Sainthood, Statues and the 'Patience' of a Saint

Mary MacKillop has been announced as Australia's first saint by the Vatican.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 19/02/2010
Reporter: Ticky Fullerton

Transcript
TICKY FULLERTON, PRESENTER: The Vatican announced a short while ago that Mary McKillop will become Australia's first saint. Pope Benedict revealed tonight that she will be canonised at a ceremony in October in Rome.Mary McKillop founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph in 1866. She is revered by Catholics for setting up schools in remote country areas and working with children, female prisoners and prostitutes.

PAUL COLLINS, HISTORIAN & CATHOLIC COMMENTATOR: I have described her as a great Australian sheila. Now, that's perhaps a rather crude phrase, but nevertheless, I think it sums up the type of person that she is: a practical person, a person who saw a real social need, who saw the children in the bush particularly needed education and culture and she organised a group of sisters to be able to meet that need.

TICKY FULLERTON: She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995. Last year the Vatican accepted that blessed Mary had performed a miracle involving the healing of a person suffering from cancer. Mary McKillop had a controversial life and at one stage was excommunicated from the Church for allegedly disobeying authorities. However, she continued to spend her life caring for the poor.

The Common Shrew says that's as may be. You can read what a poet of her acquaintance had to say on the subject on the occasion of her canonisation at the post for 11 August 2010.

The Poetry of the Winter Olympics

No I don't just mean the poetry, I mean the poetry. Up there at the opening ceremony! Acclaimed by that huge crowd and seen the world over, Canadian poet Shane L. Koyczan, the nicest guy anyone could wish to meet, a man who can reduce even the most hard-boiled old bag to tears with a line, as I know from personal experience, having mc'd his gig at a Queensland Poetry Festival!

Poetry - on the world stage !!

and you can hear that poem - right here


and here, from his website, at http://www.houseofparlance.com/koyczan/index.html is another small example of the reason why

6:59 AM

I’ve been told

that people in the army
do more by 7:00 am
than I do
in an entire day

but if I wake
at 6:59 am
and turn to you
to trace the outline of your lips
with mine
I will have done enough
and killed no one
in the process.

- Shane Koyczan, Visiting Hours

and there was kd lang, too singing Leonard Cohen, and suddenly I thought, yeah, all right, I DO belong in this world!

... and so I say to the vast majority who perplex and perturb my life day after day, in the immortal words of Shane L. Koyczan:

"stop it
write me a poem to make me happy"

Well, hit me with a hot ukulele!

I did warn you that an attack of ukuleles was imminent!