Villanova Chapel 100
Published: 21 August 2016
The Chapel on what is now the campus of Villanova College in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo was one hundred years’ old on 20 August 2016.
The ornate sanctuary of the Chapel in the 1950s before the Second Vatican Council
It was blessed and opened by Bishop James Duhig, then the Coadjutor of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, on 20 August 1916. It was constructed as the chapel of the newly-founded Good Samaritan Convent to which it was attached. The Augustinians took over the property when Villanova College opened there in 1954.
The exterior of the Chapel over fifty years ago
From that time onwards the Augustinian community used the chapel for recitation of the Divine Office and for the simultaneous celebration of individual Masses by the priests on numerous side altars in two successive “shifts” after Lauds; the Second Vatican Council changed this practice!
Over the years Villanova College used the Chapel for morning Mass before school time for any parents and students who cared to attend. During school hours the chapel was large enough for a Mass for one class of students at a time, and was also the site for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and paraliturgies.
On weekends it was the venue for the baptism of the children of past pupils and of the nephews and nieces of Augustinians living in the Priory, and it is definite that over forty past pupils exchanged their wedding vows there. At present twice weekly the Eucharist is celebrated in the Chapel before school.
The building ceased being an Augustinian Community chapel when a purpose-built new Priory with its own chapel was opened a short distance away in 1986.
Plaque, and Mass of Thanksgiving in the Chapel on 21 August 2016
To mark the Chapel’s centenary, Fr Dave Austin (Provincial) celebrated a commemorative Eucharist in the Chapel on Sunday 21 August 2016. The invited guests were the Good Samaritan Sisters, a number of Augustinians, and representatives from Brisbane Catholic Education and Villanova College. A wall plaque was unveiled there that “acknowledges the 100 years during which efforts for Catholic Education have been nourished by the Eucharist celebrated here.”
