So, we’ve got ourselves a saint. The Blessed Mary McKillop is due to become St Mary McKillop after she is canonised at the Vatican in a ceremony on October 17. Thousands of Aussie pilgrims are expected to charter planes, trains and buses to witness the ceremony. Catholic schools across Australia will be involved in celebrations for the months surrounding the canonisation. Expect a swag of girls named Mary to arrive in July, 2011.

But aside from the fact that we’re finally getting ourselves a divine guernsey, our very own front-row member of the celestial scrimmage, why all the fuss? What was it about Mary that made her stand out among the many Australian Catholics of the 19th century? Can the heathens out there learn something from her life and works?

Born in Melbourne on July 15, 1842, Mary McKillop was raised among a large brood of Scottish immigrants by her parents, Flora and Alexander. Alexander had aspirations for the priesthood as a youth, and made sure that his daughters grew up good Catholics. He also liked to dabble in politics and speculating, a popular pastime of landowners of the age. Unfortunately, however, Alexander was fairly crap at both, often leaving the family in perilous straits financially. Illness eventually forced him to return to England, leaving Mary, Flora and her brother and sisters to make their own way in what was a harsh, unforgiving place.

Mary, like many young women of the time, became a governess to make ends meet and support her large family. She travelled to Penola in South Australia, in the early 1860s, where she was to look after the children of her aunt and uncle. It was here that she met Father Julian Woods. Already a deeply religious woman, it was Woods who really cemented Mary’s faith, her desire to devote her life to the church and perhaps more essentially, her commitment to the poor.

It’s important to consider the conditions that many were living under in Australia at the time. While many immigrants of the 1840s and 1850s had the resources to make a new start in Australia, others faced a daily struggle to keep themselves fed and clothed. The notoriously fickle and harsh Australian climate, the booms and busts of the stock market, disease and lack of education made life much more of a struggle than that we know today.

Together, Woods and McKillop founded the Sisters of St Joseph, a new order that was to live a life of strict poverty, with a mission to help those suffering from deprivation — specifically, the order would bring education to the children of the poor. From Penola, she moved to Portland in Victoria, where she would open one the first free schools in the country.

This was huge. Education at the time was traditionally restricted to the wealthier middle-classes. Mary and her sisters brought basic literacy and numeracy into the lives of many who would otherwise go without. For many, the education provided by Mary and her sisters was the first step towards a much more comfortable and secure life than those of their parents. As a secondary school teacher, this is something very close to my heart.

Mary and her sisters didn’t just stick around opening schools in populated areas. They would follow settlers as they moved inland, suffering the same hardships as the pioneers as they taught their children. In many areas, the schools run by the Sisters of St Joseph were the first schools in the area. Now, quarrel all you like about the dogma that might have been served alongside the education — the fact that these children were learning and gaining valuable skills cannot be considered a bad thing.

Eventually, Mary’s schools would branch out to ministries for prisoners — another very forward-thinking move — and houses for the poor and incurably ill. The numbers of sisters grew and soon Josephites popped up in countries across the world.

But Mary still faced a lot of opposition. Many bishops and clergy didn’t agree with Mary’s philosophy of bringing education to the poor, in particular, one Bishop Sheil, who had her excommunicated for insubordination in 1871,  leaving her to try to live without any of the support she would have gained from the church.

This excommunication would be rescinded a year later, but tensions would remain. There was much debate over the orders by which the Jospephites would live, which McKillop eventually suffering a falling out with her friend Father Woods. Throughout her life, Mary would constantly butt heads with those around her to ensure that her order would flourish and continue to provide education and comfort to the suffering.

Mary died in 1909, overseeing a large order with schools, homes and hospitals across the country and New Zealand. By some accounts, a life of struggle, coupled with rheumatism and strokes had made her quite cantakerous in her old age and many of the young nuns feared a tongue lashing from her. Then again, you or I would be the same way if we’d contended with a life spent struggling with little resources and bureacracy to make a difference.

In my opinion, the kind of work that Mary did would be enough to earn her her halo. However, the Vatican has more exacting standards than I and for many years, despite protestations, the Vatican wouldn’t consider her for canonisation. See, to become a saint, two miracles need to be seen to have been performed after intercession to the person. It would be the 1990s before the Vatican investigated and declared that two women had been cured of leukemia and cancer after praying to McKillop, opening the door to her sainthood.

So what can we take from Mary McKillop’s life? It’s that quintessential Australian tendency towards giving the establishment a hard time and giving the little guy a fair go. Perhaps I’m far too naive and optimistic, but I think McKillop’s life demonstrates the kind of commitment of social justice and equality that, slowly, manages to soak its way into our social fabric and make us a stronger people overall.

It also shows the tremendous value of education and the struggles often faced to provide it. So, as an Australian, an educational professional and a fan of giving the boss a hard time, I say “Onya, Mary!”

Mike Stuchbery teaches English and history at a Catholic high school when he’s not digging around in the dark and murky remnants of the past. He also runs  Macabre Melbourne. You can find him on Twitter.