New Josephite Convent & Sacred Mary MacKillop Park
Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese REPORT
18 Oct 2012
The Sisters of St Joseph will once again don the distinctive teal blue scarves they wore at the canonisation of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop in Rome two years ago when they attend the blessing and opening of Penola's new Josephite convent on Sunday, 28 October.
With the Feast day of Australia's first saint now celebrated on 8 August each year, the anniversary of Mary MacKillop's canonisation yesterday passed without any formal or special recognition. But all this will change in 10 days time when the Sisters and the entire town pull out all the stops for the blessing and opening not only of the new convent but of the Mary MacKillop Stable School Park next door which is being redeveloped as a pilgrimage centre and a sacred site of international importance.
The Most Rev Leonard Faulkner, Emeritus Archbishop of Adelaide will preside over the ceremony when he will bless and officially open the newly-completed convent and also bless the adjacent Mary MacKillop Stable School Park.
"Archbishop Leonard Faulkner has been a great supporter of the town and was instrumental in helping raise funds for the building of the Interpretive Mary MacKillop Centre in 1998," says Clare Larkin, volunteer staffer at the Centre. "He has a long association with us in Penola and been at all our special events, so we are delighted he will be here for the ceremony on Sunday, 28 October."
Also present at the ceremony will be Father Paul Gardiner, sj who for 25 years was Postulator for the Cause of Mary MacKillop and now lives in quiet retirement in Penola.
"He is our treasure and very dear to all of us here in Penola," says Clare who describes Fr Paul as "a walking encylopaedia."
"Anything we want to know about Mary MacKillop he has right there at his finger tips."
The day will start with a procession led by the young primary school students from Penola's Mary MacKillop Memorial School. Along with the staff they'll be dressed in period costume and will be followed by volunteers and the team from the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre who will also carry a pilgrim staff to symbolise the town's significance as a pilgrim site.
Also among those in the procession will be the 36 pilgrims taking part in the Sisters of St Joseph's annual "In the Footsteps of Mary MacKillop" pilgrimage which begins each year from the Heritage Centre in East Melbourne near the birthplace of St Mary of the Cross and continues through Victoria and South Australia charting her life of holiness, selflessness, generosity and inspiration.
Those on pilgrimage begin their journey in Melbourne on Wednesday 24 October and arrive in Penola in time for the celebration.
Sister Marion Gambin, Provincial Leader of the Josephite Congregation of South Australia will also be present along with the Sister of St Joseph's Congregational Leadership team comprising Sr Anne Derwin, Sr Sheila McCreanor, Sr Eileen Lenihan, Sr Annette Arnold and Sr Ann Gilroy, who has also written the liturgy for the ceremony.
Two other sisters who will have key roles in the ceremony are Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds who were posted to Penola last April and will be the permanent residents of Penola's brand new convent.
"Penola is a very significant site both for the Sisters of St Joseph, the whole of Penola and for the whole world because Mary MacKillop is now a Saint for the whole Catholic Church. So we decided we should have a permanent base there where we could have the sisters living comfortably," Sr Sheila McCreanor explains.
Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds have spent the past 18 months living in Penola and guiding construction of the convent, which will not only be their home but has been built with extra bedrooms and facilities to provide accommodation and hospitality to visiting Sisters of St Joseph.
"The sisters very much see their role as promoting the story of Mary MacKillop as more and more pilgrims and tourists are attracted to the town," says Sr Sheila.
Over the past 12 months more than 15,000 pilgrims from across Australia as well as overseas visited Penola to learn more about the life and work of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop and the early years when she opened her first school and gave free education to the poor, and founded Australia's first home-grown religious congregation: the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
These numbers are expected to increase each year with Penola fast becoming a major pilgrimage site for both Catholic and non Catholics.
In addition to the original stone school house Fr Julian Tenison Woods built to replace the small wooden stable school back in 1866 - now recreated as it would have been in 1866 with blackboards, chalk, slates and specially recreated desks - visitors to Penola are able to attend Mass in St Joseph Church where Fr Tenison Wood was once parish priest and visit the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre where they can explore the life of Australia's first saint via state of the art visual displays, text panels as well as view videos of her canonisation in Rome.
