Providence, alms sustain sisters

Extensive additions have recently been made to the home for the aged and poor, conducted by the Little Sisters of the Poor, at Anderson’s Bay, and the opening ceremony took place yesterday afternoon in the presence of a very large assemblage. 

The additions consist of two very large wings at either end of the main building and are about 88 feet by 35ft, and 80ft by 35ft respectively.

The ground floor is devoted to kitchens and store rooms, and the first and second floors utilised for wards. The architect is Mr H. Mandeno, and the contractor for the work Mr D. O’Connell.

To understand the work of the Little Sisters, or perhaps it might be more correctly said, to deepen the mystery associated with their work, it was necessary to refer to the method of management adopted by the Little Sisters of the Poor. Finance was a puzzling science, but the Little Sisters seemed to have solved the puzzle.

Business men, in founding institutions, depended upon capital and income for their success; the Little Sisters adopted different lines, they trusted to the Providence of God the Father of the Poor. The Little Sisters had no income from freehold, investments, or endowments; the future was not assured, not even the tomorrow: to live themselves, to provide a means of livelihood for a multitude of the poor, they had God’s providence always to be relied upon, always required.

As a means of appealing for, and of gathering in, the resources requisite to their work they had the asking of alms - that only, charity and always charity. Divine Providence and alms-giving, which was its daily and ordinary channel - such were the visible means of subsistence of this family. 

A truly impressive spectacle, that of the Little Sisters of the Poor founding 313 houses, in size like large hospitals, in every quarter of the globe, having already received 460,000 old people, and all this without income, without resource, beyond Divine Providence and almsgiving. The work lived on, worked on, and grew.

The Mayor (Mr H.L. Tapley) expressed his thanks for the invitation and said said he felt it a great privilege to be associated with any institution for the well-being and welfare of the aged. He had always been very much struck by the splendid humanitarian work being carried out by the Little Sisters.

He stressed the fact that there were taken into the institution those who were non-Catholics, and all spent their declining years in comfort and in peace. — ODT, 26.10.1925

- Compiled by Peter Dowden