The Southern Cross | December 2023

In her golden anniversary year as a Sister of Mercy, Meredith Evans is showing no signs of slowing down as she continues the work that earned her the title of 2024 Senior South Australian of the Year.

The term ‘senior’ doesn’t sit well with the energetic Sister who returns to Adelaide this week after two weeks in Cambodia helping to build homes for land mine survivors.

But the 75 year old confessed that these days there’s not a lot of hands-on building work on her part; she leaves that to the “amazing” Young Mercy Links women who accompanied her to Siem Reap.

At home she is kept busy responding to a barrage of calls for assistance from refugees and asylum seekers struggling to navigate the legal system and provide for themselves and their families. Delivering furniture and food parcels, driving people to appointments, accompanying them in court is all in a day’s work for Meredith.

Blind-sided by her nomination for the State award, she said it was a tribute to everyone she worked with and hoped it would be a platform to promote the “very things that myself and other people are really passionate about – to create a more just and equitable Australian society”.

Her interest in social justice began when she was an idealistic young student at Marymount College in southwestern Adelaide. As a member of the Brighton Young Christian Workers (YCW) movement she received a good grounding in theology that wasn’t an “airy fairy spirituality” but focused on “what Jesus was about”.

She was heavily influenced by Sr Patricia Pak Poy RSM who won a Nobel Prize for her involvement in the International Campaign against Land Mines.

“Sr Patricia came to talk about spirituality and theology, of how to be your best self…she spoke in a language that I understood as a 20 year old,” Meredith said.

“I was always thinking you only get one shot at this life and I wanted to give it my best to make a difference in the world we’re living in.”

After talking to Sr Patricia about her aspirations she thought perhaps the best way to achieve her goals was through religious life, but she was by no means sure of this.

“I thought I’ll give it a go – I’ll get this out of my system and then I’ll do something else with my life,” she said.

But Meredith soon found herself immersed in the exciting period of change after Vatican II when there were new possibilities for religious women and how they could contribute to the Church.

After studying Community Development at the Institute of Technology she commenced a Bachelor of Theology at the seminary – the first time religious women were allowed to study alongside men training to be priests.

She took her first vows in 1973 at the Angas Street Chapel and began living amongst the community at Morphett Vale with Sr Ruth Egar, at the invitation of Sr Ruth’s brother, the late Mgr Rob Egar, who was parish priest.

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