Pilgrimage

Alice Springs Pilgrimage

On the 1st May 2005, Message Sticks were officially sent from St Mary's Cathedral Sydney throughout Australia to announce the 20th Anniversary of John Paul II's important speech in Alice Springs in 1986.
In that speech, John Paul II stated:
"... the Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others." (Pope John Paul II, Alice Springs 1986.)

The "Pass It On" Message Stick Relay was a call from the Indigenous Catholics of Australia to the church and the nation to renew their responses to the challenges identified by the Pope in 1986.

As both an expression of and a response to this challenge, the call was issued by an Indigenous symbol, a Message Stick.

The use of such Indigenous symbols tells us not only that Indigenous peoples had rights to this land in the past but that they still have such land rights here in the present - both in our nation and in our church. Symbols like the Message Stick confront us with the - perhaps disturbing - fact that we cannot be a complete nation or a whole church until and unless we embrace the peoples represented by these symbols.

The call to embrace Australia's Indigenous peoples was issued to the whole Church and the whole nation in nine "Pass It On" Message Sticks bearing symbolically the messages of the Pope's 1986 statement.

On May 1st 2005, Janice, Margaret, Daisy, Allison, Jenny & Christine from Penrith Aboriginal Catholic Ministry (ACM) danced at St Mary's Cathedral as part of the Message Stick inauguration ceremony. Below is a photo taken just before they danced at St Marys.