'An unveiling of a Christian friendship'

Aelred of Rievaulx and the Friendship between the Blessed Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods

... in friendship are joined honor and charm, truth and joy, sweeetness and goodwill, affection and action. And all these take their beginnings from Christ, advance through Christ and are perfected in Christ. ... And thus, friend cleaving to friend in the spirit of Christ, is made with Christ but one heart and one soul ...

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship 1977:74-75, 2:20-21.

Introduction

In July 1993 Pope John Paul II announced that Mary MacKillop was to be made Australia's first home-grown saint. Since then much printed and video material has been produced and circulated.ⁱ Nearly all of this material, and that which preceded it, have focused on Mary herself. Moreover, much of this material, irrespective of whether it was produced after 1993 or not, is celebratoryⁱⁱ and hagiographicⁱⁱⁱ, emphasizing Mary’s saintly qualities. The few exceptions are Fr Gardiner's^iv and Sr Margaret Press' biographies as well as the history of the Sisters of St Joseph by one of their number, Sr Marie Foale. However, in relation to the remainder, Geraldine Doogue's perception is superbly pertinent:

For some time now I have sensed that the prospect of sainthood ... has swathed Mary in an untouchable glow. She has been dubbed one of our "worthies", admirable naturally and an exemplar of the virtues we inherently admire, self-sacrifice and commitment to the underprivileged and the vulnerable. She has received the status of "good woman". (O’Brien 1994: Foreword)

Such an approach to the Blessed Mary MacKillop has not only idealized her to the detriment of her human female qualities but it has underscored the contribution of Fr Julian Tension Woods to both Mary’s formation and the establishment of the Order of St Joseph. Indeed Woods has been portrayed as something of a scapegoat, even the villain of the piece. Certainly, no adequate account of Sr Mary's life or the 19th century evolution and development of the Order of St Joseph could be given without referring to the latter but it appears to me significant that only two of the sources I consulted focus directly on Woods; namely Mother Mary MacKillop 1997, Julian Tenison Woods: a Life^v and Margaret Press' superb biography 1994, of Julian Tenison Woods: 'Father Founder'.^vi

One of the casualties of this uncritical celebration of the Blessed Mary has been the friendship which existed between Mary and Fr Woods from the time they met in Penola soon after Mary’s arrival there in 1860 to the end of Fr Woods’ earthly life on 7^th October, 1889. A close examination of this friendship sheds valuable light on Mary’s growth in confidence and authority; it also embodies her and permits her to emerge from her imposed saintliness as a “flesh and blood” woman and the truly innovative female religious of nineteenth century Australia that she was. Such embodiment, in turn, I contend, allows her to become a more realistic model for Australian women than the sexless, passionless and saintly religious into which much of the material has turned her. A careful examination of the friendship and its deterioration also means that one can be more compassionate and just in one’s assessment of Fr Woods and it provides one with a more human insight into the evolution of the Order of St Joseph and constraints placed on male/female relationships and the initiative of women in the 19^th century Australian Catholic Church.

Conceptual Framework

To carry out such an examination I intend to utilize models of Christian friendship; most particularly Aelred of Rievaulx’s Spiritual Friendship or, as it sometimes entitled, Christian Friendship.^vii Although written from the context of Cistercian monastic life in Yorkshire in the 12^th century for the monks themselves in their interpersonal relationships^viii, Spiritual Friendship appears to me to still have value in “breaking open” and evaluating friendships within a Christian context in other and later times, especially those within the religious life. Hugh Talbot writes in his opening to his edition (1942: 12):

[The book is] mainly practical, written for the guidance of people who are strongly attracted towards friendship with others and who wish to fit their friendships into the framework of spiritual life.^ix

To Aelred authentic friendship is spiritual friendship which has at its centre Jesus Christ; a friendship which is guided by Christian principles throughout its earthly existence and which is perfected in eternal life (Talbot 1942:57 and 118; also Laker 1977: 74-75, 2:20-21). Such a view I would argue is germane to an understanding of the friendship which evolved between Mary and Fr Woods and then so tragically broke down. For both parties this friendship was based on the same Christian principles about which Aelred writes as well as a compelling desire to serve God. Even more importantly, an application of Aelred’s views and advice on the nature and pursuit of spiritual friendship, supplemented by the use of certain other theological conceptualizing of Christian friendship, to the MacKillop/Woods friendship will serve to illuminate the nature and development of that friendship as well as the reasons for its breakdown. In the process I contend that it will also help readers to understand more holistically and realistically both Mary and Fr Woods in the context of the Australian Catholic Church of the nineteenth century.

