The Sisters of the Good Samaritan have been lovingly farewelled from the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, with people turning out in numbers to thank them for their decades of presence, faith and service.
By Debra Vermeer
After 90-plus years in the Mountains, the Congregation has closed its Lawson and Wentworth Falls communities, with three of the Sisters who were living there relocating to Glebe in Sydney and one to Bundoora in Victoria.
The Sisters were farewelled from Lawson during a Mass and morning tea on 31 August at Our Lady of the Nativity Church, and were also treated to various other farewells from groups with whom they had ministered over the years.
“It was a wonderful farewell,” said Sister Monica Armstrong SGS of the Lawson gathering. “Everybody was there, families and staff from the schools, the whole parish, recognising the Good Sams and their contribution to this community. It was beautiful.”
Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parramatta.
A highlight of the gathering, which was attended by Congregational Leader Sister Catherine McCahill SGS and a number of other Sisters, was the presentation of a 60-page booklet on the history, personalities and ministries of the Good Sams in the Blue Mountains over the decades.
The Sisters arrived in Lawson in 1919, residing in a property known as ‘Cabra’, which served mainly as a rest home for the Sisters. In 1929, they relocated to another property called ‘Dalmeny’, where Sydney’s Archbishop Michael Kelly invited them to establish a boarding school, catering for about 20 boarders.
The pioneer Sisters of Santa Maria, Lawson – Mother de Pazzi Cook and Sisters M Evangelista Harkin, M Celestine Magee, M Benedict Theodore and M Thecla Slattery – taught at the school with lessons taking place in the old church.
The secondary section of the school was discontinued in 1948, and the boarding school was closed in 1971. From 1974, the facilities at Santa Maria were used by outside groups for retreats, youth camps and prayer groups, etc. Good Samaritan Sisters continued teaching in Our Lady of the Nativity Primary School until 1981 when lay people took over all teaching duties.
In 1983, the Sisters opened a new ministry in the Mountains, at the request of Parramatta Bishop Bede Heather, operating a holiday centre for people with disability. The Santa Maria Centre for the Disabled ran until 2003 when the facilities were no longer considered adequate to accommodate holiday groups for those with disability.
By 2004, the Santa Maria Centre had changed its ministry to become a conference venue, continuing to extend Good Samaritan hospitality to a variety of groups, and in 2009, the Sisters’ Lawson community became home to the Congregation’s Novitiate.
Sister Maree Nash SGS, who was Novice Director from 2013-2025, said that it was “the end of a chapter” to see the closing of the Novitiate at Lawson. She said the biggest change she had seen during her years there was a transition from Australian-born Novices to those from Kiribati and the Philippines, where the Sisters of the Good Samaritan are also present.
She said the Novices had been warmly welcomed into both the parish community and wider local community.
“The parishioners of Our Lady of the Nativity were, as they still are, very welcoming,” she said.
“Having a place with space, the spectacular changes of the seasons provided the perfect conditions for our Novices to study, pray, reflect and appreciate and enjoy God our creator. It has been that space for me, also. I’m grateful for all the people who have crossed my path while living in Lawson.”
Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parramatta.
Maree said the farewell Mass and gathering was a wonderful occasion to catch up with friends and parishioners from the present and the past. “For us, it was also an opportunity to farewell the parish and to say thank you to them for their support for us Sisters over many years,” she said.
Maree will now move to Bundoora, Melbourne, to be nearer to family.
Also leaving the Mountains is Sister Veronica Griffith SGS who arrived in Lawson in 2009 to teach Art as Prayer at the Novitiate.
Veronica’s ministry includes Spiritual Direction, which she has done by Zoom or face-to-face in the outdoor chapel in the Santa Maria grounds. She has also shared her love and knowledge of Benedictine spirituality through her involvement with the Lawson Oblate Group, which has met monthly in the Centre.
She has been engaged in a ministry of hospitality, coordinating bookings for the Santa Maria Hall and liaising with the groups using the hall, as well as supporting the Creative Monday group who met there for art and craft.
“In a nutshell, I was involved in helping to provide a welcoming space for many people to feel nourished here,” she said.
