2025 ATSI Sunday

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday Resources

Liturgy Team Welcome

Welcome to the NATSICC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday Liturgy.

Peace be with you, and welcome to this year’s celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday - a sacred moment for our Church to gather as one in the love of Christ.

This year, we come together under the theme: “Sent Forth in Strength and Hope.” It is Christ who sends us to walk together in faith, grounded in the deep spirituality and culture of First Nations Peoples, strengthened by the Gospel, and filled with hope for the future God is leading us into.

Our Catholic Church is a tapestry woven from many cultures. From the enduring wisdom of the world’s oldest continuing cultures — the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples — to those who have journeyed from distant lands, we are one Body in Christ. In our diversity, we discover richness. In our unity, we find strength. And in every heart, we see the Spirit of God at work. Saint John Paul II once reminded us:

“The Church herself is enriched by the development of different forms of culture… she takes them up in her evangelising mission and adopts them.”

Today, we honour that truth. We celebrate the living story of faith and culture walking hand in hand — of ancient traditions alive in Christ, and of a Church made more whole when all are welcomed, seen, and heard.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC) invites you to enter into today’s Liturgy with open hearts. May it deepen your appreciation of First Nations spirituality, draw us closer in Christ, and renew our shared calling toward reconciliation, justice, and love.

Whether you’re gathered in a Parish, school, or community, may the Holy Spirit move among us and send us forth — in the strength of Christ and in the unshakable hope of the Gospel.

Thank you for joining us. May God bless us all on this journey together.

Artwork

Artwork by PollyAnne Carter

"I have been called to spread the Word of God to grow people in faith with love to bring them into the Kingdom. Jesus showed us how to do this when he was on earth. Now we follow his example." Matthew 13:23 The seeds that fall on good ground are the people who hear and understand

The Holy Spirit is located in the centre of the painting. It is the Spirit working in all of our communities.

Creating this painting helped to make us strong in the Spirit."

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday Resource Booklet

The 24 page, full colour booklet for 2025 has been designed to help Schools, Parishes and organisations celebrate the gifts of First Australian Catholics.

The NATSICC Liturgy team has compiled prayers, Liturgy suggestions, homily notes and statistics that will enhance and enrich your celebration.

Booklet download - Web Version | Print Ready

Poster

Click on the image (left) to download a high resolution version of the 2025 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday Poster.

Youth Activities

Created in Partnership with Catholic Schools Parramatta, the 2025 Youth activities challenge students to think about the ways in which we are all connected and how we might strengthen those bonds.

A key learning outcome is to identify how even small actions, shared values, and common experiences link us all together, just like a web of string.

2025 NATSICC/ Catholic Schools Parramatta Youth Activity

Multimedia Resources

Virtual Acknowledgment

You can download a virtual Acknowledgment that NATSICC created for use in Parishes and organisations by clicking here. The file size is 111mb.

Didgeridoo Music

As a way of enhancing and enriching your celebrations for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday, NATSICC has engaged with young Catholic, Kuku Yalanji and Yidinji man Luke Stevens to produce a series of Didgeridoo tracks.

The NATSICC Liturgy Resource for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday makes suggestions of hymns that could be used for the Entrance and Communion parts of the Mass replacing the Entrance and Communion Antiphons in the Roman Missal. Each Didgeridoo track has a suggested application – Welcome/Entrance, Preparation of Gifts/Communion reflection and Farewell/After Mass – however we encourage you to use them as per your needs during Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday within your Parish.

An example for using this Didgeridoo music is to have a track playing as welcome music to set the scene when parishioners are arriving and being welcomed into Mass, prior to the entrance procession and Hymn. The Didgeridoo music serves to provide spiritual reflection for parishioners on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday at the following points:

Welcome/before Mass: Entrance Track (2:33mins)

Preparation of Gifts / Communion Reflection: Communion Track #1 (2:45mins) or Communion Track #2 (2:24mins)

Farewell/After Mass (as people are packing up & leaving): Recessional Track (4:43mins)

Extra tracks: Spare #1 (4:06mins) & Spare #2 (4:46mins)

About the Artist

"My name is Luke Stevens and I am a proud Kuku Yalanji and Yidinji man from Cairns, Far North Queensland. As a young Indigenous Catholic man, my faith has taken me on a journey where I have enjoyed finding unique ways to sharing faith with others.

Through using my culturally traditional gifts I have been able to express myself and I love that I have been blessed to share my faith with others"

Torres Strait Islander Hymns

Written and performed by our very own Torres Strait Islands Councillor Dolly McGaughey, these beautiful hymns evoke the spirit of the Islands.

