Australian Aboriginal Mass or the Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit : A long journey

On May 7, two women knelt at the shrine of Saint Mary MacKillop to ask her intercession and inspiration. This was not unusual. On any given day, a steady stream of women and men come in faith and hope to ask or to give thanks to the saint. But theirs was a unique request. The women were about to ask the bishops of Australia to officially approve the Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit (MLHS) for use in the worshiping communities of the Diocese of Broome – in the northwest of the continent – and they wanted SaintMary’s help. 

The two elders, Maureen Yanawana and Madeleine Jadai, had travelled to North Sydney from their community at Bidyadanga, more than 5,000 kilometers away. There the MLHS or "Missa Terra Spiritus Sancti" – known locally as the "Missa Bidyadanga" – has its genesis. 

After introductions by Bishop Michael Morrissey, the Apostolic Administrator of Broome Diocese, Maureen and Madeleine began their presentation to the bishops. They recalled the early days of the then La Grange mission (Bidyadanga) when they were small children. They remembered Father Kevin McKelson, their pastor and manager of the mission, who night after night sat patiently with the community, listening to the sharing of their stories.

They told how over time, the men trusted Father McKelson, whom they called Japulu, (meaning “father”), to such an extent that they invited him to observe their sacred ceremonies and accompany them to their sacred sites. Eventually, McKelson learned the languages of each of the five tribes who had found their way to La Grange. And not just the spoken languages. He also learned the language of their rituals and stories expressed in song and dance, and their profound respect for and care of their ‘country’ and sacred sites. 

Liturgy less “foreign and alien” 

The bishop at the time, John Jobst, while still attending the Vatican Council in Rome, instructed the missionaries to find ways to make the liturgy less “foreign and alien” to newly baptized Aboriginal Catholics. Maureen and Madeleine recounted how Father McKelson, already familiar with their ceremonies, invited their fathers, grandfathers and other elders, to talk with him about the church’s sacred ceremonies – the liturgy. This collaboration led to the revised English Mass expressed in a pattern of language and vocabulary that could be understood, and sung in their own languages. After establishing the texts of the Mass in their oral form, McKelson, a trained linguist, then needed to create a written language text of each of the five languages for celebration.

At the end of their sharing, Maureen and Madeleine engaged in an ancient water ritual. In the manner of their mothers, grandmothers, and ancestors over thousands of years, they prayed in language over the water, then blessed each of the bishops in turn. Finally, they formally presented the gift of the Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit, to Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

The Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit has been 50 years in the making. Each Sunday, Father McKelson celebrated the Mass in turn in each language spoken in the Bidyadanga community. It was not until other missionaries wanted to use the liturgy that Father McKelson translated it from these languages into English. 

For the next 40 years, McKelson consulted scholars and linguists and continued to adapt the texts according to the needs of the Aboriginal Catholics at the time. Along the way he kept the Australian Bishops informed, and at one time visited the prefect of the then Congregation for Worship, Cardinal James Knox in Rome, to seek its approval.

Father McKelson died in 2011, and sadly did not see his wish realized, that the Missa would be approved formally by the official Church. He did, however, see its continual celebration, not just at Bidyadanga, but across the Kimberley region of Western Australia and beyond.

Celebrating their own experience of the paschal mystery

My first experience of the Missa took place in 2012, not in Bidyadanga, but more than 1,000 kilometers inland in Wirrimanu, (Balgo), at the edge of the Talami desert. There, the liturgy is celebrated in the Kukatja language. I was struck by the involvement of the whole community, under the leadership of the local priest and elders of the community. The entire Mass was sung, with young and old participating. I particularly remember the final blessing by the priest and elders. Earlier that week, two girls from the community were severely burnt in a grass fire, and had been taken by air ambulance to Perth for treatment. The elders asked us to face Perth, and then with arms outstretched, they led us in the singing of a blessing of healing over the girls. What stayed with me from that Mass was the tangible sense that each Sunday these people were celebrating their own experience of the paschal mystery, their own dying and rising daily in the community.

After my experience in Wirrimanu, I visited several of the communities where the Missa has continued to be celebrated, mostly in local language. With their permission I collected the versions, and with the generous support of a group of interested liturgists we began to work towards an English text that would provide a basis for translation into the vernacular. As we continued the process of studying the text, theologically, liturgically and with a mind to canonical requirements, in collaboration with the local faith communities, we made slight modifications. The text of the MLHS, accompanied by local art, was published in 2018, for use in the Diocese of Broome, where the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference had agreed it could continue to be celebrated ad experimentum. Since then, a number of local Aboriginal communities in the diocese have taken the English text, that is itself a translation from the languages of Bidyadanga, and readily translated it into their own local languages.

Bringing the richness of cultures to the Church’s liturgy

The documents we prepared for the bishops’ plenary, included a written history of the development of the Missa, an explanation of the language of the texts, and the inclusion of official church sources that give credence to the liturgy. We also prepared a video where local communities acknowledged their reception of the MLHS and offered the Missa as a gift to the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference. 

On May 7, the Australian bishops overwhelmingly supported the motion that the MLHS could be officially celebrated in the Diocese of Broome. They also encouraged other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities to consider ways to bring the richness of their cultures to the Church’s liturgy. 

Thus, May 7 was a historic moment in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia, and surely a great example of a synodal process that has included the wisdom of so many, not least our First Nation Catholics in Bidyadanga and across the Kimberley region.

Now the liturgy committee, including Maureen and Madeleine and members of their communities, will reconvene to address any concerns raised by the bishops that might require slight adjustments to the text of the MLHS. Once we have the blessing of the Bidyadanga community, The Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit will be presented to the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments for confirmation. 

The text of the MLHS will be available after it has been considered by the Vatican's Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Carmel Pilcher, an Australian Sister of St Joseph, is a national consultant to the Australian bishops’ Commission for Liturgy and chairs the committee assisting with the development of the Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit.