Mary MacKillop Part of Special Thanksgiving Mass

Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese,
10 Mar 2010

Special prayers will be offered to Blessed Mary MacKillop on Thursday, 25 March when hundreds of parishioners, family and friends will crowd into St Paul's Catholic Church at Albion Park, NSW for a Thanksgiving Mass to celebrate the 10th anniversary of 37-year-old Father David Catterall's ordination.

The principal celebrant at the Mass will be the Bishop of Wollongong, the Most Rev Peter Ingham. But Australia's Saint in Waiting will also play a role.

Not only did Mary MacKillop, and the order she founded, the Sisters of St Joseph, have a close association with Albion Park which she visited several times during her lifetime, but it was as a result of her intercession, many believe, that Fr David, the area's popular young parish priest was restored to health after battling breast cancer.

Just 27 years old and serving as a Deacon in one of the parishes in the Wollongong Diocese, having finished his studies at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd, Homebush, the previous year, Fr David learned he had a malignancy of the breast. He immediately underwent a mastectomy but before beginning chemotherapy, it was decided to bring his ordination forward while he still felt strong and well enough to attend.

So instead of the planned June ceremony, Fr David was ordained as a priest at Wollongong's St Francis Xavier's Cathedral on 25 March 2000. Two days later the young priest embarked on more than eight months of gruelling chemotherapy followed by radiation therapy.

Unlike women, malignancy of the breast in males is extremely rare, affecting less than 1 percent of the population. With no history of cancer in his family, the diagnosis came as a shock and despite Fr David's quiet courage and natural optimism, the prognosis seemed grim and his family, friends and parishioners at Albion Park where he grew up, feared he might not survive.

As he began his treatment, prayers led by many of Fr David's family and friends, including the Josephite sisters serving in Albion Park, were offered to Blessed Mother Mary MacKillop for her intercession in Fr David's recovery.

Mary MacKillop visited Albion Park several times during her lifetime, and in 1882 she established St Paul's Primary School, which 128 years later is still in use and still part of the parish.

Fr David grew up in the same suburb and has now been parish priest there for two years.

"The Josephites' charism is like a wonderful mantle over the entire area," says Fr David, remembering how in his final years at school, he joined a prayer group run by the Sisters of St Joseph, and how during this time, he first began to think seriously about a priestly vocation.

After enduring chemo and radiotherapy, losing all his hair and battling nausea and fatigue, it seemed prayers to Mary MacKillop had been answered and 12 months after his diagnosis, Fr David began to regain his health and his energy.

As assistant priest at Wollongong's Cathedral, Fr David ministered to the diocese working alongside Bishop Philip Wilson and then when he was appointed Bishop of Adelaide, alongside the new Bishop of Wollongong, the Most Rev Peter Ingham. It was work he loved and he found having battled cancer, he could offer real empathy and real understanding to others in similar situations, especially to those parishioners in the parishes where he says he was privileged to serve after recovering from treatment.

"I can genuinely say, I know what you're going through," he says with a smile to those who like him are now undergoing chemo or radiation therapy.

But like many cancer survivors, for Fr David there was always the fear the malignancy might return and in 2005, after attending World Youth Day in Cologne and returning to the Rosemeadow Parish where he was Assistant Priest, he felt a pain in his chest cavity. After scans and examinations, he was told there was a 90 percent chance there was a malignancy.

The clergy and people of the Wollongong Diocese were informed Fr David had undergone a bone scan and was currently having more tests, and they were once again asked to pray for him and his family through the intercession of Blessed Mary MacKillop.

Then as Fr David prepared for surgery, a fellow priest, loaned him "a piece of wood" from Mary MacKillop's original casket which had to be replaced when she was reburied five years after her death in the Mother House of the Sisters of Joseph at North Sydney. He carried this precious relic when he entered hospital and it was beside him as he underwent surgery.

What followed was the wonderful news that there was no cancer and the shadow on the scans a possible small now healed fracture.

"In late 2005 I travelled with my family and friends from the Diocese to Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel for a thanksgiving Mass which was when the Sisters of St Joseph presented me with my own precious piece of wood from the casket," Fr David remembers.

This relic remains one of his most treasured and precious possessions and to celebrate the news of Mary MacKillop's canonisation had pride of place in St Paul's Church at Albion Park for Christmas 2009 and was displayed with the nativity scene.

Now at his parishioners and friends insistence a thanksgiving Mass on the anniversary of his ordination is being held at St Paul's Church on Thursday, 25 March.

"We didn't know if you'd survive and we want to say thank you," some of Fr David's parishioners have explained.

But for his part, Fr David simply wants to say thank you to God for the gift of the priesthood and for his decade as a priest.

"I hope the focus will not only be on my cancer survival, but on the way God has worked through my life," he says, adding that he has asked parishioners to pray at this Mass in thanksgiving for all priests, especially those who have served in Albion Park, and for an increase in vocations to the priesthood."

As for Mary MacKillop, plans are already afoot in Albion Park to celebrate her canonisation on 17 October.

"We wanted to combine something Australian with something Scottish, so our plans at this stage are to hold a wonderful big barbecue with Scottish dancing," says Fr David with a smile.