By Dr Michelle Court
On Friday 14th October the parish and school community of St Therese Padstow celebrated 60 years of St Therese Catholic primary School.
The day began with a beautiful celebration of the Eucharist, a memorial Mass for the feast of the inspiring Carmelite nun and one of the Catholic Church’s most popular saints, St Therese of Lisieux on October 1.
The students sang with their whole hearts and the school choir sang in a little French for St Therese of the little flower, humble and grateful for the small things in life.
One of our parents and author of ‘The History of Padstow’ Mr Andrew Molloy reports that St Therese school began with just Years 3-6.
This relieved the very large enrolment numbers at St Luke’s, Revesby. It wasn’t until 1963 that we had a Kindergarten class.
The school began with Josephite Sisters Vianney and Malachy, Sister Monica and Sr Thomas.
Sr Anne Martin represented the Josephite Sisters as she taught at St Therese in the 1970’s when the school principal was Sr Margaret Candrick who would organise for a parent to provide a hot cooked lunch for the sisters each day since the rest of their community back at the convent in Panania enjoyed a hot lunch.
There were members of the congregation from the first class of students in the school and one member who had five children and all 14 grandchildren attend St Therese school!
We are constantly reminded through St Therese that it is possible to love God through ordinary things and not necessarily through big actions.
St Therese had the strong belief that “everything is grace”.
We prayed that we would all grow in grace and be more like St Therese, loving God in ordinary actions such as visiting our little museum, watching the students’ concert ‘through the ages’ or simply catching up with good friends at morning tea.
So, what were we celebrating? Our faith in God, our love of learning and 60 years of our beautiful St Therese community!
Dr Michelle Court is the Principal of St Therese Primary School in Padstow