The Black Dress

by Pamela Freeman

  My family hadn’t known the purpose of my novena, you see, but I saw, as the scandal and bother increased, the hand of God detaching me from Portland, just as I had prayed. No-one was trying to keep me there now!

  If Papa hadn’t acted so, I am sure God would have found another way of setting me free. I feel badly now that, even though I saw clearly the Lord’s hand in action, I blamed my father so much. That was mostly habit, I think, the habit of being exasperated and annoyed with him when he disrupted our lives. It’s an easy thing to get into, a habit like that, particularly with a man like Papa! Even Mamma, eventually, after so many, many years of unflagging support for him, was angry over Portland. She had been so happy there. Maggie was furious, all her lovely family peace up in smoke. We had to take in ‘gentlemen lodgers’ to make ends meet, so Annie and Lexie and Maggie moved back to Fitzroy Cottage, where we had first lived when we moved to Portland.

  Then some boys, taking Mr Cusack’s side, shouted at Papa in the street and threw stones at him and he took them to court, God help us all. The students’ parents took them away, the parish priest wouldn’t take Annie back and I was coping with three classes at once until he could find replacement teachers.

  Into all of this came a letter from Father Woods, telling me that Miss Johnson, who had run the Catholic school in Penola (a fee-paying school, like Portland) had married and was retiring, and it was time for me to come and start the free school as we had discussed. ‘Come and begin our great work,’ he wrote. He knew, for we had had many discussions about our family circumstances, that I could not leave Mamma to cope with all the family and Papa. But he did not want the whole family to come to Penola, especially Papa. ‘You cannot deny that your father is an unfortunate manager and might embarrass your position very much’.

  An understatement, considering what had just happened in Portland.

  Father Woods proposed that Mamma should remain in Portland, taking in boarders, with Donald and Peter and John, who would find work. Papa should go to Uncle Peter’s place at Hamilton, north of Portland, while Maggie, whose health was not improving, went to live with Uncle Peter and Aunt Julia at their other property at Duck Ponds. Annie, Lexie and I would go to Penola and start the school.

  The plan did not address our debts, but Father Woods declared that he would take these on himself and leave us free to begin teaching the poor. Oh, I wish he had. It would have made the next few years much easier for all of us. Father Woods was prone to enthusiasms like that, promising things, especially about money, which he was not able to give.

  It wasn’t dishonesty—at the time, fired by his belief in God’s will, he truly believed he would be able to provide what was necessary—but he never planned for it as he needed to. A man of great vision, to whom I shall always be thankful, but, God bless him, he had no real idea of how to work in the world, or the trials and malice and straightforward lies he would receive from others.

  He didn’t know what to do when he encountered dislike or malice. Where Papa would jump into the fray, tongue spitting out invective with real satisfaction, Father Woods retreated into hurt dismay, or used his personal charm (oh, that was very real!) to persuade others into being his supporters. He was much more successful with women than with men. I think many men distrusted his charm and his eloquence. Poor Father! He meant so well, and was so easily deceived and led into error, often by his own obsessions with the, the ... the more obscure branches of religion, like visions and angelic visitations and stigmata.

  The trouble we had in the early days with visions! One of the nuns involved at least admitted her deception. She, I think, was stimulated and excited by the lies and attention she received, her mind too easily influenced, but the other nun was a simple mischief-maker who was out to control the convent in my absence, though she was the last person I would have left in charge!

  Oh, she was dangerous, Ignatius, no doubt about it, as she proved more than once.

  But I must ask, what kind of unhappiness led her to such malice and deception—creating a poltergeist, pretending to see visions, blaspheming by claiming direct contact with Our Blessed Lord through the stigmata? How could anyone who had truly experienced the feeling of God in her heart ever pretend about it? Impossible. She was not suited to life in a convent, but Father Woods would not hear a word against her, even after Sister Angela confessed their deception.

  Oh, so many times I’ve heard him criticised by others. So many times others have invited me to criticise too. But no matter what happened later, I could not. Without Father Woods the Institute would never have come into being. That’s why I wrote a book about his life, to make sure that people remembered that.

  People often complained about Father. ‘The man’s mad, Mother Mary, surely you can see that?’ they would say. ‘He’s leaving a trail of debts a mile long, and no way to pay for it!’ Or even, ‘He should be locked up in an asylum where he can’t do anyone any harm!’ But how could I criticise him when I could remember his kindness and his real vision for the work of the Institute? His letter to me in Portland said, ‘Come and begin our great work, Mary.’

  I knew when I received it that the time had come for me to start my real work, and yet my heart bled—Father Woods’ plan meant the break-up of my family and we all knew that Mamma and Papa would never live together again.

