Catholic Diocese of Broome

The centenary of the Sisters of St John of God arriving in the Kimberley has been celebrated with great joy in those parts of the Diocese where the Sisters have served. There have been wonderful recounts of their ministry in Beagle Bay, Broome, Lombadina/Djarindjin, Derby, Balgo and La Grange/Bidyadanga.

Their story begins with the efforts of Bishop Gibney of Perth to secure a congregation of Sisters to work in Beagle Bay. Mother Antonio O’Brien, who had been nursing in Kalgoorlie-Coolgardie, answered the call but was faced with the prospect that there were no Sisters of her order in Western Australia who could be spared to join her in the Bishop’s mission in the far north of the State. So Mother Antonio set off to Ireland to recruit some volunteers to go with her to the Kimberley. She must have been very persuasive and God must have truly blessed her efforts as she gathered nine young novices. She wrote to Bishop Gibney; “I myself shall willingly go with them… to end my days in the service of God, while working for the Aborigines…” The enthusiastic group arrived in Beagle Bay in 1907 to begin their apostolate in primitive conditions.

The example of Mother Antonio O’Brien, along with the other early missionaries, - Fr Duncan McNab, the Trappists, Fr Nicholas Emo, the Pallottine Fathers – laid the foundation of faith upon which future generations of missionaries would build. The St John of God Sisters toiled in harsh conditions that often placed them in perilous circumstances. Their on-going approach to mission was built on the same factors for which Mother Antonio would be remembered – “her spirit of prayer, her apostolic zeal and simple faith.”

All the necessary characteristics of missionaries were evident in the life of Mother Antonio and in the generations of Sisters who followed her. The need to be prophetic, having a vision for the future despite the many obstacles encountered along the way, was one such characteristic; forged in faith and honed by unflinching prayer.

There is no doubt that the Sisters were also practical people and certainly they couldn’t have survived otherwise. On arriving in Beagle Bay Mother Antonio insisted that the Sisters be allowed the one luxury of tea - a small matter that gave her Sisters some respite from the deprivations of remote living. She asked for shoes for her Sisters to protect their feet from the hot earth and demanded of the accommodating Pallottines that they remove the pigs that lived under the Convent so that the Sisters could get some well deserved sleep at night! In another instance the Sisters were forced to evacuate the Leprosarium in Derby for fear of aerial attack during the Second World War. They returned only twice from their bush camp – once to retrieve the Blessed Sacrament and again to take a roast out of the oven!

The Sisters are renowned for their hard work in nursing, social assistance and teaching. Their experimental studies pioneering new drugs for the control of Hansens Disease at the Derby Leprosarium is legendary, as is their effort to make the best out of a tough situation for the patients who resided there, many of them for decades.

Like so many they served, the St John of God nuns were flexible and resilient. They could never have foreseen the demands placed upon them as Government policy of separating children from their families unfolded throughout the Kimberley. They became surrogate mothers for many children which explains the extraordinary bond between the Sisters and many of those given over to their charge. The so-called “accidental benefits”, experienced by many of the separated children, were the result of the care of the Sisters and never the product of the Acts of Parliament that had caused the separation of families in the first place.

They began a system of education for Aboriginal and Asiatic children previously denied by unconcerned government authorities. Still today a generation of Broome people speak in awed tones of gratitude when they recall the efforts of Sr Ignatius and others who prepared them to sit exams that opened the door of employment opportunities.

The Sisters have never been satisfied to rest on their laurels. Throughout the generations of the past one hundred years they have stood up for people in need whenever they could. They practised a preferential option for the poor long before the phrase was coined.

The story of the St John of God Sisters in the Kimberley is the story of the foundation of the Church. Alongside Pallottines, Benedictines and a host of others including an impressive array of religious congregations, lay missionaries and Diocesan priests, the Sisters have laboured tirelessly in the vineyard of the Lord. Their efforts have always been for the greater glory of God. In humility they have served God who inspired them and blessed them. Our gratitude to them for their faithful service accompanies our gratitude to God whose Grace has made their work a living testimony to His enduring love for the Church and the people of the Kimberley.