As both the prime criteria through which to explore the MacKillop/Woods friendship and as a structural framework for the article I will therefore utilize the four stages which Aelred singles out to assess Christian friendship:

[There are] four stages by which one climbs to the perfection of friendship, the first [being] selection, the second probation, the third admission and the fourth perfect harmony in matters, human and divine, with charity and benevolence. (Laker 1977: 93, 3:8)^x

The first of these stages – selection - refers to the choice of one’s friend. Aelred argues for the need for care in choosing a friend as, he claims, not all people can fulfill the requirements of friendship for any length of time. In this section Aelred defines true friendship as being characterized by four qualities: love, attachment, reliance and familiarity and emphasizes the importance of security “in entrusting yourself and your concerns to a friend” (Talbot 1942: 79).

In the second stage – probation – Aelred stresses the need to test a potential friend in relation to four other qualities he considers indispensable to spiritual friendship; namely, loyalty, intention, discretion and patience (Talbot 1942:88; Laker 1977:105). In relation to both these first two stages, Aelred also emphasizes that “you cannot lavish too much care in selecting and testing your friends. Its reward will be the renewal of your life and the provision of very solid foundations of immortality” (Talbot 1942: 93).

The third stage, described variously as admission or acceptance, involves taking the friendship to a more permanent level in which loyalty, trust, freedom and ease in one another’s company and equality are hallmarks (Talbot 1942: 99-100 & Laker 1977:93, 3:8)). This leads to the fourth and ultimate stage – “perfect harmony in matters, human and divine, with charity and benevolence” – in which there is supreme agreement on all matters, spiritual and temporal, with accompanying love. At this point the spiritual friendship, according to Aelred, should be so genuine and staunch that:

[n]o envy can corrode it; no mistrust diminish it; no ambition undermine it. When temptations assail it, it does not yield. When enemies attack on all sides, it does not fail. The worst insults cannot shake its steadfastness; storms of derision leave it immovable. (Talbot 1942: 102).

Initiation of the Friendship – the “Selection” or “Choice” Stage

Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods met in Penola, South Australia, soon after Mary’s arrival to act as governess to her Cameron relatives’ children and where Fr Woods was acting as the parish priest.^xi Penola was an extensive and isolated parish stretching over some 22,000 square miles of south-eastern South Australia (Gardiner 1994:42) and made up, in the main, of poor struggling farming families, miners, shepherds and dispossessed Aborigines. Fr Woods, influenced by his experiences in England and France^xii, especially among the peasant communities of the Auvergne region of the latter, strongly desired to see a more adequate provision for the basic education of poor Catholic children in the Australian colonies in the aftermath of the 1850s goldrushes.^xiii This Christian vision for the betterment of their neighbours on the part of her parish priest strongly appealed to the devout young Mary while Fr Woods saw in her an appropriate vehicle for his plans to open a Catholic school for the children of the Penola district. Thus Mary MacKillop and Fr Woods were drawn into the “selection” or “choice” stage of their friendship by a reciprocal idealism based on Christian service to their local community.

For Mary the “selection” stage was further strengthened by her so-far unrealized yearning toward a religious vocation (Gardiner 1994:44-45).^xiv Such a vocation could be realized through Fr Woods' spiritual direction. For Woods’ part, he saw in the spiritually dedicated young^xv Mary the possibility of realizing the second element of his vision; that of a missionary non-enclosed order of sisters in South Australia like the small groups of religious women teaching peasant girls whose work he had witnessed in Auvergne (Press 1994:42 and O’Brien 1994:34).

In this mutual advantageousness of the early stage of the MacKillop/Woods friendship one might also argue that there are elements of Aelred's concept of worldly friendship (Laker 1977:60,1:42-43). However, I would argue that its combination of joint vocation to serve others through religious life and the call to friendship conforms to Philip Rosato's definition of Christian friendship as 'a heightened form of diaconia' (Rosato 1986:24).^xvi It also provides an example of Waddell's friendship paradox – “... when we pursue ... possibilities [of our formation] we discover friendships with others that share them, but ... we need friends to realize these possibilities at all” (Waddell 1989:3).

Nevertheless, while their shared vision and their mutual desire to serve God are paramount in explaining the friendship’s initiation, it is undeniable that the young Mary and Fr Woods, despite the disparity of their ages and experience of the world, shared other more secular interests which also encouraged a close friendship. Sr Terry Macdonald RSJ argues:

I think they were very close. None of us will ever know but I think they had a great love of God and that's what they shared and a great dream of this school where they were going to educate the poor children. They both had a love of that. They both shared the same interests and they were both very intelligent people who loved books, learning, literature, music, culture and art. They loved all those things that they could share together but it was their love of God that was the main thing. (“ ‘The Cause of Mary MacKillop’ ” 1994).^xvii

All of this reciprocity of interest and commitment demonstrates Aelred's view that:

spiritual friendship among the just is born of a similarity of life, morals and pursuits, that is, it is a mutual conformity in matters human and divine united with benevolence and charity (Laker 1977: 61,1:46).

