Omicron strikes. Chevalier College 75 years, delayed reunion, celebration, then cancelled. Regrets.
The intention was to post the following on the occasion of the celebration.
We now post it as a memento of Chevalier College and its 75 years. Photos from the 2021 celebration, Feast of the Sacred Heart (with Fr Bob Irwon).
History and Heritage
75 years ago, on the land known as Riversdale, Chevalier College first planted the seeds of its mission to grow young hearts and minds. Chevalier College began in February 1946, as a boarding and day school for boys with a gathering of just 40 students, along with the staff of 8 priests and 5 brothers from the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
Boarders slept in surplus army huts and science classes were conducted in a converted garage. Heating was minimal and the food was frugal at best. Rural fields were gradually transformed into some of the best sporting facilities in the district, thanks to the hard work of the MSC brothers and the students who cleared the land, often by hand.
In 1973 the first female cohort joined Chevalier followed by a full amalgamation with the Dominican Elm Court girls school in 1977. After almost 60 years, boarding at Chevalier ceased completely in 2003. Both events contributed to the development of Chevalier College today. Through all of these changes, as the college has grown and evolved, new buildings have been added and old ones repurposed.
Today, Chevalier is a flourishing college with over 900 students and some 100 staff. More than 13,000 alumni have graduated with an education ‘of the heart’ and can claim a sense of kinship with that first Chevalier gathering.
Faith Formation and Mission
Retreats and Liturgies
Liturgies and retreats have an essential place in the life of our college.
We celebrate liturgies at key points in the year as a witness to our commitment to being a Community of Prayer and Action. Like true gifts of the Holy Spirit, our Catholic faith and participation is never imposed, never forced onto others. It is offered at key times to be, hopefully, freely accepted.
Liturgy offers a space for the subtle growth in us all, of a deeper intimate relationship with Jesus, lived in our relationships with all of whom we come into contact.
Our student retreats offer every student the opportunity to engage in a program that is carefully designed to be sequential for students to experience intellectually and sacramentally God’s love at work in their lives, so as to deepen their spirituality.
Social Justice
We strive to live the vision and mission of Fr Jules Chevalier by raising our awareness of the place of social justice in our daily lives, locally and globally. As members of the Chevalier College family and a global society, the teaching and practice of social justice principles provides each of us with a framework on which to live the values of mercy, compassion, inclusion and equality. The learning and application of social justice principles are imbedded within our teaching programs at Chevalier College and in the way we relate with one another.
Social Justice principles are also addressed through a variety of social justice initiatives such as: The Red Cross Appeal, St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal & Christmas hampers, The Gethsemane Project, The Ration Challenge, Caritas Projects and other projects as they arise.
Our college immersion programs – currently Kiribati and Outback Australia – provide opportunities for Year 11 students to develop a greater sense of social justice issues ranging from climate change, to poverty and isolation by spending 15 to 20 days immersed in the lives of the people of Kiribati or outback Northern Territory & Western Australia. The students share these experiences with the college community upon their return.
MSC Philosophy of Education
Jules Chevalier’s vision for the regeneration of society was through love, compassion, mercy and kindness found in the Heart of Jesus – and was to be lived and shared with all by those who shared his vision.
Our philosophy of education can be summed up in the phrase: ‘The Heart of Education is the Education of the Heart’. This means that everything we do at Chevalier College, in the academic and in the extra-curricular life of the college, is about enhancing and developing all the unique gifts, talents and personalities of the young people in our care. In this way, they will come to know they are deeply loved by God.
The key to this is respectful and good relationships at all levels of the college community – between staff and staff, students and staff, students and students. The best teaching and learning takes place in the context of healthy, respectful, good and right relationships. In the teaching of young people, teachers cannot separate what they teach from who they are.
Our philosophy is based on a ‘spirituality of the heart’ which finds its roots in the charism and spirit of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, the founders and owners of the college.
“A Spirituality of the Heart is a way of living – a way of being in the world…a journey to be travelled (with others),…an energy that sustains and moves us, a dance in which we are participating… a way of being in the world, in relationship to self, others and God; a way of coming to rest within ourselves, at our deepest centre.” James Maher msc
This MSC ethos underpins everything we do at Chevalier College, it is who we are. At the core of this ethos is the human heart of Jesus. Our students and staff are part of a spiritual family and are invited to reflect upon the ethos and vision of the MSC as a way to live their lives. Families of all religious traditions and those who do not identify with a religious tradition are welcome at Chevalier College.
