• It Is Through The Face That We Encounter God
• A Message of Hope
• Waiting
• An Octopus at Easter.
• Invite relationships
• Transformation
• This Moment
• A Good Story
• Can I Be A Healer?
• The virtue of doubt
• Mary Mackillop, Woman Of Faith
• Fridge Doors And The Rest Of The World
• Entertaining Angels
• More connected than ever, more disconnected than ever
• Feast of Teresa of Avila, 15th October
• The Witness of Maternity Leave
• Something New
• Farewell
• Australian Catholic University is a Public University Open to All
• What if God Was One of Us?
• Zest for life
• Attendance
• Christmas Angel Tree
• A Present For Me
• On being famous
• Reason To Celebrate
• World Youth Day
• May the evening's twilight find me gentle still
• Goodness: God’s Gift To Us
• A time for every purpose under heaven
• The Mad Dash
• The Positive Spirit is Fully Alive
• Its time to change
• Living an Abundant Life

I set about preparing to write this Thought for the Week in early August, as we were celebrating the feast day of Blessed Mary MacKillop, Australia's first saint. I see her as of special significance for Australian Catholic University – she was born on 15 January 1842 in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, directly opposite our Melbourne campus; she died on 8 August 1909 at the convent in Mount Street, where some of our North Sydney staff have their offices; our campus there is named in her honour.

As co-founder the Sisters of St Joseph, she took the name Mary of the Cross. The works and values, to which Blessed Mary MacKillop dedicated her life, resonate with the University’s mission – her respect for the dignity of all people, her service of the disadvantaged, and her endeavours to build the capacity of those communities her sisters served.

Beatified by Pope John Paul II in January 1995, we celebrate her feast day on 8 August – this year members of the Melbourne campus were invited on a pilgrimage from her birthplace to the nearby Fitzroy parish church. May “Mary MacKillop a woman of faith who lived by the power of the cross … [teach] us to embrace what she pioneered: new ways of living the Gospel that respect and defend the human dignity of all in our land” (feast day Opening Prayer).

• Gabrielle McMullen,
• Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Affairs),
• Melbourne