News and Events
Perthville Retreat Experience
In 2006, a combined group of Federation (Black) and Central (Brown) Josephites was established to create a unique way of being Josephite together for the mission of God. An initiative of the Josephite Journeying Group has been the organisation of 6-day guided retreats bringing together Sisters from all the Australian and New Zealand Congregations and Provinces. These retreats offer an opportunity to enter into the mystery of God, revealed in and through the events and characters of the early Josephite story.
In April, 2010, seventeen Sisters of St Joseph from all provinces and congregations gathered at Perthville for the ninth Josephite Journeying Retreat– the first time at this location.
One of the participants, Carmel Jones, writes:
At the beginning of our time together, Mary Comer (Perthville congregational leader) set the scene for us:
“Perthville is a tiny, picturesque village – geographically unimportant.
For Australian and New Zealand Josephites, it is a unique site. It has been visited by Mary MacKillop and Julian Woods. It has been inhabited by many of our courageous ancestors.
It is a place that represents unity, separation, diversity, hardship, struggle, discernment, decisions, opportunity, hospitality, a missionary spirit – the birth, growth and maturing of rural Australian religious life.
It represents connections, disconnection, reconciliation, reconnections....
It is the link site of Australian and New Zealand Josephites.
When the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart first came from Adelaide to New South Wales, at the request of Bishop Matthew Quinn, it was to this site that they came.
Australian Josephites were, at that time, one group.
When Bishop Quinn gave the Sisters the choice, just a short time after, of following a Diocesan Rule or remaining true to the Adelaide Rule which Mary MacKillop had taken to Rome for approval, it was on this site that the separation between “brown” and “black” – Central and Diocesan Josephites began.
It was from this site that foundation groups of Sisters were sent to New Zealand, Tasmania, Goulburn and Lochinvar.”
The six day retreat followed the same Landscape theme of other Josephite Journey retreats with the “added extras” of being in the actual place where the Separation happened – and hearing the “real story” from Marie Crowley, Perthville historian and archivist. Our Pilgrimage day took us to Wattle Flat where the ‘Constitution’ sisters were sent by Bishop Quinn prior to their return to Adelaide and Mother Mary. 
Here we spent time reading many of the letters that the Sisters of that time had written to each other and to Mary – letters poignant with sadness and bewilderment, yet strong in their determination to live religious life in the way they had vowed.
Lyndal Brown, Mary Ryan and Ann Morrison led us into each day with prayer and presentations that were food for reflection during the rest of the day.
Over the six still, warm days we pondered in the Founders’ Room, honoured the memory of the Sisters in the cemetery, walked around the tiny village, reflected in the sun and among the autumn leaves, shared our stories and celebrated the spirit of Josephite hospitality that is so strongly part of our charism.
On the last evening we realised that our lives had been profoundly touched and expressed our hopes and dreams for our Josephite family and buried these as we planted a beautiful claret ash tree. 
We left Perthville confident that Julian’s words to Francis McCarthy in 1887 were close to becoming reality:
....I think that all St Joseph’s children will come together again and be as they were in the beginning.