The Centre also features a section devoted to Fr Tenison Woods who not only helped St Mary of the Cross found her first school but was instrumental in helping her establish the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph. A renowned scientist as well as a priest, the gallery also contains many of the fossils he found during his journeys into the South Australian outback.
Like the new convent, the park, located on the site of Mary MacKillop and Tenison Woods' school in the converted stable, will be part of the historic complex that includes the Interpretive Centre, the stone house school and St Joseph's Church.
"Mary MacKillop's established the first convent for Sisters of St Joseph in Adelaide but by 1868 there was also one in Penola," says Sr Ann Gilmore. "But the convent in Penola built behind the church has had a checked history. By 1871 there was no one living there, then re-established in 1875 it continued until 1885 when it was once again abandoned and did not reopen until 1936."
The Sisters of St Joseph returned to Penola that year, reopening St Joseph's School which continued under that name until the Golden Jubilee year of 1986 when in tribute to its founder, the name of the primary school was changed to the Mary MacKillop Memorial School.
The Sisters who taught at the school occupied the old Convent but in recent times, as lay teachers took over, the convent became part of the school buildings and a new convent was needed for the two sisters who were to be based permanently in Penola.
The opportunity came in the wake of the tornado that swept through the town less than two months before Mary MacKillop's October 2010 canonisation. In a freak storm, the tornado ripped through the town, destroying shops and homes and tearing away part of the roof of MacKillop Tenison-Woods school house and causing extensive water damage at the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre.
With state grants to help the town rebuild, the school house and Centre were repaired in time for the influx of tourists to celebrate the canonisation of Australia's first saint. But some houses were beyond repair, and one owned by an elderly woman who had been moved to a nursing home, was completely destroyed. The woman died some months later and 12 months ago the block of land on which her home had stood came up for sale.
Coincidentally the land was right next door to the site of the old stable school and what the Sisters of St Joseph planned to develop as pilgrim centre and park for reflection and prayer.
The Order decided to buy the block and construction of the new convent began.
The completion of the convent marks stage one of the project with stage two consisting of the redevelopment of the Park with internet facilities as well as the pilgrim information centre and tranquil gardens and pathways.
A committee comprising representatives of the Sisters of St Joseph, the Wattle Range Council, the South Australian Tourism Committee, the Adelaide Archdiocese and Limestone Coast Tourism is overseeing the development of the Mary MacKillop stable school park. Fundraising for park is also continuing.
SHARED FROM ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY
Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese REPORT
18 Oct 2012
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop
With the Feast day of Australia's first saint now celebrated on 8 August each year, the anniversary of Mary MacKillop's canonisation yesterday passed without any formal or special recognition. But all this will change in 10 days time when the Sisters and the entire town pull out all the stops for the blessing and opening not only of the new convent but of the Mary MacKillop Stable School Park next door which is being redeveloped as a pilgrimage centre and a sacred site of international importance.
The Most Rev Leonard Faulkner, Emeritus Archbishop of Adelaide will preside over the ceremony when he will bless and officially open the newly-completed convent and also bless the adjacent Mary MacKillop Stable School Park.
"Archbishop Leonard Faulkner has been a great supporter of the town and was instrumental in helping raise funds for the building of the Interpretive Mary MacKillop Centre in 1998," says Clare Larkin, volunteer staffer at the Centre. "He has a long association with us in Penola and been at all our special events, so we are delighted he will be here for the ceremony on Sunday, 28 October."
Also present at the ceremony will be Father Paul Gardiner, sj who for 25 years was Postulator for the Cause of Mary MacKillop and now lives in quiet retirement in Penola.
"He is our treasure and very dear to all of us here in Penola," says Clare who describes Fr Paul as "a walking encylopaedia."
"Anything we want to know about Mary MacKillop he has right there at his finger tips."
The day will start with a procession led by the young primary school students from Penola's Mary MacKillop Memorial School. Along with the staff they'll be dressed in period costume and will be followed by volunteers and the team from the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre who will also carry a pilgrim staff to symbolise the town's significance as a pilgrim site.
