Mount Street, North Sydney, just off the Pacific Highway bustle, drops you into a quieter Josephite precinct. The Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel at 7–11 Mount Street sits inside Mary MacKillop Place, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart campus. Mother Baptista Molloy had the Gothic Revival chapel built in 1913 as a memorial to Mary MacKillop — St Mary of the Cross, co-founder of the Josephites and later Australia’s first saint. Land was given in memory of the Daly family. Archbishop Michael Kelly dedicated the chapel on 18 January 1914.
Only days later, on 28 January 1914, Mary MacKillop’s remains were brought from Gore Hill Cemetery and reinterred in a vault before Our Lady’s altar (the vault associated with her friend Johanna Barr-Smith). On 20 December 1993 the remains were moved again into the former vestry so pilgrims could reach a more accessible shrine, ahead of beatification in 1995 and canonisation in 2010. The chapel remains a working place of prayer and the focus of Josephite memory on Mount Street.
Photographs here show the chapel’s stone exterior, pointed arches and tower profile, and aspects of the Mount Street setting.
Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel - Mount Street North Sydney
