Front Cover

Mary MacKillop by John Elliott (1998)

Located in St Stephen's Chapel, Brisbane, the oldest church in Queensland.

The sculptor began with the trunk of a hundred-year old camphor laurel - the tree once planted in every Queensland schoolyard to provide shade. He sliced it and hollowed it out and then began painstakingly to recombine its elements, allowing the figure of Mary MacKillop to emerge.
The ancient tree and its rough bark recall the slab hut in which she opened her first school, and the old fence posts she passed as she travelled through the Australian bush on horseback.
Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne in 1842 and died in Sydney on 8 August 1909. Responding to the isolation of colonial families, she pioneered a new form of religious life to provide education for their children.
She and her sisters shared the life of the poor and the itinerant, offering special care to destitute women and children.

Used with permission of St Stephen's Cathedral, Brisbane.