Tasmania’s Bruny Island, on Nuenonne Country, is historically significant to the MSS. It’s the place where our story begins. It was on Bruny Island that our founder, Fr John Wallis, first heard the call of a mother, Mrs Kit Hawkins, who asked: ‘Who is looking after us in the bush?’ And so, Bruny Island has become a special place of pilgrimage for all involved with the MSS and Highways and Byways.
In 2024, we mark the MSS’s 80th year since foundation, so we’re hosting yet another MSS-Highways and Byways Bruny Island pilgrimage for those who are interested between Thursday 21 November to Monday 25 November 2024. Participants walk the land and get in touch with the places that have significance to our mission. Using Captain Cook Caravan Park at Adventure Bay as our base, each morning we meet for a reflection and then head off on walks (of varying levels of fitness) in areas of particular interest and importance to our story. We meet again in the late afternoon each day for a time of sharing stories and reflections. On Sunday, we join the local community in Alonnah for their monthly Mass.
Reflecting on the 2022 Bruny Island pilgrimage, congregational leader, Stancea Vichie MSS, said: Being on the land of the Nuenonne people, being present to the spirit of what has happened since 1933; the dream of John Wallis, and eleven years later, the MSS coming into being … then 66 years of the story of these women working across this country, and then the formation of the John Wallis Foundation, which then became Highways and Byways. It was wonderful to see the way that the original mission of the MSS is being expressed now; reaching out into so many parts of this country; healing land and communities together, and then, having all of us who are part of this journey in a very explicit sort of way, come together on this special island. It’s just so profound and wonderful.
For anyone interested in joining the 2024 Bruny Island pilgrimage, please email Bern Madden.
Download flyer here.