A garden that has honoured the legacy of St Mary MacKillop and the Sisters of St Joseph in the Victorian town of Numurkah for over 130 years has officially opened. Source: Sandhurst Diocese.
On December 1, Sandhurst Bishop Shane Mackinlay opened and blessed the Mary MacKillop Indigenous Garden and History Trail on the parish grounds of St John the Baptist Church.
The parish pastoral council hopes it will bring pilgrims to the town, and help visitors, parishioners and school students alike to further develop an ecological spirituality.
Sr Sue McGuinness rsj, Victoria-Tasmania Regional Leader for the Sisters of St Joseph, thanked Numurkah community for capturing the spirit of the order’s co-founders Mary MacKillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods and keeping their story alive.
“Mary MacKillop would be greatly heartened by the work being continued here in Numurkah,” she said.
St Mary MacKillop founded St Joseph’s, her first school in Victoria and the first school in Numurkah, in 1890.
For many years, the Josephite Sisters provided quality education and pastoral care to countless children, laying a strong foundation for the future of the town.
The garden has been a labour of love for parishioners and students at St Joseph’s School.
“It’s been wonderful to see how the project has drawn in volunteers as it’s progressed; people seeing a need – weeding, spreading mulch, planting posts – and doing something about it, to paraphrase Mary,” said parishioner Kerry Stone.
The garden features a meandering walking path adorned with Indigenous plants and a series of interpretive signs, one for each decade, which tell the story of the Josephite Sisters’ service in Numurkah and their charism deeply connected to education and the empowerment of the marginalised.
The first sign of the trail acknowledges that Numurkah is on Yorta Yorta Country and extends respect, gratitude, appreciation and sorrow to the Yorta Yorta People, the traditional owners of the land on which the parish and school are built.
FULL STORY
“Doing Something About it”: Numurkah’s Tribute to the Sisters of St Joseph (Sandhurst Diocese)
