Mary MacKillop

Sun: All the talk here is of Mary MacKillop's cannonization. She is the first ever Australian saint and they are rightly proud. In 2007 when Gerry and I visited the Australian Catholic University-ACU ( a kind of Maynooth without the clerics, but I suppose that's what Maynooth now is!) there were murals of Mary MacKillop in very strategic places, and she was only 'blessed' then. I predict a massive surge in interest and related activities for all Catholic schools and colleges leading up to the ceremony in Rome, later this year.
Speaking of ceremonies, at mass today all the teachers in the local Catholic P.S. were comissioned. They all went up around the altar after the sermon and took part in a special ceremony which was like a committment ceremony to teach in a Catholic school. It finished with the principal giving a talk on their school ethos. No automatic pilot, go with the flow, stuff here-you make a choice that comes with a committment.