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Good mothers generally produce good people. But Australian Mary MacKillop (1842-1909) went beyond the very real goodness of her siblings to sanctity.
She said once to her mother: “I learned everything from you.” Beyond that single statement, Mary’s heroic virtue and deep insights into God’s ways remain swathed in divine mystery. She kept no journal. She had no confessor who outlived her and wrote of her inner life.
But if the roots remain hidden, there is no shortage of evidence that Mary saw life from an uncommon point of view. Even from age sixteen, when she worked as a teacher to support her entire family of ten—including her devout but hopelessly improvident father—she believed, above all, that God would bring good for her out of anything he permitted. And because she believed this with all her heart, she never let trials embitter her or turn her into a grim, dour woman.
“I cannot tell you what a beautiful thing the will of…
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