Gawler Underground - Good Samaritan Convent

St Joseph’s Good Samaritan Convent

6 Porter Street

St Joseph’s Good Samaritan Convent was built in 1910, opening on October 3rd. The first nuns moved in on 11 November 1910. It served as a school for Sisters of the Good Samaritan and could house twelve female boarders. The chapel, rectory, music room, dormitories, lavatories, bathrooms, community room, sacristy and staircase hall were on the upper level. The north wing contained a reception room, refectory, scullery, kitchen, laundry, cellar, and another outer office.[1] Past students speak of the honour of polishing the cedar staircase and chapel, or ringing the Angelus Bell, all of which still stand intact today.

Music was a large part of instruction in the Convent, with many important musicians being classically trained here, including internationally renowned musician Brenton Langbein OAM, who went on to study at the University of Adelaide. He would later play with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and become a star of the classical music scene in Europe, and a theatre in the Barossa is named after him.

In 1973, the convent and the smaller convent next door were sold to Hristos (Kristos) and Mavis Zisimou. The Zisimou’s, for a while, ran the property as a boarding house. According to her son, Mavis helped people turn their lives around with tough love, an iron fist, and a loving heart. The convent was sold to Dr Naomi Rutton in 2022, who has plans to turn it into a health retreat.

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researched and written by Allen Tiller




[1] 'The New Samaritan Convent, Gawler.', Southern Cross, (7 October 1910), p. 8.

Dreamcatchers - Good or Evil?

Dream Catchers, a Native American tradition are intended to protect a sleeping individual from negative dreams while allowing positive dreams to enter the sleeping person.
Positive dreams, it is believed, would slip through the hole at the centre of the dream catcher, gliding down the feathers at the bottom, and into the mind of the sleeping person.
The negative dreams would get caught in the web, and at the first rays of sunlight in the morning, be destroyed.

One of my Wife, Karen's dreamcatchers

The origin of dream-catchers begins with the Ojibwe, or Chippewa, and the Lakota peoples of Sioux Tribes of Native Americans.


The Lakota People’s tradition states that a very long time ago a spiritual leader had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi (a human-spider spirit) who in the legend is described as a trickster, appeared in the form of a spider to the Elder.

He spoke to the Elder in a sacred language, and as he did so, he picked up a willow hoop (hoops were sacred to Native Americans, symbolising strength and unity) the Elder had adorned with beads, horsehair and feathers, and began to spin a web.


Iktomi spoke to the Elder of the cycles of life, how we being life as babies, how we become teens, adults, then elderly, and need to be cared for again, like babies, completing the life cycle.

All the while, Iktomi spoke, weaving his web. He spoke of good and bad forces in nature and how they could help or hinder you in life, all the while weaving his spiders web.
Eventually, Iktomi stopped speaking and gave to the Elder his hoop, now with a web spun onto it.

The web was a perfect circle with a hole in the centre. Iktomi told the Elder, “use the web to help your people reach their goals. If you believe in the great spirit, the web will filter your good ideas and the bad ones will be trapped, and will not pass”.

When the Elder returned to his people, he told them what had happened and showed them the gift from Iktomi. He explained that the dream catcher would allow the good tp pass through and filter down to the person, while the bad would be captured in the web and destroyed in the first rays of the sun.

Another of Karen's Creations
https://www.facebook.com/WhimsyCreationsKaren/

Another tradition in Dreamcatcher lore is that they were woven by Grandparents of newborns, and hung above the cradle to give the infant beautiful dreams. Good dreams would enter through the hole, and find their way down through the feathers, whereas bad dreams would enter the hole and get lost in the web.

Traditionally dreamcatchers contained one gemstone. This stone represented the One Creator in the web of life. Sometimes they would be adorned with arrowheads and beads. The hoop (not always round) would most often be made from willow.

A traditional dreamcatcher will only have 8 places where the web intertwines with the hoop. This represents eight legs of the spider, or the spider-man spirit Iktomi.

I have recently seen several different people asking in forums if “dream-catchers are evil?” (Hence why I wrote this blog.)

I was intrigued to find out how, a traditional piece of folklore art, which has served a native people for centuries, can suddenly be attributed as “evil”.
It would seem this stigma has been attached through the teachings of Christians associating dreamcatchers as “talismans”. This attribution is related to passage 1 Corinthians 8 in the Bible, which talks about worshipping false idols.

So basically, the “evil” is someone’s interpretation of a Bible passage – take that as you will.

A traditional Sioux dreamcatcher

For others who have “experienced” some kind of “evil” while in the presence of dreamcatchers, (or any other symbolistic object), usually, it falls down to a placebo effect where the person attributes power to an inanimate object, or they’ve read something online, and through their own cultural, or learned bias, attribute the effect to the object. There is another reason – the person is just plain crazy (but no-one ever wants to talk about that!)

