St Joseph's day, 19th March, marks the sesquicentenary of the Congregation founded by St Mary MacKillop and Father Julian Tenison Woods in Penola, South Australia in 1866. The Sisters are familiarly known as "Josephites".

Four Sisters of St Joseph arrived in Whanganui from Perthville, a little town in New South Wales, Australia in 1880 and began teaching almost the next day. In 1883 three Sisters arrived in  Temuka from Adelaide and taught in little Catholic primary schools in Temuka, Morven and Pleasant Point. Over the next years many New Zealand women joined the Sisters and spread to every Diocese in New Zealand teaching mainly in parish primary schools.

Today there are over 100 Sisters around New Zealand although the greatest concentrations are in Auckland and Whanganui. Those still in active ministry serve in a range of work alongside other people - e.g. spirituality, parish, counselling, teaching, mentoring, and as the editor of Tui Motu magazine. 

The Sisters are a million-fold grateful for all the love, support, encouragement and assistance they have been given in the last 150 years. You are in their prayer, their memories and their hearts. And they are still listening to the heartbeat of the world and endeavouring to address needs.

You might visit the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart website for more news of events and celebrations for the sesquicentenary.

The wooden sculpture of Mary MacKillop shown here, is by the Australian sculptor, John Eliot. Queenslander, Sister Margaret McKenna explains: "He began with the trunk of a hundred-year-old camphor laurel tree. He sliced it and hollowed it out and then began painstakingly to recombine its elements, allowing the figure of Mary MacKillop to emerge. The ancient tree and its rough bark recall the slab hut in which she opened her first school, and the old fence posts she passed as she travelled through the Australian bush on horseback." The sculpture is in the precincts of the Brisbane Cathedral.