With the theme ‘Ever Ancient, Ever New: Weaving Tradition with Innovation’, Good Samaritan Education hosted its Triennial Conference for 180 delegates at the Australian Catholic University’s North Sydney Campus and Mary MacKillop Place from 2-3 August.
The gathering of 180 participants from the Good Samaritan Education (GSE) community included Board Directors, school senior leadership, patrons, member-representatives and the 2025 Prophetic Voices Student Forum cohort.
Executive Director Dr Joanne Hack highlighted that “the Triennial Conference is a platform for all the dimensions of Good Samaritan Education to be present to each other, to speak to each other and to challenge each other. This rich conversation and experience will help shape the next three years as we continue to grow and evolve”.
GSE Executive Director Dr Joanne Hack (right) with ACU Pro-Vice Chancellor (Indigenous) Kelly Humphries. Image: Good Samaritan Education.
In our GSE Benedictine tradition, we keep front of mind that education is a sacred journey of encounter with the Divine, in our relationships with others, the Earth, and all creation. The conference theme ‘Ever Ancient, Ever New: Weaving Tradition with Innovation’ invited participants to reflect on the enduring values of stewardship, justice, and conversatio, ensuring care for the past, the present, and the future with equal concern. From thought-provoking keynotes, a diversity of breakout sessions to the raw and challenging voice of our students, the conference provided a vast scope of material to digest and savour.
There was a wonderful synergy where our key speakers wove the conference theme into compelling story and contemporary challenge. Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) at ACU Kelly Humphrey gave the opening address on Weaving Educational Baskets. She posed the question: what are the knots we need to both tie and untie in our leadership and learnings.
In her reflection on Luke’s Gospel, Congregational Leader Sister Catherine McCahill challenged the GSE school communities to seek what really matters: What is it to be a Good Samaritan College? Are we building communities in which we learn to be neighbour, to share our resources, to celebrate difference, to notice those who are left on the margins, to cherish and advocate for our common home, the earth?”
Good Samaritan Sister Carmel Posa suggested that a way forward to meet some of these present-day questions was through the ancient wisdom of deep listening and discernment found in the Rule of St Benedict.
Finally, Lee-Ann Perry led us through some of the realities facing Catholic education in the 21st Century and left us with key questions for GSE in the next decade: What is the transformation that has to happen? What are our dislocations? What do we take forward?”
Chair of the GSE Governing Council Moira Najdecki said the conference was a magnificent and provocative couple of days from four very wise women.
2025 Prophetic Voices Students presenting their statements. Image: Good Samaritan Education.
At previous conferences, our students have inspired us with their thoughtful and insightful contributions, and this year was no exception. The Prophetic Voices Students opened the second session with a compelling presentation, sharing reflections on their journey throughout the forum program. Their work represented the culmination of eight months of dedication, collaboration and discernment, including the intensive days prior to the conference when they came together in person to refine their perspectives and craft position statements on their chosen topics.
Since 2022, our students have delved into significant topics of concern and share their activism from each of their schools. This year’s topics were:
- Mental Health: Stewarding Supportive Communities
- Access to Education for All: Rural, Remote and Vulnerable Communities
The students’ final statements are now available on the GSE website.
Following their presentations, the students welcomed questions from the audience. Speaking unscripted and from the heart, they represented their schools with poise and pride. Time and again, several students stepped forward to offer thoughtful, respectful, and articulate responses to a wide range of questions, a moment many in attendance later described as one of the true highlights of the weekend.
Across the subsequent keynotes, presentations and workshops, the central theme continued to resonate, woven through thought‑provoking ideas, challenging proposals and contemplative, nourishing liturgies. Inspiring keynote addresses were delivered by Sister Carmel Posa SGS and Dr Lee Ann Perry, Professor at the Queensland University of Technology.
The program offered a rich and diverse selection of breakout sessions across six thematic streams: Integral Ecology, Our Story, Governance, Education, Neighbour and Reconciliation.
Throughout the weekend, participants spoke often of the deep sense of connection and shared mission that lies at the heart of the GSE community – a spirit that was felt in every conversation, gathering and exchange of ideas.
Participants reflected on the profound sense of connection and shared mission that defines the GSE community.
“I tried to imagine what those new to the experience might see … warm, reflective, compassionate, faith filled but giving us all permission to ‘be’ and get comfortable in our own experience and to think more broadly around what it is to be Church,” one participant commented.
Conference participants in the auditorium at ACU. Image: Good Samaritan Education.
For the success of the Triennial Conference, members of the GSE community give up their weekend like the Good Samaritan, interrupting our paths to share of our ourselves.
Our community flourishes when we come together in the understanding of stewardship as mutual care and mutual obedience guiding us to listen deeply to one another and to God, with the “ear of the heart”.
As we weave the future together, we affirm through our service and communio a living divine beauty in all things as we hold the wisdom of the past, honour the shoulders on which we stand and bring to life our values in this moment of Good Samaritan Education.
Over the weekend, we gathered and wove our hope, our innovation and our story ensuring that as GSE enters is 15th year we may reflect the timeless truth that we are stewards of a sacred and interconnected world, where in all things God may be glorified.
Good Samaritan Education is the ecclesial community established by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan to carry their charism forward in Catholic education. For further information, click here.
This article was published in the August 2025 edition of The Good Oil.
