2013-01-26     Judith Lynch, Melbourne      Judith's previous articles

We are a nation of boat people.

My ancestors arrived here by boat in the 1830’s. Your family possibly has a similar story. After World War 2 thousands of Europeans and British arrived by liner. They were followed by waves of people escaping persecution from countries such as Vietnam. Now it is families from countries such as Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan arriving to settle in Australia, sometimes illegally by boat, sometimes by plane. Layer by layer, culture by culture, Australia is being built into a nation.

In Genesis we read the words Abraham heard God say: “Go out from your country and your kindred and your father’s house, to the land I will show you. “And then in Ezekiel: “I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.”

A walk down any city street, a glance around the church any weekend, reinforces these words from the Old Testament. We have been gathered from many nations and countries. The Catholic church in Australia has been enriched and broadened by the religious customs of the Irish, Italian, Maltese, Tongan, Filipinos and Vietnamese, to name a few.

We are a young nation and our Australian way of being Church is still young. As time passes, some religious perceptions and loved customs will lose their meaning in a new country and a different environment. Like the gum tree, shedding its bark, some loved customs and words will drop away. Some of this shedding will be painful. However, if you look closely at the smooth white trunk that the stripped bark has exposed, you will notice tiny new shoots. That’s us, growing and nurturing the church of the future, hopefully a strong, vibrant and very Australian church.

I suspect that this Australian church of the future will owe much to the aboriginal spirituality of the land. When Pope John Paul 2 was in Canberra, he spoke to all Australians when he said: “Look, dear people of Australia, and behold this vast continent of yours. It is your home… And for all of you, Australians, the Way to your Father’s house passes through this land.”

God has written a sacred story across our land - Uluru’s red heart, crumpled brown earth, now and again rivers, green paddocks, ancient purple mountains, cities that hug the coastline and blink- and- you’re- through- them towns. Our religious and spiritual journeys are set against a backdrop of Australian landscape.

Whether you are drawn to the sea, a river, the bush or the outback, whether your favourite places have been ravaged by flood, fire or drought, these are the places and spaces where God has written and painted your story. I read somewhere that our landscape is the face of God, turned to me and inviting me in. Maybe this Australia Day we could spend a few minutes reflecting on the way our story of place has shaped and given meaning to the way we personally relate to God. As Ezekiel said, “You shall dwell in the land I gave your forerunners, and you shall be my people and I will be your God.”