Founding of the Sisters of Charity in Australia
In response to Bishop Polding's request for a community of Sisters
to be established in New South Wales, Mary Aikenhead willingly
sacrificed five well-trained and experienced Sisters for the new
mission. These were Mother Mary John Cahill, Sister Mary de
Sales O'Brien, Sister Mary Baptist de Lacy, Sister Mary Xavier
Williams (still a novice) and Sister Mary Lawrence Cator.
Mother Mary John
Mary de Sales
Sister Mary Xavier
Cahill
O'Brien
Williams
The 'Francis Spaight' left Gravesend on August 18, 1838 and on
December 31 entered Sydney harbour; on deck were five Sisters
of Charity for whom the long journey to an unknown land was
drawing to an end. They were welcomed by Bishop Polding,
Bishop of Sydney, Judge Therry (a cousin of Sister Francis de
Sales O'Brien) and the Attorney General, John Hubert Plunkett,
the pupils of St. Mary's School and a large crowd of interested
Protestants and Catholics who had never seen a nun before.
On New Year's Day in 1839 there was a capacity congregation in
St. Mary's Cathedral for the High Mass of Thanksgiving for the
safe arrival of Bishop Ullathorne, Vicar-General, three priests,
three ecclesiastical students and five Sisters of Charity. Receptive
minds and hearts would have been attuned to the eulogy preached
by Dr. Ullathorne in the rich rhetoric of the day. He likened the
Sisters to Angels who are drawn to earth because in Heaven there
is no misery, and the God they love is merciful and
compassionate. Similarly the Sisters had left their friends, families,
religious family and the Ireland they loved because they saw Christ
suffering in his members in Australia.
Yet even on the voyage to Australia, there was a hint of future
difficulties with the hierarchy. The Vicar General, Ullathorne, who
accompanied the sisters on their voyage, tried to convince them to
change from their Ignatian rule and even went so far as to replace
Mother John Cahill as superior.
The Sydney diocese, under its leader Bishop Polding, was fast
becoming a Benedictine enclave and such a change would not
only have served this purpose, but also given the hierarchy
authority over the religious community as such. The resistance by
the sisters to this interference reflects their personal strength, solid
spiritual formation, clear understanding of their canonical position
and complete confidence in Mary Aikenhead's trust in them.
The first task of the Sisters was to bring Christian love into one of
the worst remnants of an evil system - a gaol in which up to eight
hundred women lived in degradation and misery. Despite their
difficulties in obtaining adequate accommodation in Parramatta,
the Sisters’ work seemed to bring them instant acceptance. Dr.
Polding wrote to Archbishop Murray in Ireland in March 1839 that
within three weeks, an almost miraculous change had taken place
in a gaol that seemed full of hopeless misery, resentment and
despair.
In April 1840 the Sisters moved into St. Mary's Convent,
Parramatta, built on land given to them by a staunch friend and
benefactor Mr. William Davis, a fervent Catholic who had been
transported for making pikes for the Irish rebels of 1898. The laity
admired and respected the Sisters, and the Governor, Sir George
Gipps, showed respect and readiness to assist, sanctioning their
work in visiting gaols, hospitals and schools and granting their first
request to establish a laundry and sewing rooms where the convict
women could be employed.
Despite the joy of their welcome and their heroic zeal under
difficulties, the Sisters of Charity were finding their loyalty to their
Irish Constitutions and traditions challenged by their ecclesiastical
superiors, particularly by Abbot Gregory, the new Vicar General.
They came to rely on the Catholic laity to support them in a new
land. In the heart of Sydney in 1840, their friend and benefactor,
Mr William Davis, helped them to settle in Burdekin Terrace in
College Street opposite Hyde Park. They soon became involved in
the work of the Cathedral parish. They visited the poor and sick,
gave religious instruction in the six Catholic schools in Sydney,
conducted classes in needlework and provided evening classes for
adults. Three times a week the Sisters visited Darlinghurst Gaol
and the Sydney Infirmary (later Sydney Hospital) in Macquarie
Street.
Mother Gertrude Davis, a niece of William Davis, left a description
of the historic procession on the 25th August, 1840 from St. Mary's
Cathedral for the laying of the foundation stone of St. Patrick's,
Church Hill. In the procession of about twenty thousand people,
she describes the six hundred children, marching behind a cross
being carried by an aboriginal boy. As the description of the
ceremony was doubtless included in letters to the Irish
Congregation, Mother Mary Aikenhead would have noted that a
black boy carried the banner and its inscription echoed her words
in sending with the Sisters to Australia a Crucifix whereon the
figure was that of a Black Christ. (This black Crucifix is still
preserved at Potts Point). Their foundress used the gift to
emphasise that the Sisters must present Christ to the black
inhabitants of their land as their Brother and Saviour.
Despite the enthusiasm of the people for the work of the Sisters
and the heroism of the pioneer Sisters working under extremely
hard conditions, the early years of the Congregation were beset
with difficulties.
In 1842, the diocese of Hobart was separated from Sydney; Dr.
