{"id":945,"date":"2015-07-19T05:00:38","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T05:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjcmetheology.wpengine.com\/?p=945"},"modified":"2015-07-19T05:00:38","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T05:00:38","slug":"lead-follow-or-get-out-of-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/lead-follow-or-get-out-of-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is the feast of St. Mary MacKillop<\/a> (1842-1909), a saint cut from the same cloth as \"St<\/a>Dorothy Day (1897-1980) and St. Gianna Beretta Molla (1922-62). St. Mary bravely sought to follow God\u2019s will, refusing to accept easy answers or options to what she felt God had called her. A native Australian (of Scottish descent), Mary established her own religious order\u2014since no existing ones quite met her expectations. The Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart (or Josephites) staffed orphanage schools and engaged other sorts of charitable work among the poor. Much like Dorothy Day, Mary started this apostolic work in her twenties, and like Day she encountered resistance from powerful church leaders. Mary\u2019s bishop actually excommunicated her for a while, having misread her and her order\u2019s independence as dissent. Much like St. Gianna, who endured physical pain (dying from cancer while pregnant), St. Mary endured the spiritual pain of excommunication patiently. The human foibles that led to St. Mary\u2019s temporary banishment still puzzle us, because she and her Josephite sisters clearly engaged in Christ-like work. Her online biography<\/a> states:<\/p>\n

Despite her struggles with Church authorities, Mary MacKillop and her Sisters were able to offer social services that few, if any, government agencies in Australia could. They served Protestants and Catholics alike. They worked among the aborigines. They taught in schools and orphanages and served unmarried mothers.<\/p>\n

Once reinstated, she wisely sought assistance from Rome and eventually won the support of Pope Leo XIII himself. At her death in 1909, the Josephites thrived. Beatified in 1995 by St. John Paul II, St. Mary MacKillop was canonized, the first Australian recognized as a saint, in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n

St. Mary\u2019s witness resonates in today\u2019s lectionary<\/a>, too. Like Dorothy and St. Gianna, and surely an entire host of holy women\u2014some canonized, others known only to God\u2014St. Mary MacKillop feared God\u2019s authority, not men\u2019s. Through the prophet Jeremiah God declares He will gather the remnants under new leadership, ones who tend to God\u2019s people. \u201cI will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing\u201d. Psalm 23 likewise celebrates God\u2019s abiding care, even in the shadows, while St. Paul encourages the Ephesians through Christ the remote and marginalized are brought near to God. St. Mary MacKillop endured what she did sustained by these biblical calls to justice for God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

Finally, St. Mark (ch. 6:30-34) details Christ\u2019s concern for the masses\u2014many of whom thwarted his and the apostles\u2019 desire for quiet reflection\u2014and His unflinching gift of Himself. After all, they were \u201clike sheep without a shepherd.\u201d Surely this very Gospel example helped inspire St. Mary\u2019s wide-ranging work among Australia\u2019s poor. William Placher, along with many other theologians and biblical scholars, has noted St. Mark\u2019s stark, often shocking, imagery which propels Christ through the Gospel. In Mark, Jesus always acts immediately<\/u><\/em>. It is almost as if Jesus is impatient with the entire narrative, rushing through His ministry towards the Passion, His ultimate self-giving. Facing a leaderless yet expectant crowd, the exhausted Jesus teaches nonetheless. That same fervor spikes our interest in saints like St. Mary MacKillop, holy women who courageously addressed the problems right before them.<\/p>\n

Guest blogger Jeffrey Marlett<\/strong> blogs at Spiritual Diabetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is the feast of St. Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), a saint cut from the same cloth as Dorothy Day (1897-1980) and St. Gianna Beretta Molla (1922-62). St. Mary bravely sought to follow God\u2019s will, refusing to accept easy answers or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22],"tags":[276],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-saints","category-social-justice","tag-st-mary-mackillop"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}