“We are called to be faithful disciples of Jesus, not in some imagined golden age, but in the reality of our day-to-day lives, with all their challenges but also all their opportunities,” Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB said in celebrating the Mass for the 100th anniversary of St Mary’s Merredin Parish and School, Sunday 2 August.
Archbishop Costelloe was principal celebrant for the Mass marking 100 years of St Mary’s Parish and School.
He was joined by concelebrants Auxiliary Bishop Don Sproxton, Merredin Parish Priest Fr Philip Perreau, Woodvale Parish Priest Fr Stan Bendkowski SDS and Fr Andrew Bowron.
Over a weekend of centenary events, the school opened to visitors, and a commemorative lunch followed Mass at the Merredin Bowling Club.
The celebration commenced with a procession of commemorative items, including a statue of St Mary McKillop of the Cross, historical photos of the school, stalks of wheat, and the first parish baptismal register, while Parish Council President, John Jefferys provided a brief welcome.
Fr Stan Bendowski, Merredin Parish Priest from 2005 to 2012 and author of the parish’s written history, describes the 1960’s and 1970’s as its ‘golden era’.
Archbishop Costelloe led his homily with that point: Fr Michael Casey arriving in 1966, faced a new church, expanded school facilities, and a Catholic community reaching past the town boundary.
“This period of vibrant growth invites us to look back with gratitude,” he said, naming the priests, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, and the parish groups around them.
He then put the harder question directly. Families have moved to the city, fewer men and women are entering religious life and the priesthood, and formal practice is not as widespread as it once was.
“But does this mean that we have no reason to be hopeful?” he asked. “From a purely human point of view, it might seem so.”
His answer came from the morning’s Gospel. Faced with a crowd of thousands and only five loaves and two fish, the disciples saw only what they lacked. Jesus told them to hand over what they had.
“As in this morning’s Gospel, so now we are being invited to generously offer to the Lord the little that we do have, placing it trustingly in his hands and waiting patiently for him to bless it and return it to us,” Archbishop Costelloe said.
He made the same point from the storm on the lake, where Jesus came to the disciples in the middle of it rather than calming the water first: “Take courage, I am with you, do not be afraid.”
Merredin’s Catholic story predates the parish.
Fr Gerardo Castanares OSB celebrated the town’s first Mass in 1908 at Armstrong’s Boarding House on Barrack Street, and St Joseph’s Mission at Kellerberrin followed in July 1910 under Fr John O’Reilly.
In 1926, Fr John Fahey DSO authorised moving the church from Coronation Street to its present South Avenue site, Merredin was made a separate parish, and Fr Phillip Claver Smith was appointed its first parish priest.
A lean-to went up against the side of the church late that year to serve as a school, and 52 children enrolled. Archbishop Clune CSsR blessed and opened it on Sunday 6 February 1927.
Fr Phillip Smith gave the newly completed presbytery to four Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and moved into a one-room building in the church grounds.
The Josephites staffed St Mary’s until 1986, so it was very fitting that Sr Margaret Culhane, Sr Dora Maguire and Sr France Maguire were present at the Mass. The school now teaches some 155 children from Pre-Kindergarten to Year 6, in a district that grows roughly 40 per cent of the state’s wheat within a 100km radius.
St Joseph’s Church at Trayning, in the same district, marked its own centenary in April.
Archbishop Costelloe finished with what is asked of the community now.
“It is still our responsibility and our privilege to be the signs and bearers of God’s love and grace to each other and to all those around us in whatever ways are possible,” he said.