Sun sets on a long Journey

The Cross and Icon today visited the town of Daly River. The town was originally set up as a Catholic Mission, where indigenous families were moved off land in their own country to live within this town on the banks of the great Daly River. The Daly River town population is now made up of Indigenous Australians, international missionaries and their families. The Daly River can be a raging torrent during the wet season, and is filled with large barramundi and crocodiles, although we were not privy to see any of the later.

This morning at Daly River, Australian indigenous artist Miriam Rose spoke at mass about the ‘Australian Stations of the Cross’ she created a few years ago to give the church a ‘fresh, current view of the stations’.

On the feast of St Francis of Assisi, the evening for the Cross and Icon of Our Lady were spent amongst the simplicity and beauty of sunset at Darwin’s Mindil Beach. Without the regalia of a physical church building, people came from church and youth groups around Darwin to celebrate the end of this day together in prayer. Backpackers, international tourists and local families who were doing their own thing at the Mindil Beach markets also found themselves before the Cross, simply by venturing onto the sandy beach to watch the sun fall upon the ocean.

Led by the young St Vinnie’s Darwin crew, a procession was then undertaken walking up to the Cathedral for an evening liturgy. The distance was quite far, and is a testament to the people of the Darwin diocese who catered for the pilgrimages not to be easy. By walking that little bit further than comfortable, and driving across roads that are more simply rocky dirt tracks, we encounter an opportunity to feel a small amount of that Cross that Jesus bore, when he walked at Calvary for us.

Jacs :)