NAIDOC WEEK 2021 – HEAL COUNTRY

St Mary’s School has been focussing on NAIDOC this week.

The acronym NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee.

NAIDOC Week is celebrated by all Australians. It celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Their knowledge and complex cultural systems, created and honed over millennia, are often dismissed as primitive and irrelevant to our fast-paced world of today. This is far from true! Their continued care, love, and respect for ‘country’ is grounded in a relationship with the creator. The Spirit of God was poured out onto the original inhabitants of this great Southern Land many, many thousands of years before white settlement. God’s Spirit could be heard through the singing of the birds, the cascade of the waterfall, the rustle of the wind and, most importantly, in silence.

Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, a respected Ngangiwumirr Elder, explains the importance of listening and understanding the silence:

“My people today, recognise and experience in this quietness, the great Life-Giving Spirit, the Father of us all. It is easy for me to experience God’s presence. When I am out hunting, when I am in the bush, among the trees, on a hill or by a billabong; these are the times when I can simply be in God’s presence. My people have been so aware of Nature. It is natural that we will feel close to the Creator.”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are inextricably connected to country in Australia and its waters. This connection to country and all of God’s creation is core to their spirituality as a people.

“For us, Country is a word for all the values, places, resources, stories and cultural obligations associated with that area and its features. It describes the entirety of our ancestral domains.”                                  (Professor Mick Dodson).

We are called as Christians to be stewards of God’s creation; Pope Francis has called us all to work together to seek greater protections for our lands, our waters, our sacred sites and our cultural heritage from exploitation, desecration, and destruction. Australia’s First Nation People - the oldest caretakers of this land - have much to teach all Australians about HEALING COUNTRY.

God of all creation,

Great Creator Spirit,

Your presence endures at the heart of our Land and creation sings your praise.

May we learn to listen and pay attention to all that creation reveals to us of You.

Help us to know that we are truly surrounded by your sacred presence…in creation and in each other.

Give us a spirit of reverence for each other and all life,

So that we may walk with gentleness and respect in all we do upon this earth.