However, Aelred's postulation of the role of affectus^xviiiand the God-given desire for companionship in impelling human beings towards particular friendships with others (Laker 1977:61-64,1, especially 51:54-61; Talbot 1942:66) is apparent in the spontaneous attraction between Mary MacKillop and Julian Tenison Woods. That Fr Woods possessed an attractive personality and was handsome is testified to by Margaret Press (Press 1994:69)^xix, Lesley O’Brien (O’Brien 1994:48-49) as well as, indirectly, Mary herself (MacKillop 1997:30).^xx Contemporary photographs of Mary herself as a young woman^xxi indicate that she must have also been very attractive to Woods with her fresh Australian/Scottish appearance, practical femininity and lack of affectation, together with her committed idealism which met a reciprocal chord in the strongly idealistic Fr Woods. In this context, even though it is not acted on, it is important to recognize in the early attraction between Mary and Fr Woods the psychotherapist Lillian Rubin's view of the importance of sexuality in male-female friendships as it shows both of them in a more embodied light as fully functional gendered human beings.^xxii Rubin refers to sexuality in an holistic way, as something which permeates one's whole being as a man or woman, not simplistically as genital sexuality, and her investigations indicate that it can provide both a tension and a zest in male-female friendships, a validation of one's attractiveness as male or female and an affirmation of one's femininity or masculinity (Rubin 1985:149-158).^xxiii

Development of the Friendship – the “Probation” and “Admission” Stages

In the development of the friendship between Mary and Fr Woods there appears to have been little in the way of what Aelred distinguishes as his second stage of spiritual friendship, the probation or testing stage.^xxiv Given Aelred’s emphasis on the importance of this stage in testing the friend with regard to the four qualities of loyalty, intention, discretion and patience, much later suffering may have been avoided if the two had been more cautious at this early period of their friendship in the progress of their friendship. However, as Aelred himself points out, even if one finds that a friend has “unpleasant flaws in his character, … you must not immediately turn him down. There is always hope of amendment” (Talbot 1942:93).

Instead, the friendship proceeded quickly into Aelred's third stage of “admission” or “acceptance” with Woods moving into the role of Mary's spiritual adviser as well as intimate friend. Here their perceived urgency of their shared vision and their commitments to their religious vocations no doubt took priority over the need for a period of quiet reflection on their developing friendship.

At this point in the friendship it is noticeable that Mary became increasingly dependent on Woods for counsel and that Woods himself began to show one of the flaws about which Aelred warns, namely lack of patience. Thus, in relation to a delay in her return to Penola due to her family’s economic problems which, in turn, postponed her preparation for Mary’s entry into religious life, Woods showed himself to be somewhat impatient with Mary's family, particularly her father, Alexander. Paul Gardiner adds that Woods was wary of "anyone who was likely to interfere" with his control [over Mary]” (Gardiner 1994:48, 52), a comment which hints at another flaw later to become more manifest and detrimental to their friendship, namely Wood’s possessiveness toward both Mary and the later evolving Order.

In this respect, as well as in relation to the strong influence he had over Mary at this stage, Fr Woods can be likened to a Pygmalion-type figure, moulding from the raw material of the young, religiously inexperienced Mary the religious sister who was to be professed as Sister Mary of the Cross in Adelaide on 15 August, 1867 (O’Brien 1994:49).^xxv That Mary needed his approval for her emerging self at this time is indicated indirectly in his replies to her letters when they were apart and her distress at delays in the arrival of correspondence from him.^xxvi In this regard it is useful to reflect on Aelred’s emphasis that there should be “no distinction between superior and inferior” in Christian friendship. Not only the age difference but Wood’s greater experience of the world, his extensive learning and, above all, his position as her priest and spiritual advisor meant that, inevitably, there must have been a distinction of superiority/inferiority between them.

However, while Mary always continued to respect Fr Woods’ position as a priest of the Church and have deep affection for him, such dependence, was to later reverse with her own growth in experience and authority and her empowerment as a woman and female religious. It is also pertinent to note that once Mary enters religious life, and especially after she became Mother Superior of the Order of St Joseph, she entered into a new set of relationships with the Church. This reversal of dependence was reflected in Woods’ later anger towards Mary which manifested in its depths his sense of loss, in relation both to his close relationship with Mary and in his important role in the formation of the Order. Nevertheless, it is essential to acknowledge the vital contribution of Woods to Mary’s personal development during the admission stage of their friendship.

