CATHY Wu feels like she is part of one big Catholic family at Burleigh Heads parish.
For Ms Wu, a member of the parish’s Chinese Pastoral Group, she cherished the chance to celebrate her first parish Lunar New Year Mass with her community and parishioners at Mary, Mother of Mercy church earlier this year.
She said Burleigh Heads priest Fr Jack Ho had led the effort to ensure the celebrations took place in brilliant traditional Lunar New Year colours and styles.
“It really felt like a whole atmosphere of harmony,” she said.
She said Covid had left many migrants and students feeling isolated because they were unable to be with family in their home countries for the new year festivities.
Her two sons – one studying medicine in Melbourne and one working as an engineer in Brisbane – were unable to visit as well, so getting to celebrate the festival with so many fellow parishioners made it “such a beautiful night”.
She said it had been an uplifting Mass themed on, “Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the earth”, followed by an evening with food and lion dance.
After the event was over she said the community’s social media group was buzzing until 1am about how special the night had been.
Fr Ho said the Lunar New Year celebration was a step on a journey towards recognising and embracing the multicultural face of Burleigh parish, an initiative envisioned and begun by parish priest Fr Morgan Batt.
When he arrived in the parish last year, Fr Ho – freshly ordained in 2021 – was welcomed by members of the Brazilian community which he began supporting pastorally.
It was not long before the most significant Marian feast on the Brazilian calendar arrived – the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida – on October 12.
Brazilian Catholic Community leader Ligia Taylor said the Brazilian priest who had been with the community had to return home for family health reasons.
“So the community ended up with no priest who could speak the language, and of course we go to the other (English) Masses (through the week), but it’s very special when someone speaks your language,” she said.
“In comes Fr Jack who was new to the parish, and he had a week… maybe two weeks max before the feast… I gave a book to him to maybe pick up some words (in Portuguese).
“It was so special because no one expected that he would be able to pick up the language.
“But he ended up celebrating most of the Mass with us in Portuguese.”
Fr Ho said the privilege of celebrating with the Brazilian community and experiencing their joy in the Mass cemented in his mind the importance for the parish to make in-roads in all the multicultural communities.
He said while the annual Multicultural Mass is important, so too are the many faith celebrations significant to the various cultures such as Our Lady of Aparecida, Flores de Mayo, St Patrick’s Day and Lunar New Year.
Ms Taylor said it was hard to overstate how grateful the Brazilian Community was that they got to celebrate their significant feast day in Australia.
She had received an icon of Our Lady of Aparecida from her aunt in Brazil in 2019, who promised her “she’ll take care of you and your family”.
“It was small, only the size of my hand,” she said.
She approached Fr Batt about having the icon of Our Lady of Aparecida in the church at Miami, which Fr Batt welcomed.
She said seeing that icon processed into a “full church” for the feast day last year and enthroned before the altar was “huge for the community”.
“It feels like… we finally found each other,” she said.
“We found we are part of this larger family that is our local parish, along with the Chinese and Filipino communities… we are connecting, we are finally starting to connect.”
Fr Ho said the end goal for the parish was embracing everyone together as a family in faith celebrating and enriched by each other’s cultures.
“Our faith communities provide not just a spiritual home but a place of belonging,” he said.
“My own journey as a young overseas student arriving in Australia without the English language helped me to appreciate the journey of other migrants.
“Now I hope I could give back some of what I have received.”
If you would like to find out more, please visit the Burleigh Heads parish website or Facebook page.
