The feast day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop on Saturday marked six years since Sr Rita Malavisi RSJ began her MacKa Moments video series about the life of Australia’s first saint. Source: Melbourne Catholic.
Sr Rita began making the short videos during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. More than 300 episodes later, the project has taken on a life of its own. What began as a creative outlet during isolation, aimed at teaching school students more about St Mary MacKillop, has become a weekly must-view for thousands across the country.
Sr Rita says what keeps the series going is that it focuses not just on the woman MacKillop was, but also on her ability to guide others in their faith.
“The focus has always been on how she’s followed Christ in her life, and how she can be an example,” Sr Rita said.
In the first MacKa Moment, Sr Rita says she put a mask on the statue of Mary MacKillop that stands outside the Australian Catholic University forecourt in Fitzroy, to draw symbolic parallels between the uncertainty of the pandemic and the trials Mary MacKillop faced.
“She went through really tough times. We can call on her because she knows what it’s like to be in times of darkness, of uncertainty,” Sr Rita said.
“Yet through all of that, her letters show that she never lost that trust in her God being with her.”
Asked about her favourite MacKa Moments, Sr Rita recalls one memorable blooper while filming on the feast of the Divine Mercy at Our Lady of Victory’s Basilica in Camberwell.
“A man came and took the Divine Mercy away as I was speaking about the Divine Mercy. So my face just dropped.”
Mary MacKillop, canonised in 2010, spent her life championing the poor, the marginalised and the forgotten.
“She was for everybody,” Sr Rita said, “and her letters prove that. Her letters, her continual circulars to the sisters, is encouraging us to have unity and to embrace everybody, no matter whether they have money or no money.”
That universal appeal has made the MacKa Moments relevant far beyond Melbourne’s Catholic community. Schools from interstate send in photos of new statues or artwork and suggest they might feature in a MacKa Moment. Students recognise Sr Rita as “the MacKa lady”.
“It’s ‘the MacKa sister’,” she tells them, “just to remind them I’m a Sister of Saint Joseph, you know.”
View Sr Rita’s MacKa Moments on her YouTube channel.
FULL STORY
MacKa Moments: the little videos that spread the message of St Mary MacKillop (Melbourne Catholic)
