After 15 years in the western pastoral ministry of the Diocese – 9 years shared with Sr. Cath Lacey, now our Unit leader, and 6 years living alone – the decision has been made for me to return to one of our Marist communities in New South Wales. Saying goodbye is not easy and the thought of moving from the country to coastal/suburban life is one that I find challenging. However, I feel blessed in the years that I have had here; blessed too in the people whom I’ve met and in whose lives I’ve been privileged to share. Those who have been regular readers of the Diocesan e-newsletter may recall various accounts in recent years, in which I’ve described something of life in this vast part of the Diocese which seems to be more often in drought than not.  

Sr Mary with Travis and Fr Raj at Jericho

Limited services require people to travel many hundreds of kilometres to Rockhampton or Brisbane in times of emergency or for ongoing medical conditions. Distances are the norm when necessary to go to town to buy supplies or make other business transactions. Neighbours are not people whose homes can be seen from one’s own boundary. The further west one travels, the bigger the properties, not because of increased wealth but because the country is so poor: it is not a case of stock density to the acre, but of how many acres are required to feed one beast. Children learn by distance education only meeting their peers weeks into first term when attending a cluster group or mini school in some central location. It is commonly individual rather than group preparation for the Sacraments of Initiation and is most often by phone rather than face-to-face.  

“On the outer Barcoo where churches are few,

     And men of religion are scanty…”

So A.B. Paterson began his poem, A Bush Christening! Beyond the Longreach Shire and those not so far west, in the Barcoo and the Diamantina Shires, in the Georgina Shire the churches are few and the ministers/priests few to none in residence. As I  have written on different occasions, people may go a long time without participating in a Christian ritual. When there is an opportunity to come together on a property or in a little town, neighbours and friends gladly gather together whatever their denomination. Ecumenism is strong and has the potential to be stronger, to nurture the relationship of the people with our loving God, to focus on what unites us as followers of Jesus, rather than on what can divide us. How to be church differently is a question for serious reflection. 

Truly I feel blessed to have had these years in the western part of the Diocese, to have learnt about and to have experienced some of the challenges which shape the men and women, the children of these rural and especially remote places. Without the possibility of daily Mass (as elsewhere in my life) my own appreciation of the presence of our amazing God within each of us, as Jesus taught his followers, has deepened and I have tried to share this awareness.

That said in recent weeks there have been a number of very special celebrations where children have received the Sacraments. The first was at St. Finnian’s in the little town of Jericho. There is no general store in Jericho and a couple of months ago the one ATM in town was stolen and is unlikely to be replaced. On November 26^th Travis received the sacraments of Confirmation and First Communion after Bishop Michael gave permission for Fr. Raj to deputise for him.