  It was not a step that Mamma would ever have taken on her own, no matter how much, in later years, she wished for peace from Papa’s tirades and poor decisions and public humiliations. But with Father Woods’ express command, she could believe that she was following the Will of God. After the troubles in Portland, I think all she wanted was a little quiet, time to mother her boys and speak to her neighbours without worrying about what Papa had last said or done.

  I have seen Papa described as a drunk more than once, but I think that is because drunkenness is a thing people understand, while Papa’s over-zealous regard for truth and probity is strange to them. Though it’s true he liked a dram or two, and liked it more as he got older and felt more useless.

  After we left Portland, I never saw my father again. He died three years later, at Hamilton, with Mamma by his side.

  How sad it is to think that even Mamma saw his death as freeing her from a trial, for she had continued to send him whatever monies she could; particularly when he had fallen out (inevitably!) with the overseer of the property and had to move to another part of Uncle Peter’s domain in Geelong for a time.

  It was a sad death because there was so little to celebrate about his life, but we were relieved as well as saddened. What a contrast to Mamma’s death, where we all genuinely grieved for such a long time, although we were sure she was safe in Heaven with Papa, John, Maggie and Alick.

  So little to celebrate ... but now I wonder. Three of his children chose the religious life—me in the Josephites, Lexie as a Good Shepherd nun, and Donald as a Jesuit. Mamma taught us loving faith but Papa encouraged our vocations, as she never did.

  It was a mystery to me at the time as to why I was called. I have wondered, over and over, at the flood of memories these last days have brought back. The Holy Spirit has finally made it clear to me. I have always said that my early life prepared me to be a nun, but now I realise my childhood gave me more than an acceptance of living on charity!

  It needed an educated woman to start an order of teaching nuns, and I was as educated as women were allowed to be at that time. It needed someone with an intimate acquaintance with poverty, a working woman, to start the kind of schools that the poor really needed—schools that taught them practical subjects like bookkeeping and letter-writing, instead of rhetoric and Latin. It needed someone who was committed to her Catholic faith, as it was both the material and spiritual needs of the children that had to be filled. It needed someone who had been poor herself to ensure that poor children were treated equally, loved equally, praised equally—someone who did not believe that the poor deserved their lot. Apart from that, she needed to have the faith that God would pr
ovide! There were not many women in Australia at that time, I think, who met those criteria. Perhaps there was only one who was Catholic.

  Thinking about that list, it’s clear that without both my parents, I would not have been fit for the job.

  Without the experience of poverty that Papa so liberally gave me, I might never have learnt compassion for the poor, never have understood that the poor were not a different, lesser form of humanity, as so many of our class believed—never have learnt to beg for my daily bread! Oh, it hurts to laugh. Poor Papa. Without his fights with Dunmore Lang, would I have learnt to keep silent and let controversy die down around me, as it so often has, or would I have stirred it up and made it worse? Without his carelessness with money, would I have learnt to scrimp and save and plan? Without his impulsiveness and tendency to vitriol, would I have learnt to keep the peace between my Sisters as I had to? To think twice, to search for a charitable answer, to offer my opinion humbly and to make corrections gently, without heat?

  Most important of all, without his absolute commitment to doing what God required of him, would I have heard God’s Call to me? Would I have recognised it when it came? Would I have stood up to the bishops when they tried to take over the Institute? Would I have fought so hard for the establishment of the Rule?

  Well, I don’t know. I could as easily ask, without Mamma’s belief in God providing, would I have even conceived of an order of nuns who lived on charity? Without her kindness and compassion and love of others, would I have noticed the children going in want? Without her need of me, would I have learnt to take responsibility?

  No, and no, and no. So I think it likely that Papa’s indiscretions were important, too. They made me who I am.

  Oh, I’ve travelled far in memory these last days. All around the world. Have I done my work? Have I forgiven him?

  I examine my conscience carefully. Have I forgiven him for leaving us to go to Scotland? For putting the needs of others above ours? For his anger, his impatience, his impulsiveness, his unthinking adherence to simple views of right and wrong?

  Poor Papa. Oh, yes, I can find no anger any more, just a heart-wrenching pity—sadness and a hope that he will forgive me when I meet him again, as I shall, so soon, so soon! For all my anger and impatience and exasperation. I feel calmer, and easier in my body, too. Isn’t that strange?

  Sister La Merci has come to see me.

  ‘Mother,’ she says, ‘do you think you can receive Holy Communion? It is the First Friday, you know.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ I say. I am astonished at how easily the words come when I haven’t been able to speak for days. She is astonished, too.

  ‘Did you say yes, Mother?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say again.

  They are all delighted and rush to get the priest. What a privilege, what a delight, to take the Blessed Eucharist once more! And I am able to swallow. I am sure it is a sign of God’s grace. The end will come soon. All I have to do now is lie here and pray.

