Mary Gallagher entered the Good Samaritan Institute in 1927. Her intellect was recognised early and she was enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts at Sydney University. She competed a BA Dip Ed majoring in History and Latin, English Mathematics and Economics.
Sister Philomena Gallagher- Australian Journal of Liturgy
Family, friends, former colleagues and students gathered with Good Samaritan Sisters in Sydney recently to celebrate the life of Sr Mary Christopher (Eunice) Burrows, remembering with gratitude her deep commitment to education and “singlehearted passion for Christ”
Regenbah- An oasis of peace, calm and spiritual nurturing
Regenbah- The first community of Good Samaritan Sisters at Pennant Hills moved into “Regenbah” on March 19, 1925. At that time, the stately Federation-style home which had been modified to suit the sisters’ needs, was situated on 56 acres of bushland.
A History of the Catholic Faith in Pennant Hills- The airy, solid brick building of the Mount Saint Benedict Novitiate was opened by Archbishop Kelly in 1926
John Bede Polding (1794-1877), Catholic archbishop, was born on 18 November 1794 at Liverpool, England. His father was of Dutch descent and his mother came from the Brewer family, recusants since the sixteenth century.
Mother Berchams- Clara Jane (Mother Berchams) McLaughlin (1856-1931), Sister of the Good Samaritan, was born on 25 January 1856 at Sodwalls, New South Wales, sixth daughter of John McLaughlin, innkeeper, and his wife Mary Clare, née Loftus, both from Ballina, Mayo, Ireland.
Mother Mary Berchmans McLaughlin As the first Australian-born Superior General of the congregation from 1898 to 1916 she oversaw an era of great expansion for the congregation, establishing thirty new foundations in four states.
Mother Mary Burchman Monument The bronze bust commemorates Anne (Mother Mary Berchmans) Daly (1860-1924), for her work as foundress of Melbourne's St Vincent's Hospital and of the clinical school.
Mother Berchman- Opening the door to a saint
Mother Burchman- Women-Out-of-Their-Sphere
John Polding was a man of deep and abiding sanctity, generous and warm-hearted though not without some reserve, and a born missioner who scorned every personal hardship to bring religion to his widely-scattered and underprivileged flock. His vicariate included the whole of Australia and in time he visited nearly all its major centres.
Sr Helen Lombard, Superior (1981-1993), continued to guide the schools into a new form of governance. By 1993 each of the ten Good Samaritan schools in Australia was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee and governed according to a Constitution.
Mother Magdalen Adamson - Good Samaritan Education Port Pirie-
The naming of the Magdalen Centre Port Pirie- Old_Scholars_Newsletter_-_September_2015
In both Church and society, nineteenth century Australia was marked by tensions and questioning of authority as white society established itself and began its development. John Bede Polding, an English Benedictine monk, came to Australia in 1835. He later became the first Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. Full of missionary zeal, Polding was fired with a desire to build the Australian Church and to establish it strongly within the Benedictine tradition.
Mother Catherine Mercovich (17 March 1899-12 May 1977) was already a prominent figure in the Catholic Church when she embarked on the mission to Nagasaki. She was the superior of the first group of Good Samaritan Sisters to visit Japan at the end of the Second World War, setting sail on the SS Shangte on October 15, 1948, from Sydney, embarking on a prolonged 33-day voyage before arriving in war-torn Japan.
The Father of Western Monasticism, and the creator of the Rule for monastic life, he had a passion for developing the monastic order into a family unit helped transform the status quo of monastic life and developed a way of life still visible to this day. Stay tuned as we discuss the early life, his first introduction to monastic life, a failed first attempt at being abbot that left his followers trying to poison him, and finally how all of this affected his creation of the Rule and how he implemented it in the first Benedictine monastery.
A history of the Good Samaritan Sisters from colonial Sydey until 2017.
Sections incude:
-The story begins
-Colonial Sydney
-John Bede Polding osb
-The House of the Good Shepherd - Pitt St., Sydney
-Polding's Dream
-RB : Rule of Benedict
-From Pitt St. to Parramatta
-The Sisters respond to needs beyond NSW
-Mount St Benedict opens
-The Mount St Benedict Centre 1985-2017
We the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, are religious women whose desire is to seek God. Our spirituality, nourished by the ancient Rule of Benedict and the Good Samaritan parable, is expressed in our commitment to community life, prayer, justice, hospitality and compassionate service. We take seriously Jesus’ Gospel command to go and be neighbours.
Catherine Teresa Mercovich Seventy years ago this month, six Good Samaritan Sisters set sail for Nagasaki, Japan, to respond to the need of the people there in the wake of the atomic bomb dropped on the city in 1945
Mother Berchmans was the first Australian-born leader of the congregation. She led the congregation from 1898 to 1916, a time of incredible expansion.
Geraldine Scholastica Gibbons (1817-1901), mother superior, was born in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, daughter of Gerald Gibbons, who was connected with Daniel O'Connell and most of the Cork gentry, and his wife Mary, née Sughrue, niece of the bishop of Ferns. Educated in Cork she arrived in Sydney with her family in 1834.
Born and educated in Ireland, Geraldine Gibbons arrived in Sydney, New South Wales with her family in 1834. She and a sister joined the newly-arrived Sisters of Charity, and on 17 July 1847 Geraldine was professed as Scholastica, beginning work in the Female Factory at Parramatta. On 9 April 1848 she went to Sydney to establish a home for penitent women in Campbell Street. The home was moved to Carter's Barracks in Pitt Street in March 1849.
The founding Principal was Sister Clare Slattery, a Good Samaritan Sister.
Obituary- DEATH OF REV. MOTHER M. PLACID. By the death of Rev. Mother Mary Placid Caulfield, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan have lost one of the most beloved members of the Order in New South Wales
St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict, consecrated her life to God from her earliest youth. After her brother went to Monte Cassino, where he established his famous monastery, she took up her abode in the neighborhood at Plombariola, where she founded and governed a monastery of nuns, about five miles from that of St. Benedict, who, it appears, also directed his sister and her nuns
Reflections on some of the letters of Archbishop Polding.
Sister Philomena Gallagher.- Saint Scholastica's ex-students union
Obituary Sister Peter Damien McKinlay
Obituary- Sister Clare Slattery'
Saints Maurus and Placid Wolter
RELIGIOUS ARCHIVES AND THE SISTERS OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
More light on the founders of The House of the Good Shepherd
