75th Anniversary of the Blessed Sacrament Congregation in Australia

Monday, 1st November 2004 marked the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the first Community of our religious in Australia. Initially eight men were chosen from the American and Canadian communities to pioneer the Congregation in southern hemisphere. They were Fr Joseph Thibault, Bro Ely Gingras, Bro Marie-Joseph Saint-Laurent, Fr Daniel Sullivan, Fr Alfred Vey, Fr Joseph Chalifoux, Bro Michael Foghino and Fr Henri Lachance; however Bro Marie-Joseph did not make the journey due to illness.

Their journey began with a farewell Mass in Chicago and took them to San Francisco where they were blessed by the New York Superior, Fr Alphonse Pelletier, prior to joining the ship for the voyage to Honolulu and then on to American Samoa and Fiji. Having crossed the equator and several days later the ship entered Sydney Harbour on 31 October 1929. After a day stopover in Sydney the group dashed to Central Station to find that their luggage was missing. All they had was the monstrance which they had carried with them since leaving the ship. The overnight train arrived in Melbourne around noon on 1st November, and the group was welcomed by Monsignor John Lonergan (Vicar General) who escorted them to St Francis' Church which occupied a prime corner block of land in the city. St Francis' had been built in 1841 and was Melbourne's first Cathedral. It remained a parish of the Melbourne diocese until the arrival of the SSS in 1929. Today, St Francis' remains the "Mother Church of Victoria".

The former presbytery housed the Community until the monastery was built in 1938. The Community was united by the vision and spirit of Eymard. Under the guidance of the Community, St Francis' was progressively transformed into a Eucharistic Shrine. A long line of capable and colourful priests followed the seven pioneers; men like William Fox, Rodriguez Beaulieu, Hector Lemieux, Gerald Dorais, Lorenzo Gelinas, Frederick Roberge, Raymond Tarte, Omer Herbert, John Gartner and Walter Riendeau, to name but a few. Out of the many sacrifices they made (isolation from their families and friends and confreres, loneliness and, on account of their Constitutions, a lack of interaction with local people), St Francis' emerged as an extraordinary spiritual powerhouse. By the mid-1960s, some 35 American, French-Canadian and European priests had served in the Australian houses.

Having established a novitiate and major seminary at St Francis', the first Australian SSS priests were ordained in the early 1940s. The Congregation then moved to open a separate novitiate in New South Wales which formed the bridgehead for the Sydney foundation in 1953. A new SSS seminary was being built at the time the first religious went to open the foundation in Sri Lanka, and a new novitiate was opened in Queensland. Later houses were opened in India and in Western Australia.

Australia gained its "Province" status in 1955, with Fr Len McKenna named as first Provincial.

The 75th Anniversary Eucharist was celebrated by Melbourne's Archbishop Denis Hart, with emeritus Archbishop Frank Little, Bishop Hilton Deakin, Fr Hans van Schijndel SSS (representing the General Council), Fr Norman Pelletier SSS (USA Province Leader), Australian SSS religious, and local clergy, religious, laity and friends filling St Francis' for the evening of rejoicing. Following the Eucharist, some 500 people gathered at the Melbourne Town Hall for a Gala Dinner. These were indeed occasions of festive celebration.

Today, in Australia, the sons of Eymard are increasingly fewer in number, our average age is 68, but the Eucharistic Mission continues with deep conviction and effectiveness.

A selection of photos from the Archbishops Homily