Rainbow Serpent in stations at La Perouse church

Sydney
1 June 2003

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Rainbow Serpent in stations at La Perouse church

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Rainbow Serpent in stations at La Perouse church

The Reconciliation Church ministry team with Bishop Cremin and Richard

By Marilyn Rodrigues

“When I came here the first thing I wanted to do was fill the church with Aboriginal spiritual art,” says Elsie Heiss, the co-ordinator at Our Lady of Good Counsel Reconciliation Church at La Perouse.

“That was my dream, now it is coming true,” she says, looking around the walls of the little church on Yarra St.

It is the second Aboriginal Catholic church to be established in Australia. The first is St Pius X at Moree.

The interior has been taking shape bit by bit since 1998 when the Aboriginal Catholic Ministry of the Sydney Archdiocese first moved to La Perouse to occupy the unused church and support the Aboriginal communities in the eastern region of Sydney.

Aboriginal symbolism has been integrated with Catholic theology in its liturgies and in the church’s modest but inviting interior.

Near the entrance a large traditional-style painting of the Madonna and Child by an Aboriginal artist, Richard Campbell, hangs on a wall behind a traditional European-style statue of Our Lady, given by the Josephite sisters.

And now the church has an Aboriginal rendering of the classic devotion, the Stations of the Cross, also by Richard.

They are part of the inculturation process, a “synthesis of culture and faith”, that Pope John Paul II refers to in his apostolic exhortation in 2001, Ecclesia in Oceania (The Church in Oceania).

“In recent times the Church has strongly encouraged the inculturation of the Christian faith,” he wrote.

“In this regard, Pope Paul VI insisted when he visited Oceania that ‘far from smothering what is good and original in every form of human culture, Catholicism accepts, respects and puts to use the genius of each people, endowing with variety and beauty the one, seamless garment of the Church of Christ’.”

The stations feature earthy colours, leaf and watering hole motifs, and the Rainbow Serpent that winds its way in the background of each image and visually links each painting together.

Above the sinuous line of the serpent is a smaller, lighter one representing the Holy Spirit: these symbols serve to enhance the transmission of the Catholic faith for Aboriginal Catholics at the church.

Elsie says the Reconciliation Church’s liturgies show the same synthesisof Aboriginal culture and Catholic worship as its artworks.

Baptisms for example, are very special, because they include a traditional fire ceremony.

“Everyone is invited to warm their hands by a fire, which has been blessed by the priest, and lay their hands on the baby,” says Elsie.

A handcrafted headband can be blessed and given to the baby, too.

“Those things take us back to our history,” says Elsie.

“That is the way children became part of a particular Aboriginal nation in earlier days. But it is the Catholic sacrament we are asking for.

“We are bringing our Aboriginal symbolism to enhance the Catholic Mass.”

The church has a small congregation, whose current challenge is to pay for 12 of the stations at a cost of $1000 each.

Around 45 people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, are regulars although up to 60 people attend the monthly Masses and the baptisms, confirmations and funerals that are held there.

To make a donation to help the Reconciliaton Church purchase these Aboriginal artworks, make cheques payable to: The Aboriginal Catholic Ministry La Perouse, PO Box 296, Matraville 2036.