BOTH JOY AND SADNESS FOR OLSH SISTERS, JUBILEES AND A DEATH
Jubilees of Sr Josette and Sr Theresa
Today we express our appreciation and love to our Jubilarians – Sisters Josette and Theresa, Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, who over seventy years ago began a journey which has taken them to places and situations that they possibly never dreamed about, on their first profession day. Amazing 70 years ago! It would be difficult for many people in our society today to even imagine this sort of selfless commitment to God and to God’s people. Their lives of dedication and long-term commitment are an inspiration to all of us.
I have asked a few people to give me some inside information on these two valiant women. It is not easy to sum up 140 years in a few minutes.
Theresa was born in Sydney and went to school in the local area completing her Secondary Education next door at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College. Josette was born in Tumut, and very proud of it. One of my sources told me that any imported oranges that arrived in PNG had to be inspected by Josette to see if they came from Tumut. Josette completed her leaving certificate at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College here in Kensington.
Both Sisters have spent the majority of their religious life ministering in the field of Education. Theresa in our Primary Schools and Colleges in Australia and Josette in Schools in Papua New Guinea. Both instrumental in forming the hearts and minds of young people. Some of you in this room are can attest to their wonderful teaching. Some OLSH Sisters present here today were inspired to enter the Congregation because of their witness to God’s love.
Theresa was a highly respected teacher in both primary and secondary education. Former students have described her as treating all students the same and never having any favourites. She was a wonderful staff member whose warmth, ability to laugh and join in the fun attracted people to her. During her many years in education she was drawn to help those suffering, especially young people with difficult home situations. In her later years Theresa was involved with our associates and is well known for her wonderful organization and leadership of the Pilgrimages to Issoudun. Her passion for our Charism and love of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart led her to work tirelessly at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart at Randwick where she was able to spread this devotion through her witness and her many writings. Theresa is known in Community for her genuine care for others, compassion, graciousness, and positive attitude.
Josette’s teaching ministry was in Papua New Guinea, where she spent years in ‘out stations’. There were very few teachers and she soon found herself in Administration and training the local people to be teachers. From the first time she arrived in PNG she was described as being a ‘ball of energy’. It will not surprise anyone that Josette was a very competent sports coach in a variety of sports and organised many sporting carnivals for her students and her students won many competitions. Her energy and determination resulted in her making a major contribution to the future of education in the young nation. This is apparent by the awards she has received from the PNG Government for service to Education. Josette is well known for her love of ‘projects’ and from the inception of the PNG Province in 1964, she along with many other sisters worked tirelessly at fund raising to support the new Province. After retiring from teaching Josette ran a very profitable school canteen right up to the time, she left PNG. She made many friends in PNG, including members of the Chinese Catholic Community, some who are present with us today. Josette returned to Australia in 2013, Josette is known in community for her warmth, graciousness, kindness and generosity.
This brief summary certainly does not do justice to these heroic Sisters. Josette and Theresa have touched countless life’s over their many years of generous, dedicated, joy filled service to God and God’s people. Like Jules Chevalier and Marie Louise Hartzer, they have shown people the compassionate face of God and the church.
As I look at you today, Theresa and Josette, I can only say…your lives have been and continue to be an inspiration to us all, thank you for your witness to each one of us of what a faith filled, forever YES looks like….a life lived so close to Jesus that you cannot but radiate Joy. All that is left to say is, God bless you, thank you and congratulations to both of you, for sharing your many gifts and live with us all, may you continue to be blessed with good health and a positive spirit as you witness to God’s generous love.
I ask Moya and Pauline to present you with a rose as a symbol of our deep love and appreciation.
Josette and Theresa, we are proud of you and we love you.
Philippa Murphy olsh
Kensington, 4th January, 2020
Eulogy: Sr Emmanuel [Ena Francis Chapman] (24.05.1916 - 28.12.2019)
Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. (Lk 5:4)
After spending 83 years in the Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart as a tireless missionary I am sure Sr Emmanuel would have received such a welcome from Him whom she had served so well.