Veronica said that among the things that brought her most joy during her years in Lawson were “the connections between parishioners and the Sisters and the dedicated work of our groundmen in maintaining the changing beauty of the grounds”.
“Also, the delight of all the groups who used the hall for meetings and often commented that the peace and ambience of the property really added to their sense of wellbeing,” she said.
Veronica plans to continue her Spiritual Direction ministry, Oblate meetings and artistic pursuits following her move to Glebe.
Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parrramatta.
Sister Monica Armstrong SGS said she was grateful “for everything and everybody” she encountered in her almost 30 years in the Blue Mountains. “I’ve got lots of happy memories,” she said.
After a career teaching infants’ school, Monica arrived at St Thomas Aquinas Primary School in Springwood in 1996, where she worked in Family Liaison, a role she loved.
Retiring in 2020 at age 84, Monica volunteered at CatholicCare in Springwood and has more recently been volunteering at Our Lady of the Nativity Primary School in Lawson, helping students with literacy and assisting teachers in a variety of ways, as requested.
Apart from the “wonderful” parish farewell, Monica also received a surprise farewell during the OLN school’s recent Grandparents’ Mass, held on 8 August, the Feast of St Mary MacKillop. At the end of the Mass, the Kinder and Stage 1 students sang a song for her and the school presented her with a ‘Book of Words’, a painting in which every student had written a word on a leaf for Monica.
“Then the children sang a blessing, while stretching their hands out over me,” she said. “It was absolutely beautiful.”
Monica said that after moving to Glebe she is open to whatever plans God might have for her.
Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parramatta.
And, bidding goodbye to Wentworth Falls is Sister Jacinta Shailer SGS, who was appointed Director of the House of Hospitality there in 1989. Her initial remit covered four properties known as Valley Pines Office and residence, The Barn, Maria Tal and Maria Kinder and Hall, which had previously been used as weekend retreats for the Good Samaritan Teachers’ College at Glebe.
The new vision for them was they were to be Houses of Hospitality and creative refreshment where people were empowered to live in inter-relationship with the whole of creation.
Jacinta said that studying Creation Spirituality in the US had awakened her more fully to the presence of God in all of creation and she wanted to share that with others.
“It opened my eyes to the state of our universe, that it was in grave danger,” she said. “And I thought the best thing I could do was to open the minds of people to what was happening and also to give them spiritual development so that they could cope with this and, importantly, do something about it.”
The Maria Tal and Maria Kinder properties were closed in 2014, but Jacinta continued to welcome people to the House of Hospitality, where she began a monthly Cosmology group and Benedictine group. Participants would pray together in the gardens and discuss books that Jacinta had suggested for them.
“The beautiful surrounds of the place were very important to what we were doing there,” she said. “Being one with nature and encouraging that interconnectedness with the whole of Creation was very important.”
A keen and accomplished photographer and wood carver, Jacinta has also been active in ecumenical endeavours in the local community, including the annual Easter Sunday Sunrise Service.
At her recent 98th birthday party, which doubled as a farewell, a range of Sisters and friends from the local community spoke about Jacinta and what her ministry had meant to them over the years, concluding with a blessing over her.
Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parramatta.
Jacinta said she was deeply touched by that farewell as well as the Mass and gathering in Lawson for the Sisters.
“It’s been such a wonderful community to me in so many ways,” she said.
Jacinta said she intends to continue sharing Cosmology Spirituality once she’s settled at Glebe, and already has people interested in meeting as a group.
The impact of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan on the Blue Mountains community was evident in the pages of the commemorative booklet, compiled by Allan Walsh and companions, which was presented to the Sisters at their farewell gathering, which spilled over with glowing testimonials.
Parishioner Paula Currie said the presence and friendship of the Sisters would be sadly missed. “But in saying that, their presence and memories will be forever with us having left wonderful legacies behind them,” she said.
Former OLN School Principal and parishioner Mark Geerligs thanked the Sisters for being such an important part of the community. “Your contribution to this area cannot be understated. Your presence will be missed but your mission to show compassion, be of service, and seek God in all we do will live on,” he said.
This article was published in the September 2025 edition of The Good Oil.