Archbishop Emeritus Leonard Faulkner will Preside over Canonisation Anniversary Celebrations in Penola
Those on pilgrimage begin their journey in Melbourne on Wednesday 24 October and arrive in Penola in time for the celebration.
Sister Marion Gambin, Provincial Leader of the Josephite Congregation of South Australia will also be present along with the Sister of St Joseph's Congregational Leadership team comprising Sr Anne Derwin, Sr Sheila McCreanor, Sr Eileen Lenihan, Sr Annette Arnold and Sr Ann Gilroy, who has also written the liturgy for the ceremony.
Two other sisters who will have key roles in the ceremony are Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds who were posted to Penola last April and will be the permanent residents of Penola's brand new convent.
"Penola is a very significant site both for the Sisters of St Joseph, the whole of Penola and for the whole world because Mary MacKillop is now a Saint for the whole Catholic Church. So we decided we should have a permanent base there where we could have the sisters living comfortably," Sr Sheila McCreanor explains.
Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds have spent the past 18 months living in Penola and guiding construction of the convent, which will not only be their home but has been built with extra bedrooms and facilities to provide accommodation and hospitality to visiting Sisters of St Joseph.
"The sisters very much see their role as promoting the story of Mary MacKillop as more and more pilgrims and tourists are attracted to the town," says Sr Sheila.
Over the past 12 months more than 15,000 pilgrims from across Australia as well as overseas visited Penola to learn more about the life and work of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop and the early years when she opened her first school and gave free education to the poor, and founded Australia's first home-grown religious congregation: the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
These numbers are expected to increase each year with Penola fast becoming a major pilgrimage site for both Catholic and non Catholics.
The original stable schoolhouse in Penola founded by St Mary of the Cross MacKillop
The Centre also features a section devoted to Fr Tenison Woods who not only helped St Mary of the Cross found her first school but was instrumental in helping her establish the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph. A renowned scientist as well as a priest, the gallery also contains many of the fossils he found during his journeys into the South Australian outback.
Like the new convent, the park, located on the site of Mary MacKillop and Tenison Woods' school in the converted stable, will be part of the historic complex that includes the Interpretive Centre, the stone house school and St Joseph's Church.
"Mary MacKillop's established the first convent for Sisters of St Joseph in Adelaide but by 1868 there was also one in Penola," says Sr Ann Gilmore. "But the convent in Penola built behind the church has had a checked history. By 1871 there was no one living there, then re-established in 1875 it continued until 1885 when it was once again abandoned and did not reopen until 1936."
The Sisters of St Joseph returned to Penola that year, reopening St Joseph's School which continued under that name until the Golden Jubilee year of 1986 when in tribute to its founder, the name of the primary school was changed to the Mary MacKillop Memorial School.
The Sisters who taught at the school occupied the old Convent but in recent times, as lay teachers took over, the convent became part of the school buildings and a new convent was needed for the two sisters who were to be based permanently in Penola.
The historic schoolhouse in Penola SA
With state grants to help the town rebuild, the school house and Centre were repaired in time for the influx of tourists to celebrate the canonisation of Australia's first saint. But some houses were beyond repair, and one owned by an elderly woman who had been moved to a nursing home, was completely destroyed. The woman died some months later and 12 months ago the block of land on which her home had stood came up for sale.
Coincidentally the land was right next door to the site of the old stable school and what the Sisters of St Joseph planned to develop as pilgrim centre and park for reflection and prayer.
The Order decided to buy the block and construction of the new convent began.
The completion of the convent marks stage one of the project with stage two consisting of the redevelopment of the Park with internet facilities as well as the pilgrim information centre and tranquil gardens and pathways.
A committee comprising representatives of the Sisters of St Joseph, the Wattle Range Council, the South Australian Tourism Committee, the Adelaide Archdiocese and Limestone Coast Tourism is overseeing the development of the Mary MacKillop stable school park. Fundraising for park is also continuing.
SHARED FROM ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY
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