Ena was born into a devout Catholic family from which she gained her love of God and his mother. She said that her father was not a Catholic when he met her mother in Cooktown but he received “the gift of faith without which I don’t think my mother would have married him.” Frederick Chapman was a marine engineer from New Zealand and Evelyn O’Neill a nurse from Queensland. Some time after their first baby was born, a boy called Rolla, they went to Timaru, Frederick’s home town, in the South Island of New Zealand and it was here that Eileen was born. When they moved to Auckland where it was warmer Ena was born in 1916. Nearly two years later the family came to Sydney and settled first in Randwick and then in Coogee. It was here that Ena came into contact with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and Eileen with the Little Sisters of the Poor the congregation she later joined. Two more children were born after the family’s arrival in Australia, Francis and Mary. Ena received her first holy Communion from Father Peter Treand, the first provincial superior of the Australian MSC’s and the father of the Australian MSC’s. Her family was very involved in the life of the Church in Randwick and in Coogee.
As the family lived near the sea and her father had a great love of the sea so did Ena and she spent a lot of time in the surf at Coogee, first with her father and later on her own. She became a good swimmer! In 1929 when she was still only thirteen years of age, because of the Depression she had to leave school and gained employment as a messenger girl in the Swan Pen warehouse on the corner of Sussex and King Streets in the city. When she was 18 after a Mission in the parish church she felt God calling her to “become a nun”. However, this was not yet possible as her sister Eileen had just gone to the Little Sisters of the Poor and Ena’s financial help was needed by the family. Two years later in 1936 even though she loved swimming and dancing she joined the novitiate of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart at Bowral. Her parents were very happy with her choice and looked upon the vocations of their daughters “as a precious gift from God.”
After her profession in 1938 she began on her epic journey as a teacher in Northern Australia for the next 73 years. Her first mission was to Thursday Island to where she was sent because she could swim. The sisters had to travel by boat from Thursday Island to Hammond Island for catechetics and not long before a boat carrying the sisters there capsized and one of the sisters drowned. When the war started in the Pacific in 1941 this intrepid missionary accompanied 25 children who were evacuated to Cooyar, about 70km from Dalby in Queensland and then in November, 1944 she joined the Melville Island evacuees in Carrieton, South Australia. Having had a trial run as a teacher with Sr Vianney at Our Lady of the Rosary Kensington who said she would be a good teacher, Sr Emmanuel taught from 1939 in Thursday Island and then in the two places of evacuation. After her arrival in Port Keats in 1946 she completed her school education by correspondence from Western Australia and then followed this with Theory and Practice of Education with the South Australian Department of Education. She said this gave her great satisfaction.
For the next 49 years in Port Keats [now called by its indigenous name, Wadeye] Melville Island, Bathurst Island and Daly River, Sr Emmanuel was an Early Childhood teacher who prepared the children for their first Holy Communion. Also, she was highly regarded by the members of both the Catholic Education Office and the N.T. Education Office for the way she embraced the new trends in education and she was considered as one of the best Early Childhood teachers of mathematics in the Northern Territory. At the end of 1995 she had to officially retire as a paid teacher. The following year when she began as a “volunteer full time teacher” of Year 2 at Wadeye she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to education, particularly in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. During the investiture she received much praise as an extraordinary Australian who for 57 years of educating young people in remote Aboriginal communities is a remarkable example of dedication and selfless service.
For the next four years she continued as a full-time classroom teacher and then for the following 12 years as a remedial reading teacher in the mornings. Then at the great age of 96 she returned to Kensington convent where she was a much-loved member of the community here and then for the last few years at St Joseph’s. It was amazing the way she was always interested in the news and who was winning in the cricket! Her ready wit and her interest in everything will be greatly missed.
The people of Wadeye have never forgotten her and when they heard of her death sent a message of sincere sympathy to the sisters because of their loss. Several of the indigenous teachers from Wadeye are present today to pay their respects.
Throughout her life her love of God, the Church, our Blessed Mother, our congregation, and the people she served was very evident. The words of St Paul to the Corinthians can certainly be applied to her, “We prove we are servants of God by great fortitude in times of suffering,....by our purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness; by a spirit of holiness and by a love free from affectation.”
Sr Emmanuel spent her entire religious life endeavouring to live out our spirituality, to make the Sacred Heart of Jesus everywhere loved.
Emmanuel thank you for your wonderful witness of a joy filled, faith filled life. May your gentle soul rest in peace.
Written by Helen Simpson olsh
