This year the annual Walk with Christ Eucharistic Procession through the streets of Sydney’s CBD will coincide with the 200th anniversary of Eucharistic Adoration in Australia.
Set to take place on the feast of Corpus Christi, Sunday 3 June, the Eucharistic Procession will commemorate the Blessed Sacrament being left with the laity in the Rocks area of Sydney in 1818, by the only Catholic priest in Australia—Fr Jeremiah O’Flynn. Fr O’Flynn was forced by the government to return to England, leaving Sydney’s Catholics without a priest and therefore without access to the sacraments.
“2018 marks the 200th anniversary of a little known, but most heroic and faith-filled time in the history of the Australian Church,” Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP stated in a recent letter to parishes.
“Fr O’Flynn’s last pastoral act was to leave the Blessed Sacrament reserved in a faithful Catholic’s home so that the colonists and prisoners could come to adore Christ present there. For two years the Blessed Sacrament in this lay Sydney home was the source and centre of worship and consolation for the priestless Catholics of the Australian colony.”
The Archbishop extended a warm invitation to all Sydney parishioners to take part in this significant event organised by the Sydney Archdiocese in partnership with CatholicSuper.
The Walk With Christ Eucharistic Procession will begin on the corner of Pitt and Hunter streets in the city at 2.30pm and will conclude at St Mary’s Cathedral forecourt for Adoration and Benediction at 4.30pm.
For more information: sydneycatholic.org/walkwithchrist