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The Congregation of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, colloquially known as the "Good Sams", is a Roman Catholic congregation of religious women commenced by Bede Polding, OSB, Australia’s first
Catholic bishop In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders and is responsible for teaching doctrine, governing Catholics in his jurisdiction, sanctifying the world and representing the Chu ...
, in Sydney in 1857. The congregation was the first religious congregation to be founded in Australia. The sisters form an apostolic institute that follows the
Rule of Saint Benedict The ''Rule of Saint Benedict'' ( la, Regula Sancti Benedicti) is a book of precepts written in Latin in 516 by St Benedict of Nursia ( AD 480–550) for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot. The spirit of Saint Benedict's Ru ...
. They take their name from the well-known gospel
parable of the Good Samaritan The parable of the Good Samaritan is told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. It is about a traveler (implicitly understood to be Jewish) who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First, a Jewish priest and then a ...
.


History

Under the guidance of Polding’s co-founder, Mother Scholastica Gibbons, a Sister of Charity, the sisters cared for needy, homeless women at a refuge, the House of the Good Shepherd in Sydney, and orphans at the Roman Catholic Orphan School, a government institution at
Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Parramatta Rive ...
. Foundations were made throughout Sydney and New South Wales as bishops urgently requested staff for Catholic schools. The first foundation outside New South Wales was made at
Port Pirie Port Pirie is a small city on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia, north of the state capital, Adelaide. The city has an expansive history which dates back to 1845. Port Pirie was the first proclaimed regional city in South A ...
, South Australia, in 1890. Under the leadership of Mother Berchmans, who was superior general from 1898 to 1916, the order expanded greatly, from nineteen communities to thirty nine, with expansion into four additional states. She added new congregations to serve the poor in urban areas like Brisbane and Melbourne, and set up missions in rural areas, such as the outback of Queensland and in farming communities in Victoria. Over time, sisters have served in all states and territories of Australia. During the first 100 years, education was a major focus of the sisters’ work. The work of the women’s refuge changed after World War I, when young women were referred from the Children’s Court to the care of the sisters at St Magdalen’s Arncliffe. A new ministry began in 1957 when Mater Dei Special School, Narellan opened at the request of the New South Wales bishops to provide a Catholic education for students with special needs. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the sisters responded to the call of the
Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and ...
to embrace the charism of their founder. They diversified their ministries to include catechetics, parish work, and support for Indigenous people, the elderly, the homeless, prisoners and people with disabilities. They also shared their rich Benedictine spirituality by giving retreats and
spiritual direction Spiritual direction is the practice of being with people as they attempt to deepen their relationship with the divine, or to learn and grow in their personal spirituality. The person seeking direction shares stories of their encounters of the di ...
. During this era, the education of students in the Good Samaritan schools and colleges became a shared ministry with lay people. Increasingly, the congregation was called to listen to the needs of the wider Asia-Pacific region. Sisters went to Japan in 1948, in response to an appeal for help from the Bishop of Nagasaki. Initially, they established a dispensary to care for victims of the 1945 atomic bomb, but later went on to open a secondary school and kindergarten. In a spirit of reconciliation with their Asian neighbours, the Good Samaritan Japanese sisters desired to begin a community in the Philippines. The community established in
Bacolod Bacolod, officially the City of Bacolod (; hil, Dakbanwa/Syudad sang Bacolod; fil, Lungsod ng Bacolod), is a 1st class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Regions of the Philippines, region of Western ...
in 1990, provides a kindergarten school for the children of the very poor. In 1991, the sisters began to work in
Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...
at the request of the local bishop and founded communities and a preschool centre. In Australia, in 2011, the sisters’ ministry in Catholic education comprised ten schools in five dioceses: the Archdioceses of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney and the Dioceses of Broken Bay and Wollongong. The Congregation valued these schools as a sphere of its apostolic activity within the mission of the Church. In reading the signs of the times as they relate to the Good Samaritan Sisters and their schools, the congregation discerned that 2011 was the appropriate time to embrace a new and different future. In 2011, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan received approval to establis
''Good Samaritan Education''
a new entity within the Australian Catholic Church to oversee the canonical governance of the Congregation’s schools. Today, about 235 Good Samaritan Sisters live and minister throughout Australia and in Japan, the Philippines and Kiribati. They and the wider Good Samaritan family continue to seek God and to live out the injunction of the Good Samaritan parable to be a good neighbour to those in need.


Sisters of the Good Samaritan

* Geraldine Scholastica Gibbons * Clara Jane McLaughlin (Mother Berchmans) * Bernice Moore * Linda Cassell


Schools established by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan


Australia

;New South Wales
Mater Dei School
Cobbitty (
special school Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...
) * Mater Maria Catholic College, Warriewood,
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountai ...
* Mount St Benedict College,
Pennant Hills Pennant Hills is a suburb in the Northern Sydney region, or Upper North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Pennant Hills is located 18 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Horns ...
, Sydney * Rosebank College,
Five Dock Five Dock is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Five Dock is located 10 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Canada Bay. Location F ...
, Sydney
St Mary Star of the Sea College
Wollongong Wollongong ( ), colloquially referred to as The Gong, is a city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. The name is believed to originate from the Dharawal language, meaning either 'five islands/clouds', 'ground near wat ...
* St Patrick's College, Campbelltown, Sydney * St Scholastica's College, Glebe Point, Sydney * Stella Maris College, Manly, Sydney ;Queensland * Lourdes Hill College, Hawthorne,
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the Sou ...
* St Margaret Mary's College, Hyde Park,
Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
*St Thomas' School, Camp Hill, *St Mary’s College Charters Towers, St Columba School Charters Towers ref> ;South Australia * Marymount College,
Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
;Victoria * Mater Christi College, Belgrave,
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metr ...
* Santa Maria College, Northcote, Melbourne Good Samaritan Education
/ref>


See also

* Wivenhoe, Narellan


References

This article incorporates text from a publication by Marilyn Kelleher SGS, ''Annals of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict'', published 2010, Volume II - 1938-1949, pp. 11–12.


External links


Official Home Page of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan


{{Authority control Catholic female orders and societies Catholic religious institutes established in the 19th century Christian organizations established in the 1850s Orders following the Rule of Saint Benedict