the feast day of Mary Mackillop, the first Australian to be declared a saint by the Catholic Church, as Saint Mary of the Cross. During her life, she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of religious sisters that established a number of schools and welfare institutions, emphasising education for the rural poor.
Mackillop was born on 15 January 1842 in Fitzroy, Victoria, and was the eldest of eight children born to Scottish migrants Alexander and Flora Mackillop. Alexander had strived to enter the priesthood but left his studies at 29, just before he was due to be ordained.
One of her brothers became a Jesuit priest while one of her sisters became a member of the Good Shepherd Sisters in Melbourne.
Mackillop started working at 16 as a clerk in a stationary store before taking a job as a governess in Penola, South Australia a few years later in 1860. Already set on helping the poor whenever possible, she included the other farm children on the estate as well.
Two years later, she accepted a job teaching in Portland, Victoria and opened her own boarding school. In 1866, Father Julian Tenison-Woods, who she had met in her role as a governess, invited her and her sisters to open a new Catholic school in Penola.
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