Hello Newmanites!
As you may know, I have spent this semester in Australia, working on research at the University of Sydney. One of my first stops upon arriving at USyd was the Catholic Chaplaincy, which is housed at the John Paul II Student Center in Sydney. I introduced myself as a Canadian and the first response of most people I met was “do you know Eileen?” Apparently, Eileen is also a Canadian. For the first month here, we didn’t meet in person though, but when we finally did meet, we realized we had a lot more in common than just being Canadian. In fact, Eileen is a Newman Alumna, having studied for her Bachelors and Master’s of Engineering at McGill. The more we chatted, the more mutual friends we knew! I’ll let Eileen introduce herself in a future blog post so you can hear more about the exciting things she is doing in Sydney!
On Friday, the two of us took a short pilgrimage to visit St. Mary MacKillop’s shrine here in Sydney. St. Mary of the Cross (MacKillop) is Australia’s first and only saint. She founded a community of women religious here in Australia that grew beyond all expectations, primarily for the education and care for children. She was canonized alongside St. (Brother) Andre of Montreal in 2010.
At St. Mary MacKillop’s tomb and in the beautiful garden outside, we prayed for our Newman community, which has given both of us so much over the years! St. Mary of the Cross, Pray for us!
Holly