Crucial also at this stage for the future of the friendship was Woods’ transformation of the infant Order of St Joseph from its limited rural parochial context of Penola to the metropolitan context of Adelaide; an environment in which it could grow into a much more significant enterprise, but which also brought it into much closer contact with the hierarchy of the Church in South Australia.^xxvii Mary's description of Fr Woods as 'Father-Founder' is not only accurate but well deserved.^xxviii Thus, although the work of Mary, members of her family and other women who joined them in Penola was important in laying the groundwork for the future Institute of St Joseph, the Institute would never have left Woods' visionary 'drawing board' without Woods' own ceaseless activity to make it become a reality and to take it beyond Penola. In this regard Woods was very much the creator of both the Order and the Institute of St Joseph, even down to the name itself (O’Brien 1994:47).

Nevertheless, even after the move to Adelaide a very strong sense of shared partnership in the formation of the Order continued to exist between its two prime movers. Thus, in this early and harmonious period of their friendship, Fr Woods was always consultative with Mary, as for example, with the Rule he wrote for the future Order in May 1867. However, that he was very conscious of his seminal role in the foundation of the Institute and viewed it almost as a personal fiefdom became evident in his reactions when the Institute began to face problems and hostilities.

Emerging Tensions in the Friendship, Divergent Outlooks and a Delayed “Probationary” Stage

Aelred emphasizes that two essential conditions of all authentic friendships are permanence and steadfastness in the face of opposition and conflict (Talbot 1942: 73, 102). However, from the time that Mary and the original 'sisters' of St Joseph moved to Adelaide in mid-1867, the closeness of the relationship between Mary and Fr Woods began to decline, albeit at first very slowly and imperceptibly, in the face of changes within the Order and hostility from outside.

One of the factors contributing to the growing rift between them was the very rapid expansion of the Institute from the last years of the 1860s to the crisis of 1871 which led to Mary’s excommunication. Not only did the educational work of the Institute in Adelaide expand greatly from 1869^xxix but the Institute’s work developed to include shelters for neglected children (“the Refuge”) and for the aged, terminally ill and alcoholics (“The Solitude”) (Foale 1989:43 and Fig. III). The Order also underwent geographical expansion, not just in South Australia but also interstate – to New South Wales and Queensland. Another factor contributing to rising strain and tension between the two friends related to the rapid increase in numbers of young women wishing to enter the Order (Foale 1989:34, Fig. 1).^xxx Because many of these newer sisters were for the most part, young (Foale 1989:38) and inexperienced with limited education and experience of religious life (35-37) this led to problems and conflicts within the Order itself.^xxxi Such rapid expansion, both within the Order and the Institute, led to problems of debt, most of which Bishop Sheil later refused to honour, declining to see them as debts of the diocese. Mary’s absences from Adelaide, visiting regional centres to give encouragement and counsel to the sisters, increased the strain between herself and Woods. Then, came an even longer absence, with Mary being away for just over a year from December 1869 setting up a branch of the Order in Brisbane, followed by one in Maryborough. This meant that she did not arrive back in Adelaide until late April, 1871.

Significantly, both Gardiner and O'Brien see this period as a time of further growth towards independence and self-reliance for Mary. O'Brien refers to it as 'a coming of age' (O’Brien 1994:75) and Gardiner as a time engendering in Mary 'personal spiritual growth' (Gardiner 1994:79): a period in which she unconsciously left behind her the pupil/teacher or mentor/mentored relationship which previously had been a hallmark of her earlier friendship with Fr Woods. It was also a time when, for Mary, but sadly not for Fr Woods, Aelred's advice became evident--that “although affection, for the most part, commonly precedes friendship yet it ought never be followed unless reason lead it, honor temper it, and justice rule it” (Laker 1977:83, 2:57). Such a realisation was always tempered by the strong love and respect Sr Mary continued to feel for Fr Woods. In this sense, one can speak of a delayed probationary period, in which the friendship between the two was severely tested.