I am a Catholic, and my wife makes dreamcatchers, we don’t attribute them to being evil, nor have we ever had a negative impact of any kind from one (other than our cats trying to eat the feathers). I believe God created everything, and within that are the native tribes of the world, almost all of which are still linked to their spirituality, and that spirituality is linked to the true source of God, The Creator.

As for talismans, I wear a St Benedict Crucifix, just as many Christians wear crosses as a symbol of their faith, are they not a talisman as well? Or is it a case of befitting evil only where we differ from other people, to make ourselves feel like we appeasing God -who loves us anyway?

For more of Karen's work visit here:
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Native American Ceremony for hanging a Dreamcatcher - http://snowwowl.com/naartdreamcatchers.html#ceremony

Bibliography

GotQuestions.org. 2017. Is it wrong for a Christian to have a dream catcher?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.gotquestions.org/dream-catcher-Christian.html. [Accessed 05 March 2017].

Iktomi, spider trickster of the Sioux tribes (Inktomi, Iktome) . 2017. Iktomi, spider trickster of the Sioux tribes (Inktomi, Iktome) . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.native-languages.org/iktomi.htm. [Accessed 05 March 2017].

Lakota Sioux Legends of Iktomi and Wakinyan. 2017. Lakota Sioux Legends of Iktomi and Wakinyan. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nativeamerican-art.com/lakota-legend.html. [Accessed 05 March 2017].

Wikipedia. 2017. Iktomi - Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iktomi. [Accessed 05 March 2017].

Buried in the City – The Most Reverend Francis Murphy

Buried in the City – The Most Reverend Francis Murphy

 The first Catholic Bishop of Adelaide, Francis Murphy was born in Navan, County Meath, Ireland on the 20^th of May 1795, the eldest son of Arthur and Bridget Murphy, who worked as brewers and distillers.

 Francis was educated at St Finians College in Navan and then St Patricks College in Maynooth. In 1824, Francis was ordained as a Deacon, and in the following year a priest.

 Francis Murphy moved to Sydney Australia in July 1838 and only two years later was appointed the Vicar-General of the Diocese after the sitting Bishop, John Polding, left for a trip to Europe.

The growing state of South Australia, and particularly Adelaide city and Kapunda, which already had small Catholic populations, were seen to be the next area for the Australian Catholic Church to spread the word of God and because of this, Pope Gregory XVI looked to Murphy to head his new see in Adelaide.

 Francis Murphy was ordained as the first Bishop of Adelaide at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney in September 1844. This made Francis Murphy the first Bishop ordained on Australian soil. A month later he moved to Adelaide with an assistant priest and two school teachers, but he had no Church, Presbytery or Diocese awaiting him.

 The Adelaide Catholic Community, and Bishop Murphy received a blessing from a benefactor in England, who gave 2000 pounds to the Adelaide See to use at the Bishop saw fit. This money was used to build three new churches and pay for another priest. Some of the money was later used for Bishop Murphy to travel to Europe and return with two more priests to serve the Adelaide See.

 Whilst in Europe, Bishop Murphy also visited Charles Hansom to draw up plans for a Cathedral to built in Adelaide. The foundation stone for this future Cathedral was laid on 17^th of March 1856 and was named in honour of Saint Francis Xavier.

 In 1857 Francis Murphy wrote a report, which would be his last, to Rome, in which it was stated that so far “'Twelve churches and six chapels have been built in the diocese, and two others are being built as well as a magnificent cathedral'.

 Bishop Murphy traveled to Tasmania in late 1857 to help settle a dispute between priests there. While in Tasmania Bishop Murphy contracted a severe cold which turned in tuberculous. He died at Adelaide on the 26^th of April 1858 and was interred in the still incomplete Saint Francis Xavier Cathedral at 39 Wakefield street, Adelaide.

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Father Michael Ryan

Father Michael Ryan:

Father Ryan first arrived in South Australia with Bishop Murphy in the year 1841, and was the first Roman Catholic priest On South Australian soil; he held the high ecclesiastical positions of Vicar-General and Apostolic Administrator in his time.
He was the first Catholic priest to say Mass in Kapunda in 1845
Father Ryan was appointed with the task of building a church in Kapunda.
Father Ryan found a suitable place to hold mass for those who couldn’t get to the St Johns church; the area is now where Kapunda Institute stands. Eventually, he chose the site for St Rose of Lima church to be built. The original church has since been destroyed and a new one built in its place.
On the 3rd of April 1864, Father Ryan performed a wedding ceremony for Horace McKinley and Martha Craig.


On 15 August 1864 Father Michael Ryan laid the foundation stone for the Sevenhills church at Sevenhill.
Father Ryan died of apoplexy on 24th August 1865 (Historically the word "apoplexy" was also used to describe any sudden death that began with a sudden loss of consciousness, especially one in which the victim died within a matter of seconds after losing consciousness.)

At his funeral, it was stated
“Father Ryan was a pious and zealous member of the Catholic Church— a man of modest and unassuming manners. In him, the members of his Church have lost a truly benevolent pastor, the poor a ready counsellor, and the needy a friend.”