Principal's Post

Last chance to buy a ticket for the 125th Anniversary Gala Dinner. I shall be there to welcome you at the door. I am also the Master of Ceremonies. It is an honour to facilitate such an occasion. I am particularly looking forward to our guest speakers: Norah McCluskey and Hamoudi Al Saghir. Both FCJ College Alumni with fascinating stories to tell.

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I invite you to attend the Founder’s Day Mass at 9am on Friday 16^th August in the Marie Madeleine Centre with students and staff. I extend further invitations to the weekend tours and Mass at St Joseph’s Church. Both services concelebrated by Father Isaac Demase (a former staff member) and Father Vijay.

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Founder’s Day celebrates the beginning, the founding, of our school. The people of Benalla recognised a Catholic education for girls was needed. In August of 1900, six FCJ Sisters, accompanied by the Mother Superior, Mother Berchmans Hughes, travelled to Benalla at the invitation of the Parish Priest, Dean Owen Davy. Following a 5-hour train journey, they were greeted by a great crowd outside St Joseph’s Church. The parish priest Reverend Davy was so pleased that the sisters accepted his invitation to teach the community of Benalla. He said, “You will instil into their minds the principles of holy faith and, by your example, you will make them kind and gentle, modest and humble, courteous and obedient.”

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These sisters had been living in Richmond, Melbourne, with about 30 FCJs who had travelled from Liverpool, in England, a few years earlier. These sisters began educating girls at Vaucluse convent in Richmond and Genazzano College in Kew, Melbourne.

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The date of their arrival coincided with the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady. Three days after their arrival, sisters began teaching at St Joseph’s Primary School and on 20 August 1900, received the first students at the new Ladies’ College named Our Lady of the Angels Convent. In 1960 boys were accepted into the College and later changed its name.

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This is the beginning of our story. A story that continues to grow into the future with courage and confidence.

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Pro Deo Semper

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Joseph Mount

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