During this establishment and growth period of the Order and the Institute what can only be seen in retrospect as Fr Woods' imprudent actions, as well as his lack of action when needed, caused Mary grave concern. A particular focus for this concern was Fr Woods' failure to see the dangers inherent in the activities and claims of mystical experiences by certain sisters to please him with their holiness, particularly Sisters Angela and Ignatius and later Sr Mary Joseph in Brisbane (O’Brien 1994:69-72). Mary, much more the realist than Woods but away at the time in other parts of South Australia, could only warn him through letters, but to no avail. Instead Woods gave the Srs Angela and Ignatius responsible posts and special privileges within the community and refused to allow Sr Mary Joseph to be dismissed (Foale 1989:62-63). He also insisted on acceding to the Bishop of Queensland's request to send sisters there although Mary was fearful of such a move, given their lack of experience of religious life and school management and the way in which such a loss of sisters would deplete the expanding Adelaide situation.^xxxii

Such credulous behaviour and ignoring of Mary's advice is difficult to understand without taking into account Woods' own idealism and predilection toward mysticism and Press's view that, at this time, Father Spiritual Director was becoming more entrenched in his opinions:

He considered that he enjoyed heavenly guidance in his role as Father Founder, opposition and criticism were trials to be endured joyfully because they were crosses, not because they afforded any opportunity to learn (Press 1994:107).

Fr Paul Gardiner records that as early as January 1869:

Woods had developed the habit of expressing a deep conviction about his own misspent life, frivolity, conceit, overbearing pride, intense self-love, abysmal misery, radical wickedness, and total unworthiness to be directing the Sisters. [Yet a]t the same time he had become firmly convinced that his Institute was under the special protection of the blessed Virgin. "She will never suffer me to let it go wrong", he wrote, and "she would not allow such mistakes to happen either to you or to me." He assured Mary that she therefore had no grounds for anxiety (Gardiner 1994:75).^xxxiii

On the contrary, he remonstrated with Mary about her lack of faith as this reply to one such letter indicates: “My want of faith in some things you tell me is a bitter cross to me, but ah, my Father, I do not wonder at the weakness of my faith” (Gardiner 1994:87).

Such attitudes and behaviour together with his lack of support to Mary at a time when she particularly needed it can and have been used to turn Woods into a scapegoat. However, more realistically and justly it seems to me that they demonstrate the increasingly divergent elements within their two personalities and the ways in which they viewed life. In this delayed probationary period Mary displayed herself as the much stronger and more pragmatic as well as perceptive of the two. In part this related to her early years when, as the eldest of eight children in a household strained by financial hardship and frequent absences of the husband/father, Mary had had to become mature beyond her years with regard to the responsibility she needed to take for the practical and spiritual welfare of her immediate family. She once commented: “My life as a child was one of sorrow, my home when I had it, a most unhappy one” (O’Brien 1994:10).

In contrast, Fr Woods, while equally strong in his devotion and desire to serve to God and also multi-talented and able in many directions, appears to have been much more the romantic idealist, strongly mystical with an optimistic, almost naive, belief in Divine Providence as well as in his own rightness of intention and action, acutely sensitive to any criticism or opposition. Nevertheless, one must be careful of using such sensitivity to demonize Fr Woods. Instead, it is important to take into account Margaret Press’ perception that Fr Woods saw opposition as a trial of faith:

what sometimes appeared as arrogance and a high-handed way of dealing with those who raised barriers to his God-given task was prompted by [Woods’] reliance on the fact that he was an instrument of the Almighty and therefore saw no other way to act (Press 1994:89).

A factor which undoubtedly contributed to Fr Woods’ inability to accept criticism in a constructive manner was, no doubt, the fragile state of his physical health throughout his life. Similarly, Mary also suffered extremely from ill-health; something no doubt exacerbated by her punishing work-load and responsibility. Yet, as Gardiner observes: “Mary was a sufferer, but not a sad sufferer, and she was certainly not a confused sufferer. She was always serene” (Gardiner 1994:67). Such serenity no doubt permitted Mary to continue strong in her faith in and love for God and her desire to serve Him in spite of the growing hostility of the Church’s hierarchy to herself and the Order which was to lead to her excommunication in 1872 and the radical changes to the nature of the Order which followed.

Sadly, unlike Mary, Woods’ reaction to psychological stress and what he viewed as unwarranted opposition, even betrayal of his ideals was very different as Press’ comments above illustrate. Exacerbated by his tendency to over-extend himself in his eagerness to achieve results, his reaction also appears to have been one of succumbing, albeit unconsciously, to physical illness; a tendency which sometimes bordered on complete physical and mental breakdown.^xxxiv Here, another point which Aelred makes would seem to be apposite, both to the decline in the intimacy of the friendship between Mary and Fr Woods and to the different reactions of the two to adversity and conflict. Aelred refers to the importance of loving oneself if one is to truly love another and sustain spiritual friendship as such “friendship is rooted in love” (Talbot 1942:116).

