Triennial Conference Banner - depicting a butterfly

The Triennial Conference is a key initiative of Good Samaritan Education to foster communio, inspire and together engage in the ongoing formation and collective creative endeavour that is this ministry of Catholic Education in the Good Samaritan Benedictine Tradition. 

The invitation to the Triennial Conference is directed to GSE Board Directors, and their committee members, to Company Members, our School Leadership teams and their emerging leaders. 

Our Conference theme for 2022 is active, providing opportunities to animate both the lived experience and the dynamic potential of Good Samaritan Education as we embark on the next ten years. See below.

Our Theme

Echoing the movements of Lectio – open and attentive, ponder, digest, and become the Word — our theme invites us to reimagine and recommit our personal, local, and global efforts and encounters as co-creators in Christ’s mission.

“Listen”, is not only the first word of the Rule of Benedict but is often said to be a good summation of the rule and Benedict’s vision for the community. Listen and attend is no passive directive; it requires our full-bodied attention to focus our energy on the other, to lean in, to be open. Active listening involves curiosity and questioning. Are all voices being heard? What voices are missing? Are we leaving silence for the Holy Spirit?

Taking stock and examining our “being” begs the existential question, who are we? Good Samaritan Education as a community of communities exists through individuals, local communities, and in communion with national and universal church entities. So, then, how do our values, our voice and our actions participate in and contribute to the growth of Christ’s mission? How are we engaging in the complexities of the contemporary landscape of education and church?

In Benedictine tradition, transformation is a lifelong commitment to “conversion”. It is acknowledging that we are always learning; we have never fully arrived. It is a commitment to always beginning again, to know that we will falter, and yet always with fidelity to our particular way of being. Transformation is about continuing the journey of becoming, preferring nothing whatever to Christ.

Our theme of this sacred journey is mirrored in the Benedictine vows of obedience (from the Latin root – listen), stability and conversion of life. So here is where we lay our scene as we reflect, explore, and expand our capacity to embrace our role as co-creators in Christ.  

Keynote Presenters

Over the course of the conference, our keynote and workshop presenters will help us unpack our theme. Click to expand their profiles.

Patty Fawkner is the Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. Patty is an adult educator, writer and facilitator with formal tertiary qualifications in arts, education, theology and spirituality. Patty is The Oceania Delegate for the International Communion of Benedictine Women and is currently on the Council of Catholic Religious Australia. Patty is a member of the Steering Committee for the Australian Catholic Church’s Plenary Council.

Patty has an abiding interest in communicating the wisdom of the Gospel and Benedictine tradition in accessible language in relation to current affairs, politics and issues of justice.

Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv DD STL is the fourth Bishop of Parramatta.

Bishop Vincent Long was born in 1961 in Dong Nai in Vietnam. Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, his family has been dispersed: his mother, a brother and a sister are in Melbourne, three brothers are in Holland, a sister remains in Vietnam, and Bishop Vincent is now in Parramatta.

In 1984, he became a professed Conventual Franciscan friar (OFM Conv) and studied for the priesthood in Melbourne.

Bishop Vincent is the Chair of the Bishops Commission for Social Justice, Mission and Service.

His motto,
Duc in Altum, ‘Go out into the deep’

A descendant of the Wakka Wakka peoples.

Brooke is an international speaker, writer, educator, and poet, as well as a community pastor and pursuer of justice.  She has published a number of academic papers, chapters of books, and lectures.
Brooke was the first Aboriginal person to be appointed as the CEO of a national Christian organisation in Australia that is not a specifically Indigenous organisation, the first Aboriginal person to graduate from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Arts, and one of only about 30 Indigenous Chartered Accountants in all of Australia. 

Brooke loves loved building relationships and is growing network of over 200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders from across Australia and across denominations.  

Fr David Ranson is a priest of the Diocese of Broken Bay, where he currently serves as Vicar General and Parish Priest of Chatswood.
For many years, Fr David was a senior lecturer in the Sydney College of Divinity, teaching in Spirituality at the Catholic Institute of Sydney, where he was also Academic Registrar until 2014. Fr David holds a Master of Theology Honours degree from the Melbourne College of Divinity and his PhD from Australian Catholic University.  Fr David commenced his Religious Life as a member of the Cistercian Order at Tarrawarra Abbey, Yarra Glen, Victoria, where he was ordained in 1992.  Fr David has written numerous articles on spirituality and pastoral formation and is regularly invited to speak on spirituality and pastoral formation issues. Fr David is the author of a number of books, including Between the Mysticism of Politics and the Politics of Mysticism (ATF Press:  Adelaide, 2014).

Students from GSE schools will share their experience of Prophetic voices. Prophetic Voices is an open platform for dialogue and discernment, providing students with a safe space to articulate causes, projects, and issues they are passionate about and embodies Good Samaritan Benedictine values, drawing the broader GSE community into a compassionate and active response.

