Parish News
One of the richest blessings for the Australian church in the third millennium has been the increased presence of diverse cultural and ethnic groups amongst our parishes. Members of the body of Christ, the world over now call our parishes home and enrich them with the diversity of their talents, their love of the Catholic faith and their commitment to building community and sharing hospitality.
Sts Anne and Joachim Parish Sunraysia has been a grateful beneficiary of this demographic change, a fact which we celebrated most spectacularly on the Feast of Christ the King in 2025. Members of our church community gathered for a celebration of culture and faith beginning with the Sunday 5pm Mass, in which four girls were received into the church through the rite of Christian initiation for children.
Four more children also received the sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist for the first time and three more the following Sunday. All of these children themselves have come from diverse backgrounds and are reflective of the cultural character of the Sunraysia Parish.
During the Mass we were treated to the musical stylings of not one but four beautiful choirs, our parish choir and the music of our Italian, Tongan and Filipino communities. Our prayers of the faithful were prayed in different languages and parishioners attended the day in their cultural dress. We were even visited by a stray dog just before the distribution of communion. All creatures great and small came to worship Christ the King that day!
Following the Mass our festivities kicked in off in a big way.
Parishioners had spent days preparing food for us to share from their cultures for which we were all very grateful! (especially the paella cooked up on the presbytery lawn). Activities included traditional Irish dancing, and dances from our Burmese, Tongan and Indian communities as well as the drawing of our Parish Petrol Raffle.
First prize was a $1000 worth of fuel, won by the Mildura conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society, who will generously put the vouchers to good use, I’m sure. I know I speak on behalf of our whole parish when I say I am very thankful to all those who helped make the day a great success.
My hope and prayer is that we, as parishes in the Diocese of Ballarat continue to make every attempt to make our migrant and refugee communities feel welcome. Culture is not a novelty to viewed with bewilderment, but rather something to celebrated and explored. Christ came to bring together all people from every ‘nation, race, tribe and language’ (Rev 7:9) as scriptures reminds us.
Let’s take the opportunity with the migrant and refugee cross visiting our parishes next year, to enable the various gifts and charisms of our communities to flourish, so that our unity and charity in Christ may an example for our polarised world today.
Fr Bill Lowry