Much more secure in her sense of self, Mary, even as it became evident that the familiarity, trust and closeness which had existed previously between them could not be maintained, continued to demonstrate the loyalty and patience which Aelred argues are so important to friendship. Thus, a number of her letters to him display her ongoing concern for his deteriorating health and also his increasing tendency to vacillate between extremes of confidence and acute depression.^xxxv

What one can see, then in retrospect, is a growing gulf between the two friends over policy and direction of the Order; a gulf which widened as Mary matured in her religious life. Mary’s doubts about Fr Woods’ fitness to continue to act as spiritual director of the Order were shared by a number of his fellow clergy and some of the laity.^xxxvi Nevertheless, Woods continued to enjoy the support and approbation of the head of the diocese, Bishop Sheil, up to 1870, as Mary's life of him clearly testifies (MacKillop 1997:99, 107-108, 114, 125-126), and was receiving flattering interest in his work from clergy and lay people outside South Australia, particularly in Sydney and Bathurst. This was to change in 1871 with Bishop Sheil's return to Adelaide, bringing with him as his secretary one Rev. Charles Horan OSF; a man already hostile to Woods.

The impact of such clerical hostility to Woods as a priest and as Director General of Catholic Education in South Australia impacted on the Order and was given reinforcement by Woods' own imprudence and insistence on his rightness of judgment, together with the reports of the strange happenings within the Adelaide Institute among the sisters. The latter also strengthened the reactionary elitism of those clerical^xxxvii and lay elements which were suspicious of a women's religious order that seemed to them to deviate from the enclosed norm to which they were accustomed (Foale 1989:75).^xxxviii

On her return to Adelaide, Mary, as Mother Superior of the Order, also became a target for criticism (O’Brien 1994:59). Fr Woods found such hostility, together with the changing attitude of Bishop Sheil, too much to comprehend as his letter to Mary of 20 June 1871 indicates (Press 1994:117). He accepted an invitation from Bishop Quinn of the Bathurst diocese to become involved in mission work there. Thus he was absent from Adelaide when the bitter blow of excommunication fell on Sr Mary on the 22^nd September, 1872 and apparently did not learn of it until some months after the event. However, Woods did give her advice and support in subsequent letters and, in the immediate aftermath of her excommunication, she was able to find refuge in the home of his brother, Alfred (O’Brien 1994:97).

Up to this point and throughout the subsequent libel case and the episcopal commission's investigation into the affairs of the Institute which led to the disestablishment of the Institute, the dismissal of Fr Woods as Spiritual Director and the admission of Srs Angela and Ignatius of their responsibility for the supposed supernatural happenings, the friendship between Mother Mary and Fr Woods had managed to sustain itself. However, that it was on probation, albeit unconsciously, with Mary exercising more caution with her erstwhile trusted confidante than before was clearly evident when Woods refused to accept the guilt of the two sisters and also was unable to refrain from involving himself in the affairs of the Order.

Growing Estrangement and Alienation – an Absence of the Fourth Stage: “Perfect Harmony”

From 1872 onwards the letters between Mary and Fr Woods evince a growing tension in their relationship, especially those letters written after the restoration of the Order in the March of that year (Foale 1989:120-121). Woods had written ominously to Mary on 16 April 1872: “I dread the friendship of some more than the enmity of others for friends have done you more harm than enemies have done to S.M.A. [Sr Angela]” (Gardiner 1994:115-116; Foale 1989:120-121, n. 51). From these letters it is clear that the friendship was rapidly deteriorating into a state of estrangement and alienation, certainly as far as Fr Woods was concerned.

Not only had Woods been deeply wounded by the bishops' decision to relieve him of the direction of the Order in favour of Jesuit guidance under his erstwhile clerical friend and mentor, Fr Tappeiner, but the visions of the two friends for the future expansion and consolidation of the Order had become increasingly divergent (Foale 1989:121). One of the difficulties, I suspect, which reinforced this growing divergence was the limitation of face-to-face contact after Woods left Adelaide in August 1872, never to return there again, and embarked on a peripatetic existence which took him to many parts of Australia and finally to Malaya, while Mary found herself, after her return from Rome, frequently on the move, visiting and overseeing the various centres of the Order in Australia and New Zealand. Thus what Meilaender asserts as an essential prerequisite for friendship – “time spent together” - was absent (Meilaender 1981:2).

