The Congregation of Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart, often called the Josephites ("Brown Joeys"), were founded in Penola, South Australia, in 1866 by Mary MacKillop and Father Julian Tenison Woods. Members of the congregation use the postnominal initials RSJ (Religious Sister of St Joseph).
The centre of the congregation is at Mary MacKillop Place, Mount Street, North Sydney where Saint Mary MacKillop's tomb is enshrined in the Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel.
At present there are around 850 sisters living and working throughout Australia (South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia) and New Zealand, as well as Ireland and Peru.
The sisters of the congregation have "Mary MacKillop Centres" at Penola, South Australia; Kensington, South Australia; East Melbourne, Victoria; Annerley, Queensland; South Perth, Western Australia - and the main centre mentioned above - at North Sydney. The Australian-New Zealand Federation of the Sisters of St Joseph includes convents in Goulburn and Lochinvar in New South Wales.
Famous quotes containing the words sisters, sacred and/or heart:
““And yonder stands my brother Hugh,
But by him my William, sweet and true.””
—Unknown. Binnorie; or, The Two Sisters (l. 51–52)
“The sacred obligation to the Union soldiers must not—will not be forgotten nor neglected.... But those who fought against the Nation cannot and do not look to it for relief.... Confederate soldiers and their descendants are to share with us and our descendants the destiny of America. Whatever, therefore, we their fellow citizens can do to remove burdens from their shoulders and to brighten their lives is surely in the pathway of humanity and patriotism.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“If the heart has its reasons, perhaps the body
Has its own lumbering sort of carnal spirit,
Felt in the tingling bruises of collision,
And known to captains as esprit de corps.”
—Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)