As we celebrate St Mary MacKillop’s birthday today, it is fitting that her birth site has recently been upgraded and made more accessible to visitors, writes Sr Patricia Williams RSJ. Source: Sisters of Saint Joseph.
The birth site in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Victoria, became a building site in 2022.
St Vincent’s Private Hospital, which occupies the site, planned to build additional wards and theatres into the space. The original monuments commemorating Mary’s beatification and canonisation were temporally removed to make way for the building.
After the site was bulldozed, an archaeological dig took place but did not reveal anything relating to Mary’s home, Marino Cottage, except a cellar for Como Cottage, which was later built on the same location.
After completion of the dig, there was a celebration in October 2022 to begin the building work.
With the completion of the building last month, the official blessing of the renewed birth site by the hospital chaplain, Fr Phillip Mathew, took place.
The area is now named The Mary MacKillop Garden. It has been beautifully developed in what might be called a simple but classical style appropriately recognising Mary as a saint for Australia and a citizen of Fitzroy.
As we celebrate Mary’s birthday, we will recall how she has inspired many Australians over the past 183 years as she inspired those present for the blessing for the renewed birth site memorial.
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Celebrating Mary MacKillop’s Birthday (By Sr Patricia Williams RSJ, Sisters of Saint Joseph)