While she has built strong relationships throughout town in the past 24 years, her ties to Echuca, and especially St Joseph’s College Echuca, span 71 years.
Growing up on a farm near Shepparton, Sr Cecilia left home in 1955 to attend St Joseph’s College as a boarding student.
It was there she first encountered the Brigidine sisters.
Sr Cecilia said during her years as a student, she came to admire the sisters.
“I think the sisters who were our teachers and looked after us as boarders, they were very ordinary women in many ways, but there was something about their integrity, their sense of being called to something beyond just teaching,” she said.
At the end of her schooling, she moved to Melbourne and joined the Brigidine sisters.
Although she was inspired by the sisters who had taught and cared for her, she said she had doubts when she entered the convent.
“I went without total conviction. I went thinking this is something I should give a go,” she said.
“I had eight years before we had to make a final commitment ... by that time, I knew this is where I belong. This is how I would like to live my life and how I feel called to live it.”
After completing her initial three years of training, she returned to St Joseph’s College as a teacher for three years, before spending the next four decades teaching at other schools.
In 2002, following a six-year stint on the Brigidine sisters’ international leadership team, she returned to Echuca in a different capacity.
With eight sisters still living in the town at the time, she helped co-ordinate the group and care for its older members.
Sr Cecilia said there had been “huge change in Echuca and huge change in our religious life” in the years she had been away.
“When I came back three years after I'd left school, I was in a full black habit and our life was quite restricted in many ways,” she said.
“When I came back (24 years ago) ... we were much more immersed in the community. We could engage with all sorts of groups, and I think our understanding of our own spirituality has developed a lot.”
Since her return, she has made a lasting mark on the community, becoming a pillar of the St Mary’s parish and a much-loved presence at St Joseph’s College.
While she has cherished her time in Echuca, Sr Cecilia said moving to Melbourne was the practical choice as she entered her 80s and needed to be closer to the Brigidine support network.
The move will also allow her to immerse herself in a new community while she is still fit and reduce the need for long-distance travel to meetings as part of the Melbourne leadership team.
However, Sr Cecilia said she was still sad to leave behind the community and people she had come to love.
“I’m very sad. I can keep telling myself this needs to happen, it’s the most practical thing to do, but I’m very sad,” she said.
“I love country life. I love local community engagement ... You get very connected, very close to lots of families. It's a wrench.
“I’ll still be able to come back to visit, but it's not the same.”
This weekend, visiting sisters will join her to mark 140 years since the arrival of the Brigidine sisters in Echuca, alongside celebrations for St Joseph’s College’s 140th anniversary.
Shortly after Holy Week, she will move to Melbourne, leaving behind a legacy of faith, service and deep connection to the community she has called home for decades.
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