We expect to be inspired, unsettled, and grounded by the prophetic voices of our GSE students.

Danielle is the Director of Education Policy at Catholic Schools NSW

Danielle has had an extensive career in the education sector through her senior leadership roles at the regional, state and national levels. In addition to education, Danielle has also had experience in the corporate (finance and telecommunications) and not-for-profit (housing and health) sectors.

Day 1 – Saturday 23 July

8.00 am

Registration and Coffee 

8.50 am

Welcome

9.00 am

Opening Liturgy – featuring Sr Patty Fawkner 

9.45 am

Keynote:
Bishop Vincent Long 

10.45 am

MORNING TEA

11.15 am

Keynote: 
Deep Listening – Brooke Prentis

12.05 pm

Workshop Session 1 – LISTENING

1.     Building Bridges – Inclusive Church and the Image of God with Dr Danielle Lynch (Branagan)

2.     Ecological Conversion – Who is my Neighbour with Beth Riolo (D’Arcy)

3.     Education – Preparing for the best and the worse of time with John Buchanan (Auditorium)

4.     Lay Ecclesial Ministry – SGS Vision for lay ministry with Catherine Slattery (Flora)

5.     Leadership the Benedictine Way – Obedience with Michael Casey (Tenison Woods)

6.     Spirituality – Prayer in the Benedictine Tradition with Christine Manning (Mahony)

7.     Synodal Church – Pope Francis and Synodality with Dr Elissa Roper (Lochaber)

1.00 pm

LUNCH 

1.45 pm

Prophetic Voices – GSE Students

2.45 pm

Keynote:
Being Benedictine – David Ranson

3.45 pm

Afternoon Tea 

4.00 pm

Workshop Session 2 – BEING 

1.     Building Bridges – Story and Reconciliation with Brooke Prentis (Branagan)

2.     Ecological Conversion – Being Stewards of the Earth with Pat O’Gorman (D’Arcy)

3.     Education – Futures of Work what education can and can’t do with John Buchanan (Auditorium)

4.     Lay Ecclesial Ministry – Lay Leadership of an Apostolic Work with Selina Hasham (Flora)

5.     Leadership the Benedictine Way – Discipline – Discipleship with Michael Casey (Tenison Woods)

6.     Synodal Church – Being Church in the context of a Ministerial PJP with Eva Sira  (Lochaber)

5.00 pm

Celebration of the Eucharist

6:30 pm

Conference Dinner – Kirribilli Club (11 Harbourview Cres, Lavender Bay)
Conclude 10pm

 

 

Day 2: Sunday 24 July

9.00 am

Morning Prayer 

9.30 am

Workshop 3: Transforming

1.     Building Bridges – Wisdom born of pain Women and the Church with Andrea Dean (Branagan)

2.     Education – Harnessing the transformative power of education with Tish Creenaune (Auditorium)

3.     Lay Ecclesial Ministry – The Holy Spirit and Lay Ecclesial Ministry with Julie Trinidad (Flora)

4.     Leadership the Benedictine Way – Humility and Self Truth with Michael Casey (Tenison Woods)

5.     Synodal Church –  Is a transformed Church possible with John Warhurst (Lochaber)

10.30 am

Extended Morning Tea in School Groups –
Reflection Questions

11.30 am

Transforming – Danielle Cronin (Facilitator)

1.00 pm

Depart

 

Mary MacKillop Place

Prophetic Voices

Prophetic Voices will be to be an open platform for dialogue and discernment. Students will be provided with a safe space to articulate causes, projects, and issues they are passionate about and embodies Good Samaritan Benedictine values, drawing the broader GSE community into a compassionate and active response.

Prophetic Voices will take place on Friday July 22nd (from 10 am – 3pm), hosted by St Scholastica’s College Glebe.  The face-to-face gathering will be the culmination of discussion, activity and discernment which takes place in small school forums, and online cross school engagement prior to the gathering.

  • A Voice – Provide a structured platform for students to develop a collective voice and vision regarding critical priorities for our community
  • Communio – Student engagement from all GSE student bodies. The potential for the beginning of a long-term collaborations with GSE schools.
  • Witness – An opportunity for students to bear witness to the Benedictine charism at work in our schools
  • Leadership – Emerging student leaders are equipped to develop, discern, and drive action back into their school community
  • Listening, Being, Transforming – Communal discernment in action

Students’ passion and commitment will provide momentum for an initiative or range of initiatives that respond to the cohorts chosen issue/s inviting an active response from the community at a GSE and school community level.

What a response or action might look like will require attention at all levels to listening, being and transforming, as cocreators in Christ. We hope to be inspired, unsettled, and grounded by the prophetic voices of our GSE students.

All should be called for counsel because God often reveals to the younger what is best. RB 3.3