Victoria Point Remembers
Published: 24 May 2018
On 22 May 2018 two deceased Augustinians were remembered at St Rita’s Roman Catholic Parish at Victoria Point, which is a bayside suburb of Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland.
Plaques blessed in Remembrance Garden, St Rita’s Parish, Victoria Point, 22 May 2018
For about eight years beginning in 1987 the Order of St Augustine undertook to begin and temporarily staff the brand-new parish behalf of the Archdiocese of Brisbane. The two Augustinian priests who served there successively as Associate Pastors during those early years were Frs John O’Sullivan (died in Ireland in 2017) and Fr Maurice O’Connor (died in Sydney in 2002).
The parish was named after a medieval Augustinian saint and mystic, St Rita of Cascia. After a 9.00 am Mass on this feast day of St Rita, there was a special memorial ceremony. This took place parish Remembrance Garden, when metal plaques to the two Augustinians were unveiled by the parish priest, Fr Joseph Vattaparambil CMI. Photographs of the ceremony have been sent to Ireland.
The Victoria Point Parish had contacted Coorparoo ahead of time in order to invite the presence of Augustinians priests and Coorparoo parishioners to the commemoration, and also of any relatives of the two deceased friars who might live in Australia (of which in fact there are none). Fathers O’Connor and O’Sullivan were both Irish born and educated, and both served at various Augustinian parishes in eastern Australia for over thirty years. This is the second parish in which Fr Maurice O’Connor has been especially commemorated, because one of the four Houses at St Augustine’s College in Kyabram is named O’Connor.
