Sydney
10 March 2002
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Dates set for saints
Labor MP backs Liberal’s embryo call
Pope urged to ban his photo from club
Patients are patients, not clients: archbishop on St Vincent’s visit
La Perouse ceremony remembers first Mass
Christian Brothers told: look to the laity for the future
Plight of refugees stirs parishioners into action
Novices renew friars’ spirit of vocation
Centacare calms the anger in men
Editorial: Saint-maker Pope
Letters: Aeroplane nuns
Conversation: ... sharing ‘a gift of God’ - Clare Gormley, soprano
Reflections: Lent – community of God’s people
Veneration of ancestors
The day the house caved in
Book Review: An uncluttered look at ecumenism
Putting ‘fresh heart’ into the diocese: Wollongong’s 50th birthday
Prelate retires as Canterbury see reaches 1400th birthday
Inconsistent marking hampers ‘new’ HSC
Inspirations: Jump in numbers as centre starts year
La Perouse ceremony remembers first Mass
Laying the wreath at the grave
The first white settlement in Australia was barely three weeks old when the first recorded Mass was celebrated.
But it wasn’t the scene for the Mass.
The settlement, founded on January 26 after the First Fleet sailed into Port Jackson, was on the shores of what is now called Sydney Harbour.
But the Mass took place a few kilometres away to the south-east, at La Perouse, at the entrance to Botany Bay.
The bay had been earmarked as the place for the first settlement, but Capt Arthur Phillip had preferred the harbour to the north.
While he was setting up house in the relative calm of the harbour shores, the French explorer Jean Francois de la Perouse and his expedition were encamped on the northern shore of Botany Bay, at what is now La Perouse.
And that is where the Franciscan priest and naturalist Fr Claude-Francois Joseph Receveur died on February 17, 1788. The cause of his death is unknown.
But his death and burial provided reason enough for the historic first known Mass in Australia.
La Perouse Museum recently played host to a Mass commemorating Fr Receveur’s death and that first Mass. It was attended by the French Consul-General and members of Sydney’s French community.
Proceedings opened with an acknowledgement to the land from the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry’s Elsie Heiss.
“I approached the Mass in a spirit of Christian and charitable sharing,” Mrs Heiss said. “It is an honour to have the French priest’s grave at La Perouse, which is very sacred land.
“It was also important that the traditional owners of the land were acknowledged, and that we reflected on the survival and the heritage of the Aboriginal people.”
A wreath was laid at the La Perouse monument.