Polding was appointed the first Archbishop of Sydney. While in
Rome in 1842 Bishop Polding had obtained a Rescript formally
stating what was needed due to distance from Ireland, that the
Australian Congregation of the Sisters of Charity was canonically
separated from the Irish Congregation. This was known in Ireland
but the Sisters in Australia were ignorant of the fact until 1846
when Abbot Gregory, going beyond his legitimate authority, had
the Rescript posted on the Chapel door as he assumed the
authority of Head Superior of the Australian Congregation.
Existing tensions escalated into a crisis during which three of the
original band of five pioneer missionaries felt impelled to leave the
Sydney Archdiocese. So, in June 1847, in response to pleas from
Bishop Willson of Hobart, Sisters John Cahill, de Sales O'Brien
and Xavier Williams set sail aboard the ‘Louisa’ and arrived in
Hobart where they were warmly welcomed by the Catholics of the
diocese. On July 2, the sisters moved into the residence next to St
Joseph's church where they were to remain for over a century.
The ministry of the Congregation in Tasmania was blessed in
having the warm support of Bishop Willson and his vicar Father
Hall, and it prospered accordingly. In August 1847, they opened St
Joseph's school, later described by the state Director of Education:
"There were two thoroughly efficient schools
in Tasmania; one was the Central School.
The other was that conducted by the nuns
in Hobart town."
In 1879, St Joseph's Orphanage was established by Mother Xavier
Williams. St Vincent's Hospital Launceston was blessed and
opened in 1944.
But the congregation itself struggled to grow in numbers. The first
two novices died within a short time after their entrance in 1849. It
was not until twenty years later that Eliza Hall, daughter of Dr
Edward Hall, a Catholic doctor at the Colonial hospital visited by
the sisters, entered the Sisters of Charity. As Sister Agnes Hall,
she was to live and minister in Tasmania until just before her
hundredth birthday (1934).
Cut off from both Sydney and Dublin, the Sisters began the
Tasmanian branch of the Congregation with Mother John Cahill as
Superior. After twenty-five years of heroic ministry in Australia, she
died on April 13, 1864. In 1871 the second of the pioneers Sister
de Sales O'Brien, highly cultured and educated in France, died,
leaving a wonderful legacy of commitment to the Australian
congregation.
Despite the restriction of numbers, Mother Xavier Williams' faith
was unshakeable. For two years she negotiated to restore the
unity of the Hobart and Sydney communities and the crowning joy
of her long life was to be alive to see the amalgamation of the
Sydney and Hobart communities approved by Pope Leo XIII in
1890. Years later in 1972, in telling their story and thanking God
that the work of the Sisters of Charity had gone on "in an unbroken
golden line" in Tasmania, Archbishop Young assured the twentieth
century Sisters of Charity that they were heirs of divine and
wonderful gifts because of their noble pioneer Sisters in the Faith "and not only the divine gifts", he added, "but also the lovely
human ones - concern, friendship, interest and loyalty" which
makes their friendship and co-operation in the work of the Diocese
a joy and benediction for all who come in contact with them.
By the time of her death on March 8, 1892, Mother Xavier Williams
saw the Tasmanian community grow to sixteen members. During a
life covering most of the nineteenth century, she had seen the
growth of the Irish Congregation, the pioneer days in Sydney and
had endured the painful separation of the Sydney and Tasmanian
branches of the Congregation. But she had faced all these trials
with the dauntless courage befitting the daughter of a Captain in
the Light Dragoons who had died in the Peninsula War against
Napoleon. With similar courage his missionary daughter fought in
Christ's army, enduring suffering of mind and body, sowing in
Hobart the seeds of a future rich spiritual harvest.
Meanwhile, back in Sydney, the sisters suffered their own trials.
One key example was the treatment by the hierarchy of Mother
Baptist de Lacy, one of the pioneer sisters. St Vincent's Hospital
was always intended for all, regardless of creed, so the committee
had agreed to provide 'Protestant' bibles for use by non-Catholic
patients.
A Catholic chaplain's complaint to the Archbishop created havoc
for Mother Baptist de Lacy, rectress of the hospital, and ultimately
led to her decision to return to Ireland. In June 1859, she sailed on
the 'Star of Peace' and was warmly welcomed by Mother Francis
Magdalen, Mary Aikenhead's successor as Superior General and
the sisters of the Irish congregation. For the next twenty years, she
ministered to the poor in Dublin until her death in 1878. She is
buried near Mary Aikenhead in the cemetery in St Mary's Convent,
Donnybrook.
In Sydney, the continuing pressure upon them to replace their
Ignatian spirituality and constitutions with the Benedictine took its
toll. Ultimately, in February 1857, Mother Scholastica Gibbons
agreed to assist Archbishop Polding to found a new congregation
based on Benedictine spirituality. This group was known first as
the 'Institute of the Good Shepherd', later as 'Institute of the Good
Samaritan'. They were trained by Mother Scholastica until 1876
when she decided it was time for them to elect their own superior.
She then returned to her own congregation and ministered with the
Hobart community for the next nine years. On a visit to Sydney,
the Good Samaritan sisters begged her to return to live with them.
She agreed, but until her death, she remained a Sister of Charity.