Leap of faith into a southern land

Less than 200 years ago most of our ancestors, with the exception of our Aboriginal families, lived in far, distant places. For a hundred different reasons, they packed all their belongings for a journey that would take several months by sea, to a new land, a strange land, a land of promise and hope. It lay in the south and was thus called Australia (from the Latin adjective australis meaning, ‘south’). Such a journey is unimaginable for those who fly for 24 hours to reach the very shores from which those ancestors came. It is no less horrific but real for those latter migrants who arrived, and still arrive, aboard rotten, unseaworthy boats that are mere flotsam and jetsam. They came from Vietnam, Indonesia and now Sri Lanka.

470 years ago, a unique group of individuals in the church, was formally established and approved as a religious congregation whose aim was to be at the pope’s disposal, at that time Paul III. The group had the capacity to be flexible, to go where there was the greatest need. The founder of this group was of noble descent, a soldier, badly wounded at the siege of Pamplona against the French. A long period of recovery was spent studying the life of Christ and the saints. Ignatius Loyola thus began his journey of faith that was to culminate in the establishment of one of the church’s greatest religious orders: The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. One of the Jesuit’s earliest missions was to the Far East, making St Francis Xavier the patron saint of missionaries.

In 2008, three young Nigerian priests, Kene Onwukwe, Felix Ekeh and Christopher Igboanua arrived in the chilly climes of Hobart to begin their mission to, and within, the church of Tasmania. Their journey was recorded in a series on the ABC, The Mission.

There are degrees of discomfort for all who seek new lives, our ancestors were pioneers, convicts, freemen, soldiers and sailors. For most there was no return to their place of their birth. They came to fulfill a dream, a sentence, a ‘tour of duty’, to escape persecution. For Ignatius’ followers, some 19,000 today, their mission to preach the Gospel through apostolic ministry is carried out in 112 nations on six continents. A step into the unknown, a leap of faith, and obedience to their call to priesthood brought Kene, Felix and Christopher to these most southern of shores. Their presence and youth are signs of hope in a diocese of great need. Like Ignatius and Xavier they have trusted in God.

Perhaps much less is asked of you and me. Pehaps our sole duty is to survive the 21st century. Perhaps the seed that was planted in all those whose stories brim full in the history of Australia, and those who are driven to make a difference to build a better society, or to build God’s kingdom on earth in this terra australis, is ready to take root in you.

St Ignatius’ feast day is this Saturday.