Meilaender adds that the deep attachment to and preference for another person occurs because of the sort of person he or she is. Yet, he continues, “if one of the persons changes, the relationship must change or the friendship may die” (Meilaender 1981:2). This insight seems to me to provide valuable insight into what happened with the friendship between Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods in the years of the late 1860s and early 1870s. Mary continued to grow spiritually in self-knowledge whereas Woods, tragically, seems neither to have been able to deal with his own woundedness nor to accept or understand the emerging differences between himself and Mary and therefore to achieve the self-growth and self-knowledge needed to maintain the friendship. Thus Aelred's fourth stage of spiritual friendship - 'perfect harmony in matters human and divine with charity and benevolence' - could not be achieved (Laker 1977:93) even though in May 1872, in response to Mary's sense of abandonment, Woods was writing “My dear, dear child ... not while life remains will I ever consider myself in any other light than as your most attached and faithful friend” (Press 1994:139).

Aelred’s four essential qualities for a healthy spiritual friendship - loyalty, right intention, discretion and patience - were to come under even greater strain for the two friends when Woods learned of Mary's proposed visit to Rome to gain Papal approval for the Order's Rule. Ironically Fr Woods himself had recommended this course of action to Mary, yet, six years later, he was claiming that Mary had gone without his knowledge and consent (Gardiner 1994:121). Although Mary kept Woods fully informed of developments in Rome, he was never able to accept the Papal changes to the Rule, especially the second amendment on the rule of poverty,^xxxix and blamed Mary for them, seeing her as having betrayed their original vision for the Order and accusing her of not having acted candidly with him (Press 1994:163-168). This was in spite of Mary's indignant remonstration to him in 1879 (Press: 1994:183).^xl

In this letter one sees an example of Mary following Aelred's advice that one should counsel, admonish and even reprove one's friend but always without bitterness, humbly and in loving moderation (Laker 1977:104-107; Talbot 1942:107). Woods’ failure to receive such remonstration “patiently, not sullenly”, as Aelred recommends (Talbot 1942:108), is clear evidence of the inability of the friendship at this point to achieve the complete truth, frankness and openness which to Aelred were hallmarks of the fourth stage of spiritual friendship (Talbot 1942:108). Gardiner, I believe, makes a cogent observation when he says that at the root of the problem lay Fr Woods' failure to understand Mary's strong sense of her duty of obedience to her superiors in the Church and to those who supported her in the Order's crisis and rehabilitation (Gardiner 1994:121-122). I would add that in this respect Woods also failed to understand the implications for Mary of the differently gendered positions of the two in the nineteenth century Church: Woods as a male and an ordained priest and Mary as a female consecrated religious, even though Woods still owed obedience to his ecclesiastical superiors.^xli

In turn Mary must have felt a deep woundedness at the hostility of Fr Woods, especially when it was followed by his apparent betrayal of her endeavours to guide the Order in subsequent years, according to the new Rule and the first General Chapter of the Order held in March 1875. Thus Fr Woods seems to have been complicit with the two Bishops Quinn and others in seeking to undermine Mary's authority and standing within the Order and to lure away sisters for the separate groups in Brisbane and Bathurst. Such activity must have only added to the pain Mary felt at their estrangement and reinforces Aelred’s argument for cautious selection and acceptance of a friend as “I can image no one more detestable than the person who breaks off a friendship; and nothing gives greater pain than the desertion or betrayal of the person one loves” (Talbot 1942:73).

Attempts at Reconciliation and Harmony

Press notes that by early 1876 their long and frank correspondence was almost at an end (Press 1994:168). Nevertheless, Mary went on to demonstrate Aelred’s point that “there is no going back once you have accepted [a friend] (Talbot 1942:73). Thus she showed herself reluctant to accept the end of the friendship even though she would not let what she believed was the well-being of the Order and her own sense of duty to her God and her superiors be sacrificed by acquiescing in her erstwhile friend's ideas and grievances. Not only did she endeavour to achieve a reconciliation through a face-to-face meeting in Penola at the end of 1876 but she continued to remember his birthday each year with a note and when they happened to be in the same city at the same time she would demonstrate her solicitude for his needs and her continuing affection for him by visiting him, particularly if he were ill. However, such was his alienation that Woods apparently was unable to respond in like fashion, even though he treated Mary with courtesy and affability (Press 1994:181). This inability of Woods to respond with mutual love to Mary's overtures could well also demonstrate what Rubin points out about male-female friendships: that women tend to be more affirmative and nurturing while men are more competitive and have greater difficulty in expressing their emotions (Rubin 1985:84, 158).^xlii

Her continuing expressions of love for her friend continued until his death, with Mary visiting him where he was living with the ex-sister Ignatius, now Mrs Abbott, in Elizabeth Street, Sydney. In this regard Mary showed herself an exemplar of Aelred's view that, while a friend's “conduct may compel the withdrawal of friendship”, it should not involve the withdrawal of love (Laker 1977:102, 3:44). Similarly, even though Woods continued very bitter towards Mary and the Order, the very fact that he appeared appreciative and politely receptive of her attentions to him appears to indicate that a certain reciprocal affection still lingered within him, even though it appears not to have been as strong as Mary's. The strength of Mary’s love for Fr Woods is given testimony in her Life of him. As she says in her opening lines, this was “a labour of love” (MacKillop 1997:1), and in it, her diplomatic omission or delicate treatment of much that was unfavourable to his memory is again indicative of her strong feelings for him as well as respect for him as a person and a priest of the Church.

