Celebrating 125 Years of Mercy Sisters 

What an amazing day we had yesterday to celebrate the 125 years since the Mercy sisters came to Seymour and to St Mary’s

It was wonderful to welcome Sr Sally Bradley Executive director of Mercy works who travelled from Sydney to be with us. Sally spoke to students in the morning about the development programs of the Mercy order in countries such as Timor-Leste, Paua New Guinea  and the Philippines.

Sr Sally then joined us for the liturgy and presented the reflection which was both inspiring and informative.

A highlight of the liturgy was the unveiling of the amazing artwork representation of the 5 nuns who travelled from Mansfield to Seymour to start St Mary’s (formerly known as Sacred Heart College) This artwork was made by our own fabulous creative arts team - Mr Paul Grattan, Ms Cassie Weeks and Ms Kerrie Royals. They spent hours of their own time making the artwork for this  special occasion.

We also had a special poem written and read by Mrs Sharon Royals, mother of staff member Ms Kerrie Royals and grandmother of Lachlan and Ashleigh Aldous - all being former students of St Mary’s. It was a wonderful end to our celebration to have Sharon read this poem in front of the whole College. Sr Sally took a copy of the poem back to the Mercy sisters in North Melbourne and Sydney.

Prior to celebrating this special occasion the following information was shared with all homerooms:- 

St Mary’s Primary school began in 1880. Classes were held in the original church with two lay teachers, Miss Renehan and Miss Burns. Eventually the Parish Priest Father O'Neill wanted Catholic religious education to begin in Seymour.  So at his request, on the 15th May 1900,  5 Sisters of Mercy came from Mansfield to begin a Convent in the Seymour Parish and to begin the building of a secondary college to be known as Sacred Heart College. 

The  5 sisters were Sisters, Mary Agnes Ryan, Mary Berchmans Dodd, Mary Aquinas Denton, Mary Divine Heart and Catherine Ford  (Convent housekeeper) 

Over the next 43 years, St Mary's Primary and Sacred Heart College (primary and secondary) were running side by side, with a simple wire fence between them. In 1988 St Mary's Primary and Sacred Heart College, amalgamated becoming St Mary's College., with the fence being finally pulled down. 

St Mary's continued as a P-10 college until 2024 when Yr 11 classes commenced and finally this year, 2025, St Mary's is a F-12 College of over 600 students. 

Cath Evans

on behalf of the RE Team