Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Priest’s dream to see Chinese religious sisters open a nursing home in Brisbane came true 25 years ago

byEmilie Ng
26 May 2017 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Reading Time: 3 mins read
AA
St Paul de Chartres Residential Aged Care

Faith-filled: St Paul de Chartres Residential Aged Care resident Christina Harney with the nursing home founders Fr Albert Chan, Sr Nancy Wong, Sr Lucie Ko and Sr Teresa Lau. Photo: Emilie Ng

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
St Paul de Chartres Residential Aged Care
Faith-filled: St Paul de Chartres Residential Aged Care resident Christina Harney with the nursing home founders Fr Albert Chan, Sr Nancy Wong, Sr Lucie Ko and Sr Teresa Lau. Photo: Emilie Ng

THREE Chinese religious sisters who came to Australia to build their first nursing home say it was God’s will for their community to care for the elderly.

St Paul de Chartres Residential Aged Care in Boronia Heights opened in 1990 to just seven residents, and was operated by the three sisters from Hong Kong.

The man responsible for their move to Queensland was Missionary of the Sacred Heart Father Albert Chan, who started the Chinese Catholic Community in Brisbane.

“I visited Chinese elderly and I realised they had problems with the language, with food,” Fr Chan said.

“It was then that I asked the sisters to come here because they speak Cantonese.”

Fr Chan wrote a letter to Sr Lucie Ko, who was St Paul de Chartres provincial superior in Hong Kong where hospital work and nursing is their main charism, and asked the sisters to start an aged-care facility in Brisbane.

In 1989, St Paul de Chartres Sisters Teresa Lau, Nancy Wong and Lucie Ko moved from Hong Kong to build their first nursing home in Brisbane.

“We arrived in 1989 in December, and then just before Christmas we got the approval from the Federal Government,” Sr Lau said.

“We said it was wonderful to have a Christmas gift that year.”

After several knockbacks the sisters finally looked at a plot of land in Browns Plains.

Related Stories

Campaign to overhaul aged care services and funding

Canossian Sisters transfer aged care works to Ozcare

Most shocking detail of aged care abuse revealed in Royal Commission closing

Praying for divine intervention, Sr Ko left her Rosary beads on the plot as they were leaving, however their offer was rejected.

An archdiocesan employee suggested the sisters investigate a property of four land plots at 2ha (five acres) each, occupied by two homeowners who were downsizing.

The sisters bought the block of land in October 1990, and one of the owners is now a resident at St Paul de Chartres Residential Aged Care.

With help from former Wishart parishioner Mark Townend, who worked for the Logan City Council at the time the sisters were building, the community got the green light to build its first nursing home in Australia.

It is now a bustling, vibrant and diverse community, surrounded by lush Australian fauna and frequently visited by a mob of 10 kangaroos.

“In twenty-six weeks we built this place, and Fr Chan of course had been the driving force in many ways,” Sr Lau said.

“From day one he has been here saying Mass for us, up to now for twenty-five years, every Saturday non-stop.

“He is a pillar.

“God has been good to us.”

On opening day, the sisters welcomed the group of seven enthusiastic residents.

There are now 98 residents in the hostel, which provides low and high care for the aged, and nearly 100 units for independent living.

Despite having no prior experience in aged care, the sisters and a small band of employees took care of running the nursing home.

The sisters could be found washing clothes in the laundry, cooking breakfast in the early hours of the day, or cleaning all the rooms and adjoining facilities.

To this day they are still involved in the every-day operations of the facility, with a growing number of young sisters and novices lending a hand in caring for the residents.

Resident Christina Harney, who moved to St Paul de Chartres Residential Aged Care in 1997, still remembers Sr Wong filling the washing machines in the laundry.

She said it was the witness of the sisters and their spiritual care for residents through daily Mass and regular opportunities for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick that drew her and her husband John Harney, who died in 2000, to the facility.

“That’s why we were here, because of the sisters and the Church,” Mrs Harney said.

“It was John’s dream to have daily Mass; he was a daily Mass-goer.”

Sr Lau said the sisters’ focus was on the spiritual care of residents.

Residents can go to daily Mass in the on-site chapel or watch the Mass through a televised link in their rooms.

“Especially when people come to retire here, they’ve got more time for God,” Sr Lau said.

“One of the strengths of this place is the chapel and the spiritual side of it.

“The residents, even now you can see, some of them maybe have been away from the Church; when they were young they were busy with their family, busy with the work.

“Now they come back to the Church (and this) is very good.”

Fr Chan said he never imagined his dream of seeing Chinese sisters caring for the elderly would become such a success.

“Just look at this place,” he said.

“It’s just unimaginable really.”

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Students at Casino Catholic school behind ‘mysterious’ rocket launch

Next Post

There’s no ‘I’ in Teams: The international lay movement building stronger marriages

Emilie Ng

Emilie Ng is a Brisbane-based journalist for The Catholic Leader.

Related Posts

News

Campaign to overhaul aged care services and funding

15 February 2021
News

Canossian Sisters transfer aged care works to Ozcare

8 January 2021
News

Most shocking detail of aged care abuse revealed in Royal Commission closing

29 October 2020
Next Post
Teams conference

There's no 'I' in Teams: The international lay movement building stronger marriages

Fr Paul Mercieca

Passionist living in Brisbane who survived a machete attack and met the Queen talks life as a devoted missionary priest

Coptic martyrs Egypt

Coptic Christians in Brisbane offer words of love not hate to attackers who killed 29 people in Egypt

Popular News

  • Health crisis: Referencing the Vatican document, the bishops said “it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process”.

    Australian Bishops urge Catholics to get vaccinated amid push for more vaccine options

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘They deserve our help’ – Brisbane youth homelessness on the rise with 42 per cent of homeless under 25 years old

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Faithful urged to stay the course

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • We head for Poland as pilgrims, not tourists

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • St Mark’s shows its ‘unity in diversity’ at 65th anniversary Mass

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Faith passage: Navicella (1628), by Giotto di Bondone, depicting the Barque of St Peter.
Faith

Faithful urged to stay the course

by Guest Contributor
22 April 2021
0

UNLESS we enter a church by one of the side-doors, we proceed to the main altar by...

Death penalty: Demonstrators are seen near the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind., showing their opposition to the death penalty July 13, 2020. Photos: CNS

Global executions dropped in 2020 but fears China’s secret figures remain in the thousands

21 April 2021
Opportunity to help: “As a society we can’t leave them without a place to call home – not when there are urgent and economically sound solutions.”

‘They deserve our help’ – Brisbane youth homelessness on the rise with 42 per cent of homeless under 25 years old

21 April 2021

St Mark’s shows its ‘unity in diversity’ at 65th anniversary Mass

21 April 2021
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is seen near a picture of George Floyd in this courtroom sketch.

Bishops urge racial healing after former US police officer found guilty of killing George Floyd

21 April 2021
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop
    Continue Shopping