140 years of Ursulines in Australia
21/12/2022
“We felt instinctively that our feet were about to tread strange, new paths; that a future lay before us, more wondrous than we ever dreamed of when we pronounced our Vows in the quaint old city of Duderstadt, expecting to live and die within the calm seclusion of the Convent walls.” Annals
12th September, 1882 - 140 years ago - the Ursulines arrived in Armidale, Australia. Congratulations on a special anniversary!
When Ursulines were expelled from Germany by the laws of the Kulturkampf in 1877, members of the Community of Duderstadt fled to Greenwich in England. Five years later, ten of them took the long voyage to Australia, at the invitation of the Bishop of Armidale.
After a few days in Sydney, including attendance at the opening of St Mary's Cathedral on 8th September, they travelled by boat, train and coach to Armidale. There they were welcomed to their new home late in the evening of 12th September, 1882. One week later they had begun their new school. They also taught in St Mary's Parish School.
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Who would have thought?
In 1535 in Brescia in northern Italy when Angela gathered with the first members of the company who would have thought ...
more than three hundred years later, in 1877, women inspired by her living out of the gospel, would be seeking refuge, being forced to leave their home country of Germany and travel, by way of France, to England as refugees from Bismarck’s Germany...
In 1881, having established a community in Greenwich, England, who would have thought some of these same women would be discerning a call to travel to the other side of the world, to Armidale, New South Wales, Australia...
Who would have thought ...
that those women who arrived in 1882, are being celebrated today, 140 years later...
as our foremothers, as women of courage and selfless generosity.
We celebrate their grounding us in the history which we celebrate…
In 2022 we are still discerning that deep urging of the Spirit, leading us to choose where our voice and presence will bring the gospel more clearly, more deeply, to those on the margins, those who cry out to be heard in our community, our nation, and our world.
With our foremothers, we commit ourselves to that instinctive feeling that our feet will tread strange new paths into a future which lies before us, more wondrous than we are able to dream…
Ruth Durick OSU
From the website of the Province and “Bearings” - bulletin of the Australian Ursulines