Our Community

Bardon House

Up until 1917 when Sacred Heart church was built and 1923 when St Finbarr’s church was opened, people of the Bardon area would have had to attend Mass at St Brigid’s, Red Hill. Then, in 1923 Archbishop Duhig purchased “Bardon House” and the surrounding land. This beautiful home was built in 1864 by Joshua Jeays. Mr. Jeays was a prominent builder, architect and politician. The house was named “Bardon” at the request of Jeays’ wife who likened the rolling hills of the western suburbs to Bardon Hill in Leicestershire. The name incidentally, is derived from the Old English “Beorg-dun” meaning barren hill. The surrounding suburb was named Bardon in 1926.

The house was built of rough sandstone called Woogaroo Stone which was quarried near to the site of Wolston Park Hospital, roofed with shingles and featuring gables, casement windows and chimneys in the style of an old English manor house. After the Jeays, “Bardon House” was home to Sir Charles Lilley, Attorney General and Premier during the late 1860s. After Sir Charles’ death in 1897, a succession of notable Queenslanders made “Bardon House” their home.

By the time Archbishop Duhig purchased the property, the large estate on which it originally stood had long been divided up and sold, along with “The Drive” that had led to the front entrance. By that year of 1923, the area had become part of the growing suburb of Bardon.

In 1925, Bardon was made a separate parish, the 38th parish of the Archdiocese and the first Mass was celebrated in “Bardon House” by Mons. Lee of Rosalie Parish.  The first Parish Priest was Fr Maxwell Irvine. He was also the chaplain to Stuartholme Convent and was thus kept very fit walking from “Bardon House”, where he lived, to Stuartholme to say morning Mass.

In 1938 Archbishop Duhig decided to establish a school to cater for the growing Catholic community in the Bardon district and he invited the Franciscan Sisters to staff the school. Eventually it was decided that “Bardon House” would be suitable for the foundation, and, utilising the verandah for classrooms, it welcomed the first students in 1939.

Over the next 75 years, “Bardon House” served as a convent, classrooms, school administration and music rooms.

Canali House

In 1972 Archbishop Patrick O’Donnell blessed the newly built Herston presbytery. It was to be the home of the parish priest and the parish office, while at the same time providing accommodation for the hospital chaplains who looked after the nearby Royal Brisbane Hospital.

In 2009 work began on the Herston presbytery to transform it into a centre of prayer and discernment for young men considering their vocation. It was named Canali House after a civil engineer and architect,  Joseph Canali, who had been invited out to Brisbane by Bishop Quinn to help with the completion of St Stephen’s Cathedral. He later pursued a vocation to the priesthood and was ordained in 1879.

Fr Canali went on to gain legendary status in his role as a chaplain at the Brisbane General Hospital for 36 years.

When not ministering to the sick, Canali maintained an interest in architecture and the results of some his designs are still in evidence today, most notably the front gates of All Hallow’s convent on Ann St in the city and the original St Brigid’s church at Red Hill.
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Canali House was previously the base for Vocations Office of the Archdiocese of Brisbane  Vocations Qld and is currently home to the Camillian Fathers who minister to those in hospitals throughout Brisbane.

Catholic Korean Community

The first known Catholic Korean Community was established in Brisbane in 1984. The Community consisted of five families who had regular Prayer Meetings at St Ignatius’ Church in Toowong. Father Carley, a Columban priest who had worked in Korea and spoke the language, met with the Group every so often but did not provide Mass.
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The community has had a number of pastors and has moved across different locations.  They finally settled at Paddington and now use Sacred Heart Church for their Mass and other gatherings. A second Community was also established at the Gold Coast where mass is celebrated every week.
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The Korean community has meetings and prayer gathering at various times during the week.  Please contact the Jubilee Catholic Parish.

Each Sunday there is mass in Korean at Sacred Heart 369 Given Terrace Paddington at 10am. Everyone welcome.

Lavalla Centre

Rosalie was the first foundation of the Marist Brothers in Queensland. The monastery was blessed and opened in 1927 and was also used as a school until alternative facilities could be built. Because of a change in demographics the falling student numbers saw the decision to close the college at the end of 2008.

With the closure of the college the Marist Brothers decided to transform the facility into a new ministry by providing a place for retreats, workshops, seminars and meetings. Many parish and archdiocesan agencies utilize the different gathering spaces and schools have found it an affordable and centrally located venue for retreats.

In keeping with the Marist charism, the Centre is committed to supporting ministries which focus on education, social justice and youth. In support of this, the Centre provides space for professional development programmes, leadership training and reflection days. More widely, the Centre is available to the Catholic and general community as a well-equipped venue for training and conference needs. Whether it is a short meeting for a dozen or a weekend conference for up to 150 people, the Lavalla Centre can meet your needs.
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Contact: Br Tim Beencke – 3512 9800, email: tim.beencke@marists.org.au
Website: www.lavalla.net.au

Marist Brothers

The Marist Brothers' College and Monastery on Fernberg Road, Rosalie was opened in 1929 and was part of Archbishop James Duhig’s vision for affordable high quality Catholic education. It was the first Queensland school of the Marist Brothers' and has continued to provide a religious education to generations of boys over a 80 year period until the closure of the college in 2007. With the closure of the school the Marist Brothers established a community of brothers that worked in diverse ministries locally and throughout South East Queensland.

Neocatechumenal Way

The Neocatechumenal Way, also known as the Neocatechumenate is a charism within the Catholic Church dedicated to Christian formation. It was formed in Madrid in 1964 by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernández. Taking its inspiration from the catechumenate of the early Catholic Church, by which converts from paganism were prepared for baptism, it provides post-baptismal formation to adults who are already members of the Church or to those far from the Church who have been attracted by the testimony of Christian life of love and unity in the communities (cf. Jn 13:35; 17:21),[2] as proposed in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) Due to numerous vocations coming from the families formed in the communities, it has also helped to establish and run over 100 missionary diocesan seminaries in various locations. They are called "Redemptoris Mater" seminaries. It is responsible for communities of "families in mission", called "Missio ad gentes", living in many cities around the World. Together with a priest and his socius, and some celibate women, they make present the Church in places of little or no Catholic presence.
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Here in Jubilee there is a vibrant Neocatechumenal group that worships at St Ambrose’s, Newmarket. If you would like more information please contact Alfonso on: 0405 269 791 or alfonso_ferraioli@yahoo.com.au

Presentation Sisters Convent - Herston

Nano Nagle, the foundress of the Presentation Sisters, gathered her first small community in Cork, Ireland, in 1775. The Sisters devoted themselves to the education of the poor.

In 1874 a community of Sisters came from Kildare in Ireland to the inland town of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. They were soon known as excellent educators, not only in primary schools as in Ireland but in the convent high schools they were asked to establish. In 1899 Bishop Higgins, newly appointed to the Rockhampton diocese in Central Queensland, asked the Wagga Sisters to staff a parish school and open a high school, as well as a boarding school in Longreach.

In 1924 the Presentation Sisters came to the parish to establish their first convent in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. Mothers Patrick and Ursula, after discussion with Archbishop Duhig, accepted the challenge of starting a new school at the Herston Parish. The primary school of St Joan of Arc was opened on the 14th July, 1924. When 5 pupils were enrolled on 3rd August the convent was blessed and formally opened by the Archbishop. Numbers reached as high as 130 by about two years later and stabilised at this level for forty years and the school was always staffed by the Presentation Sisters. With declining numbers the school closed in 1968. To better utilize the land behind the presbytery the Presentation Sisters built “Ballygriffin” as a home for their retired sisters.