22 Aug 2022
On 12 August 1821, a young woman called Frances Teresa Ball returned home to Dublin after studying to become a religious sister at the Bar Convent in York, England. Mother Teresa Ball was following in the footsteps of our Foundress Mary Ward. Not long after she arrived in Dublin, Mother Teresa Ball opened a convent and a school for girls in the suburb of Rathfarnham. She called it “Loreto Abbey Rathfarnham”—the first instance in which the name Loreto was used for our Schools.
The conclusion of the Irish IBVM Bicentenary year was marked on 12 August this year. We celebrated the founding of the Irish foundation of the Loreto Sisters, which led to the growth of Loreto around the world, including Australia.
In honour of this special celebration, our Year 6 students took part in a special ceremony to name and bless our new Teresa Ball courtyard located at the Clendon Centre. The ceremony began at Figgy Grove in Rathfarnham, before proceeding to the Clendon Centre for the liturgy. The procession from Rathfarnham symbolises both the journey that the Loreto Sisters made from Ireland to Australia, and the transition that our Year 6 students will make when they enter Year 7 next year.
The Teresa Ball Courtyard will be a special place of gathering, growth, and friendship for current and future Year 7 students. Upright Crab Apple (Malus tschonoskii) trees that will grow here symbolise the new growth and the new beginnings, which typified Mother Teresa Ball’s mission.
“Go and set the world on fire with the love of God.”
Let us take Mother Teresa Ball’s energy, deep faith, passion and vision into our hearts and change the world by our words and our actions, in the spirit of freedom, felicity, verity, sincerity, and justice.
Michelle McCarty
Director of Mission