Celebrating the Launch of 'Shan: A life of Sister Mary Shanahan RSCJ OAM'

Sister Mary Shanahan’s name has rung through the halls of Sancta Sophia College for decades.

Her presence has been felt by thousands of Sancta girls – from her days as a resident, to her eight-year tenure as Vice Principal (1959-1967), and her nine years as Principal (1983-1992).

More recently, Sister Shanahan has spent one day a fortnight at the College in a chaplaincy role, speaking with students and maintaining a spiritual wellbeing of Sancta. To this generation she is affectionately known as Sr Shan.

It is no wonder that the launch of a book telling her life story garnered 250 souls to fill the Sheldon Dining Hall.

Tuesday June 23 marked the launch of Shan: A life of Sister Mary Shanahan RSCJ OAM, written and curated by alumna Elizabeth Hannan (FR 1984).

Sr Shan’s life and achievements span far beyond the walls of 8 Missenden Road. Although there seems to be no better place to host such an event. As Ms Hannan writes: “Sancta would be the golden thread through Mary’s life, the place to which she has been drawn back across eight decades.”

That golden string is tracked through Ms Hannan’s book, alongside the many lesser-known plots of Sr Shan’s life. While many attendees knew her as a great educator, Sr Shan tells the story of a little tomboy in western Queensland’s Winton, a young woman sent to boarding school in Brisbane, a younger sister watching her brothers become soldiers, and a scholar of The University of Sydney, Yale, Oxford, and Trinity College Dublin.

Her stories were artfully mapped by Sr Shan’s live conversation with Rev. Dr. Richard Leonard SJ PP, which explored seven key themes of her life (an appropriately biblical number).

Fr Leonard, who is a scholar, author and Jesuit priest, drew out detailed memories of 98 years well-lived – from the moment that inspired Sr Shan to join the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to her reflections on papal enclosure for young women.

In a candid moment, Sr Shan, who served as Councillor on the General Council in Rome for six years, even revealed her favourite pope. Having lived under the reign of nine pontiffs, she told the room that Pope Francis was a leader whom she truly admired. Notably, Pope Francis awarded Sr Shan with the Honor of Croce Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 2023 for her distinguished services to the Church in the Archdiocese of Sydney and Australia.

While Fr Leonard explained that members of religious orders do not consider their work as ‘careers’, but rather vocations, Sr Shan’s resume of service is truly exemplary.

Sister of the Sacred Heart. Principal of Duchesne College. Provincial of the Australian and New Zealand Province of the Society of the Sacred Heart. Councillor on the General Council in Rome. Principal of Sancta Sophia College. Beloved member of the Kincoppal-Rose Bay community.

As the formal proceedings of the evening drew to a close, the room rose for a standing ovation. Two current Sancta students, Lucy Hall and Sophie McQuie, presented Sr Shan with a bunch of flowers in a moment that highlighted the generational impact of her work.

As the masses filed out of Sancta’s Sheldon Dining Hall, the Lower Common Room filled with a warm buzz. Alumni, students, family, friends, and colleagues gathered to exchange tales and connect with one another over a glass of wine and a piece of celebratory cake.

As I spoke with friends old and new, met alumni of the College, and lined up to give Sr Shan a quick hug, one thought could not escape me.

Sancta may have been a golden thread that wove through Shan’s life. But for so many, Shan is the golden thread that ties us to this place.

Sancta Sophia’s motto is ‘In Sapientia Ambulate’. Or in English, ‘Walk in Wisdom’.

Generations of students have walked in Sr Shan’s wisdom, taught the value of charity, love, and faith through her devotion to her vocation and the empowerment of women.

Thanks to Ms Hannan, that wisdom is written down for generations to come.

It seems appropriate that both the book and Sr Shan’s conversation closes with a prayer that she recites almost everyday: The Fragrance Prayer by John Henry Newman.

Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
that my life may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me
that every soul I come in contact with
may feel your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from you; none of it will be mine;
it will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise you the way you love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by my example,
by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.