The Roman Catholic Church began its ministries in the Torres Strait when Pope Leo XIII requested that the Sacred Heart Fathers establish a Mission in New Guinea. It was decided among the Fathers that the setting up and servicing of such a Mission would be better facilitated if a site was chosen in the Torres Strait. Parishes are now established at (Sacred Heart) Thursday Island, (Holy Family) Horn island, (St Joseph the Worker's Church) Hammond Island and (St Stephen's) Bamaga.

Hymns

To You Oh Lord (Entrance) | Arrangement
We Bow in Your Name (Communion) | Arrangement
Because he is God (Communion) | Arrangement

Homily Notes

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday falls within the National celebration of NAIDOC Week. A week where we celebrate history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Throughout this week, it is common to hold cultural ceremonies such as Smoking ceremonies and a Welcome to Country. Welcome to Country holds significant cultural importance where visitors are not just welcomed on to Country but in doing so, are offered safe passage, protection both physically and spiritually and asked to respect the Country that is walked on. At the heart of the Welcome to Country is the natural desire for all of us, to always feel welcomed, valued and safe.

In this Sunday’s Gospel from Luke, the disciples are sent forth ahead of Jesus being told to not be weighed down by possessions; to rely upon hospitality; to have no roadside chats but most importantly be prepared for the hostility and rejection ahead. In other words, leaving behind the guarantee of shelter and support, being prepared to walk into places where we may feel neither welcomed nor valued nor safe. All of this is for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

The Gospel is full of imagery and numbers. We are told that Jesus sends out the seventytwo disciples in pairs. Why are these numbers so significant? Travelling in pairs is a reminder that spreading the gospel is relational, it happens between people. To live out discipleship, we need to depend on each other for support, hospitality and kindness. As for the number seventy-two, it is often understood to refer to the nations of the earth.

(Gen 10:2-31) For the Kingdom of God is open to everyone, as St Paul writes, “it does not matter if a person is circumcised or not; what matters is for him (and her) to become an altogether new creature.” (Gal 6:15) A new creation built on encounter and relationship with each other and with Jesus Christ. A newness that brings strength, understanding, hope and builds community. Imagine telling a group of followers (mainly Jewish) that you must lead a radical life of facing homelessness and travelling into a foreign territory where “you must eat and drink what is set before you”. Therefore, a disciple must be open to being vulnerable.

Vulnerability that opens to all of us greater possibilities to encounter the hospitality of God which is at the heart of Luke’s Gospel. Hospitality where God enters our lives and the lives of those around us providing for our needs. Vulnerability is experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities that has both strengthened culture and faith.

Peace be with you…Jesus sends the disciples in peace, a sign of the kingdom. Reflecting Isaiah’s prophecy in the first reading when he speaks of peace, like a son comforted by his mother will I comfort you. For Isaiah, peace is not an absence of hostility or suffering but a place where love consoles, nurtures and protects us forever. It is God’s peace. Words of comfort to a people returning from exile to a ruined Jerusalem, words of comfort to our world that sometimes feels troubled and uncertain.

Jesus continues to invite us as disciples into the hospitality of God, into being bearers of peace sending us forth in strength and hope. What is it that Jesus asks of us today? He asks us not to be too comfortable but rather to be ready to carry what the late Pope Francis wrote - the Joy of the Gospel to everyone we meet. “We should carry it in our minds, carry it in our hearts, carry it on our faces, making sure that it is peace we bring into people’s lives rather than turmoil and division.” Or put simply as William J Thoms once wrote, “Be careful how you live; you will be the only Bible some people ever read.” In this Jubilee Year of hope who are the people around us who most need peace and hope in their lives. Are they in our families, workplaces,

our schools, our communities, our parishes?

Hope encourages us “to look outside ourselves,to embrace authentic beauty, change attitudes that exclude others, overcome life’s challenges with courage, and trust that joy and hope are still possible, even in challenging times.” (Pope Francis, A Gift of Joy and Hope) Hope challenges us to see every day and every person we encounter with Easter eyes and calls us all, to make places where all will feel the hospitality of God, places where we are all made welcome, valued and safe. Lord send us forth in strength and hope.

Fr Darryl Mackie (Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle)

Proud Wiradjuri Man

Former ACM Chaplain Sydney

Our voices on.........

A page that shares NATSICC's points of view on various important topics, including the Environment, the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and more.

Link to page