THE MISSA KIMBERLEY
Part 2
In 2012, one year after the death of Fr. Kevin McKelson, I was fortunate to
visit the Kimberley to observe liturgical inculturation amongst Aboriginal
people. My journey took me to Balgo, on the eastern extreme of the diocese
close to the Northern Territory border, where I had my first experience of the
Missa Kimberley. When I arrived at the church, preparations for the Mass had
already begun. The musicians organized themselves in their places. Four senior women elders came into the church, where they donned locally decorated stoles (joined in the middle, I was told, to distinguish them from the priest!)
When all had assembled, clapsticks began to sound, and the assembly’s song
accompanied the elders and priest as they processed to the altar. The water,
resting inside a coolamon—a vessel decorated with ochre and carved from a
tree—was blessed. Balgo is a desert community, and it had long been the prac
tice of women to find water for their families. When they discovered a water
source, they first sprinkled themselves and each other, thanking the ancestors
before collecting it to take back to their community. As the women sprinkled
the blessed water on each member of the assembly this continuing life source
had a deep cultural meaning.
Everyone in the assembly sang the Mass in Kukatja—their local language—
with the priest leading the prayers in Kukatja. The Scripture texts were
proclaimed by the reader. The homily that week was not accompanied by a
painting prepared and explained by one of the many artists in the community,
as sometimes happens. However, the women had translated the gospel into
Kukatja, and had assisted the priest with the preparation of the homily at their
usual meeting earlier in the week.
Designated members of the assembly processed the gifts to the altar, the bread
in a coolamon that is also used for gathering seeds or even carrying babies.
Singing again accompanied the procession. The women stood with the priest
as he dedicated the gifts, and the presider continued to sing the eucharistic
prayer in dialogue form, with the assembly responding. During the com
munion sharing, one elder sat and blessed the small children and babies,
while others distributed the consecrated bread alongside the priest.
At the end of the Mass, the women led the blessing song. As well as blessing
the assembly, they asked the community to stand in the direction of Perth, the
nearest big city—3801 kilometers away—where earlier in the week a couple of
the girls had been airlifted by ambulance with serious burns. The community
prayed for healing blessings for the injured. At this time, I overheard a young
boy say to his teacher, “hey, Brother, we will have to get blessed next week
before we leave to go on our school excursion to Sydney.”
Celebrating the Missa Kimberley left a lasting impression and led me to
research the origins of this distinctly Aboriginal style Eucharist that at the time
I knew nothing about. I learned that the Missa was regularly celebrated in
some Aboriginal Catholic communities, and at least on occasion in the large
towns such as Broome, where there were more non-Aboriginal worshipers.
I was invited back to the Kimberley, where I visited various remote communi
ties, listening to their stories, and discovered that each community had a
slightly different version of the Missa—adjusted to suit the local community.
The texts were copied as booklets and passed on to each new missionary
who served the community. The bishop asked me to gather these texts and
produce one English version of the Missa Kimberley. With the direction set
by Pope Francis in his first encyclical, Evangelii Gaudium, it seemed possible
once again to officially pursue liturgical inculturation.
LITURGICAL INCULTURATION
In fact, Pope Francis showed that he was completely at home with indigenous
peoples and greatly respected their traditions. During his pontificate, Francis
has on several occasions celebrated the Zaire Rite, most recently in 2023 in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Francis made his intentions clear in the
preface of a book published with the title Pope Francis and the Roman Missal
of the Dioceses of Zaire: A Promising Rite for Other Cultures.1 In Pope Francis’
own words: “The Zairean Rite suggests a promising way also for the possible
elaboration of an Amazonian Rite.” This follows his clear direction stated in his
Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia given after the Amazonian Synod:
. . . we can take up into the liturgy many elements proper to the experience of
indigenous peoples in their contact with nature, and respect native forms of
expression in song, dance, rituals, gestures and symbols. The Second Vatican
Council called for this effort to inculturate the liturgy among indigenous peoples; over fifty years have passed, and we still have far to go along these lines. (82)2
Both the Zairean Rite and the Missa Terra Spiritus Sancti (MTSS) have grown
from “elements proper to the experience of indigenous people.” The MTSS
emerged from the Roman Rite with texts that were needed for the “full con
scious and active participation” in the liturgy of groups who had only recently
been exposed to European peoples. The Zairean Bishops Conference, under
the leadership of the Cardinal of Kinshasa, engaged in a lengthy process of
study, consultation, and dialogue, before a period of experimentation and the
eventual approval of the Zaire Rite in 1988. The Australian Catholic Bishops
Conference has spent many decades in a similarly lengthy and detailed process
of experimentation, and now approval, for the Broome diocese.
MISSA TERRA SPIRITUS SANCTI:
MASS OF THE LAND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
In 2014, in consultation with the Chair of the Bishops Commission for Liturgy,
Archbishop Patrick O’Regan, and the Bishop of Broome, I invited a group of
eminent Australian liturgical scholars, Rev. Drs. Thomas Elich, David Orr,
OSB, and Dr. Barry Craig, and Aboriginal elder, the late Dr. Joan Hendriks,
to assist me with the work of preparing the indigenous Mass. Since that time,
I have continued to chair the group.
At our first meeting in 2015, the group was joined by Bishop Paul Bird, CSsR,
a member of the Bishops Commission for Liturgy. The task of the group was to
prepare a version of the Missa Kimberley for the Australian Bishops that would
conform to the requirements of Sacrosanctum Concilium (37–40) and the
Fourth Instruction, Varietates Legitimae.3 At this meeting the Missa Kimberley
took on a new title: Missa Terra Spiritus Sancti: The Mass of the Land of the
Holy Spirit (hereafter MLHS). We decided on the title for several reasons.