The Failure of the Friendship to reach Aelred’s Ultimate Stage of Spiritual Friendship – “Perfection in Christ” and Some General Conclusions

Aelred of Rievaulx perceived the importance of philia friendship for his own life and spirituality and those of the 12^th century monks over whom he acted as “father abbot” and saw it as a “stepping stone to knowledge and love of God” (Talbot 1942:56). Thus, he distinguished between worldly and spiritual friendship by arguing that all philia friendship which was genuinely spiritual should be perfected in Jesus Christ. Sadly, although the friendship between Mother Mary of the Cross MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods failed to reach Aelred's last stage of Christian friendship and was unable to be perfected in Christ, I would argue that Christ did remain a third “person” within the relationship. Especially for Mary the particular love of the earlier friendship had been transformed into a genuinely Christian agape love of self-giving and concern for the well-being of Fr Woods.^xliii Moreover, the philia friendship between Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods bore within itself the seeds of charity and expressed, even through its failure to sustain itself, the ideal of Trinitarian love so well put by Aelred when he writes of the three loves enjoined on people by Christ (love of God, love of self, and love of neighbour):

... the three kinds of love ... are so bound to one another that unless we love God we cannot love our neighbour and, unless we love ourselves, we cannot love our neighbour as ourselves. ... Each one of these three kinds of love depends on the others, and in each one of the three we find the other two. We cannot have one unless we have all three, and if we lose one we lose them all (DeVico 1981:235 citing Aelred, The Mirror of Charity 1961:82).

Such a Trinitarian model of philia friendship which develops into an agape love based on Jesus’ two commandments (Matthew 22:37-39) is still pertinent today, especially for Christians, and argues against the tendency, still all too prevalent among clergy and religious, to be suspicious of “particular” friendships, seeing them as obstacles rather than pathways to agape relationships with one’s neighbours and with God. It also provides both a lesson for modern friendship between men and women within the Church framework, particularly with regard to the ongoing problematic of close friendship between women, religious or lay, and ordained men. Thus, the perseverance of Mary, in endeavouring to maintain the friendship and the inability of Fr Woods to respond, argues for the need for a greater emotional maturity and openness within the Church with regard to close male/female friendships which do not lead to marriage or involve genital sexuality. This, I would contend, will become of growing importance, as the female role of women, especially lay women, in the Church’s pastoral and liturgical life expands.

Equally important a close examination of the friendship between the Blessed Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods using Aelred’s model of Christian frienship provides a corrective to the tendency, especially within the Catholic Church, to create models of holiness which are unrealistic to and unhelpful in people’s daily lives. Press is undoubtedly correct when she concludes her book with the point that a friendship, which was unable to bring lasting “satisfaction, even happiness” to “the two people who had first shared their hopes and ideals”, had a wider, more universal dimension and gave “to the developing Australian Church a new concept in religious living and spirituality” (Press, 1994:225-226). Yet, an “unpacking” of the friendship in the light of the hagiographic qualitiy of much of the literature so far written about Mary MacKillop, also illustrates a darker side of the Church’s life related to its canonization of saints. In the process the selected candidates, particularly women saints, achieve a scrupulosity and earthly disembodiment, particularly sexual disembodiment, which bears little relationship to the human beings they once were. Such a process is still having its ramifications in the contemporary Australian scene, as is evinced by the reactions, Catholic and non-Catholic, to the beatification of Mary MacKillop.

In this regard a close study of the evolution of the friendship between Mary and Fr Woods acts as a warning against viewing the Blessed Mary too piously and placing her on a pedestal while denigrating Fr Woods. To do this limits one’s ability to view Mary and Fr Woods as embodied human beings. As well, it inhibits a holistic view of male/female relationships. It also has another more generic impediment. Thus, particularly within the Catholic Church, there is a tendency to use women saints, together with the Virgin Mary, as vehicles through which to present over-idealized role models to women, both religious and lay, which downgrade women’s physicality. Such a divorce between the spiritual and bodily sides of our God-given humanity, particularly with regard to women, allows for a denigration of female sexuality and distorts any authentic relationship between gendered human beings made in the image and likeness of God and inspired by the love of the incarnated Jesus for all his fellow creatures.

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