  I remember a letter I received from my father, in March 1866, when I was teaching at Penola.

  ***

  By that time, I was growing more and more eager to take my vows and begin my life as a nun. To really be who I was meant to be. I decided to take a step along the way and to give up dressing as an ordinary young woman. I couldn’t put on a formal nun’s habit until I had taken my vows, but I decided I would stop dressing in colours and wear only black from then on.

  That would be the outward sign of how I felt: that I had already given my life over to God.

  I gave my dresses to Annie and Lexie. It was a strange moment. The colours and fabrics were so familiar to me, but as I laid them down on their beds the dresses seemed distant, as though they had belonged to me a very, very long time ago. I had thought it might be hard, particularly giving up my favourite olive green dress and my riding habit, but it was as easy as throwing away the combings of hair from a hairbrush—these were things that had been part of me but weren’t any longer.

  On the morning of St Joseph’s Feast Day, March 19th, 1866, I did my hair in tight plaits and wound them around my head. Then I put on the black dress, the black stockings and black shoes that I had planned so long ago, and went to early Mass.

  Annie and Lexie went too, but they walked behind me to the church. The other Mass-goers knew what I had planned, and nodded solemnly to me as I went past. I felt solemn, too, but also exhilarated. Free.

  This was the beginning of the Institute. This was the moment when, publicly, I declared who I really was. Not Mary MacKillop any longer, but Sister Mary of the Institute of St Joseph.

  As Father Woods gave me Holy Communion, his eyes shone. ‘ Corpus Christi, Sister Mary,’ he said clearly, so everyone could hear.

  ‘Amen,’ I said.

  It was a thrilling moment. Afterwards, it felt like an anticlimax to simply go back to the cottage and have breakfast, so I sat down and wrote to both my mother and my father, telling them what I had done.

  Mamma wrote back reminding me that I hadn’t taken any vows and that I was not yet ‘bound to the religious life’. She had so much fear of the future at that time, so much anxiety on my behalf and on her own. Dear Mamma. But her reluctance to support my decision at that time caused me great pain.

  Papa wrote congratulating me on taking the next step on my journey. ‘How my soul delights in your success,’ he wrote, so generously. ‘Our only happiness is in fulfilling the Will of God, and you have the comfort of knowing that you have a true vocation.’

  I was so grateful. I felt lifted up, light as air, as I had felt so long ago, at John’s birth, when he had whirled Maggie and me around the room. And now that is the father I remember, that tall, glowing, happy man with the beautiful voice and the loving hands. That is the father who will embrace me in Heaven. I know I can rely on his forgiveness and his understanding for all my anger and impatience.

  I think I will pray a little now.

  MOTHER MARY OF THE CROSS, MARY MACKILLOP, DIED ON 8TH AUGUST 1909 AT NORTH SYDNEY. SHE WAS SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD.

  MORE INFORMATION

  The Institute of St Joseph which Mary MacKillop and Father Julian Tenison Woods founded gave rise to the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph (the ‘Brown Josephites’) and to five diocesan orders of Josephite nuns which together make up the Federation of the Sisters of St Joseph (the ‘Black Josephites’). The Josephites are still the largest order of nuns in Australia and their work extends around the globe.

  ***

  More information about Mary MacKillop’s life and work can be found on the following websites:

  –www.sosj.org.au

  –www.josephitefederation.catholic.org.au.

  You will also find further reading lists and educational resources at www.sosj.org.au.

  ***

  Mary MacKillop was beatified on 19 January, 1995, by Pope John Paul II and is now known as the Blessed Mary MacKillop. ‘Blessed’ is a title given to a person whose life has been proved to be extraordinarily holy.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book would not have existed without the encouragement, advice and help of the Sisters of St Joseph, particularly Sr Marie Foale, Sr Philomena McGuigan, Sr Sheila McCreanor and Sr Kath O’Connor. I would also like to thank my agent, Lyn Tranter, for her advice and encouragement.

  In addition, I must also acknowledge my debt to Paul Gardiner, SJ, and his biography, Mary MacKillop: An Extraordinary Australian, to Victor Feehan and Ann MacDonnell’s In Search of Alexander MacKillop, and to the resources made available to me through the archives of the Sisters of St Joseph.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Pamela Freeman writes books for children and young adults. She has also worked as a consultant in organisational communications, as a scriptwriter for the ABC and the PowerHouse Museum, and has taught communications and creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney and the University of New South Wales.

  Pamela’s books have been shortlisted for the State Literary
Awards, the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Awards, the Koala Awards and the Wilderness Society Environment Awards. She lives in Sydney with her husband and son.

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