One, to show that the Holy Spirit has been active in the lives of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders continuously for at least 60,000 years. The inclusion
of land is also significant—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have lived in
deep connection with the land and identify with the “country” of their birth,
the country that is their mother. For all that time they have been stewards of the land, nurturing and sustaining it. And the Land of the Holy Spirit, Australia del Espiritu Santo, is allegedly the title given to our Great Southern Land by early Portuguese explorer, Pedro Fernandes de Quieros (1565–1614).
The group of consultants continued to meet on occasion to work on the project, and regularly reported to the bishops. In addition, I continued to make regular visits to Broome to consult with local elders and church leaders in remote communities, bringing their feedback to the consultants.
In 2018, Missa Terra Spiritus Sancti/Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit (MLHS) was published and that same year the priests of the Broome diocese, the local bishop, and two Aboriginal leaders from Bidyadanga, Maureen Yanawana and Madelene Jadai, came together in Mirilinki, in the Eastern Kimberley, for a weeklong liturgical formation workshop where I was assisted by Drs. Barry Craig and David Orr. At the end of the workshop, Maureen and Madelene ritually gifted the MLHS to the priests and their communities in the Diocese of Broome. All then celebrated the MLHS for the first time, with the neighboring community of Warmun.
The MLHS has been well received across the vast diocese, and continues to be
celebrated by Aboriginal faith communities, with more and more communities
translating the text into their vernacular languages, some for the first time.
The working group met again in both 2022 and 2023, by which time it had
expanded to include Rev. John Fitz-Herbert, PP, Dr. Clare Schwantes, and
Aboriginal elders Evelyn Parkin, MA, and associate professor Cynthia Rowan.
Dr. Jason McFarland, newly appointed Executive Secretary for the Bishops’
Commission for Liturgy (BCL), joined the group in 2023. That same year the
liturgy was deemed ready for Bishop Michael Morrissey, Episcopal Adminis
trator of the Broome Diocese, to send a formal request to Archbishop Patrick
O’Regan, chair of the BCL, proposing that the MLHS be approved for use in
the Broome Diocese and, if favorably received by the BCL, be presented and
endorsed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference at their November
2023 plenary. The Bishops’ Commission for Liturgy agreed, but deferred the
discussion to the May 2024 plenary.
Maureen Yanawana and Madelene Jadai, two Aboriginal elders from the
Bidyadanga community, travelled 4,000 kilometers from Broome to Sydney to
join the bishops at their plenary on May 7, 2024. As part of the presentation,
the women blessed each of the bishops with water, in the traditional manner of
their ancestors. After much deliberation, the Australian Catholic Bishops
Conference overwhelming voted to approve the Missa Terra Spiritus Sancti—
Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit for use in the Diocese of Broome, and that
it should be sent to the Dicastery for Divine Worship for consideration.
Subsequently, a group of Aboriginal Catholics from the Broome Diocese was
formed to advise on traditional culture, including Madelene Jadai, linguist,
St. John the Baptist Bidyadanga; Maureen Yanawana, linguist also from
Bidyadanga; Shirley Quaresemin, Deputy chair, National Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council, and West Australian representative;
and Erica Bernard, Community Liaison Officer and Educator, Broome
Regional Office, Catholic Education Office of Western Australia. They were
joined by liturgy consultants Cynthia Rowan and Evelyn Parkin (chair). Together they advise the bishops on local traditional customs and the history
of the Missa Kimberley.
On November 8, 2024, the Dicastery for Divine Worship granted a formal
recognitio to “adaptations presented by the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las
Casas in the Ordinary of the Mass for some indigenous peoples of (that
Diocese) in Mexico.”4 The Mexican Bishops approved the liturgy at their
plenary of April 17–21, 2023. Soon after it was sent to the Dicastery for
Liturgy for approval of its adaptations. This approval is significant, because it
is only the second (after the Zaire Rite) to be presented and approved by the
Dicastery.
After the May 7, 2024, approval by the Australian Bishops, the liturgy consultants met again to review the documents in light of both the Bishops’ suggestions and those of the cultural consultants. The documentation was then
approved by the Bishops’ Commission for Liturgy, and in December 2024,
sent by Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, President of the Australian Catholic
Bishops’ Conference, to Cardinal Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery of the
Liturgy and Discipline of the Sacraments, for recognitio of the Mass of the
Land of the Holy Spirit for official use in the Diocese of Broome.
After more than sixty years of development, experimentation, and study,
instigated by visionary missionaries, we wait with hope that the MLHS will be
the next to be officially recognized by the Vatican Dicastery.
Note:
Part 1 of this two-part series stated that there has never been an ordained
Aboriginal priest. In fact, Patrick Dodson did spend 6 years as a Missionary of
the Sacred Heart priest ministering in the Diocese of Darwin (1975–1981).
In 2024 he resigned as Senator for Western Australia, having been appointed
in 2016.
- Sr. Rita Mboshu Kongo, ed. Quoted in Paul Samasumo, “Pope Francis: The Zairean Rite Is a Promising Model for the Amazon” (Vatican News: December 1, 2020). ↩︎
- Pope Francis, Querida Amazonia, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation to the People of God and to All Persons of Goodwill, February 2, 2020. ↩︎
- Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Varietates Legitimae, The Fourth Instruction on the Right Application of Sacrosanctum Concilium, March 29, 1994. ↩︎
- Luke Coppen, “Vatican OKs ‘Indigenous liturgical adaptations’ in Mexican Diocese,” https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/vatican-oks-indigenous-liturgical. Accessed March 12, 2024 ↩︎
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