what we do

The ministries of today’s Good Samaritan Sisters reflect the Gospel vision of our Founder, Archbishop John Bede Polding.  In outlining the character of the new Congregation in 1857, he wrote, ‘The name sufficiently indicates the scope…’ As Good Samaritan Sisters of the 21st Century we cherish this founding charism as our way of understanding the mission of Jesus.  Inspired by this vision we identify ourselves as women of hope and aspire to be true to a feminine expression of the love of Christ. 

The lawyer’s question, in Luke’s Parable of the Good Samaritan, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ inspired our sesquicentenary celebrations during 2007 just as it had inspired previous generations of  Good Samaritan Sisters.  Sylvia Fletcher, the daughter of a deserted mother living in South Yarra in the 1930’s remembers the Good Samaritan Sisters:

My mother used to walk up Caroline Street and she’d wash and iron all those white fronts for the Good Samaritan nuns.  She got four shillings a day.  The nuns were living on next to nothing themselves.  It was good money when you were desperate.  Then she’d go down and scrub out St Joseph’s school and we used carry 21 of those fire-buckets full of water.  She got four shillings for that too.  We weren’t Catholics then but my brother used to do a milk round for Hough’s and they reported our plight to the nuns.  Mum didn’t know anything about it.  She went to the grocer to pay the bill.  He said, ‘It’s already been paid for.’  And we went to Woods the little butcher.  ‘It’s already been paid.’  We found out later that they were collecting at St Joseph’s and paid for the bread and the milk and stuff until we got our feet.  My mother said, ‘If that’s religion it’ll do me.’  And she took us all down and had us christened. (Walsh, Margaret, The Good Sams,2001, p258.

Today it continues to challenge us as we seek to be compassionate, inclusive and just in all our relationships, particularly those that threaten our definition of neighbour.

The call to give oneself in loving service continues to find contemporary expression in diverse and challenging ways. Traditional ministries of education and social welfare have expanded in response to societal and environmental needs and according to the unique, inherent gifts of the Sisters.

Today Good Samaritan Sisters minister as teachers and lecturers, as chaplains in hospitals and prisons, as home-makers, as leaders of retreats and parishes, as secretaries, as spiritual directors and counsellors, as facilitators and administrators. They care for and visit the sick, and they work for social justice among refugees, victims of trafficking, domestic violence and the homeless.  Many of them serve creatively through their art and craft, music, professional writing and poetry.  Increasingly, global concerns such as the environmental crises, engage them.
 
 Although founded in Australia in the mid 19th Century, Good Samaritan Sisters today serve in Japan, Kiribati, the Philippines and East Timor as well as most Australian states.  What sustains all of us, wherever we are, includes the support of community living and prayer, the teaching of St. Benedict whose vision and spirit form us, and faith in the Spirit of Jesus among us.