Glimmers of sacramentality in early colonial Australia

Sacramentality plays an important role in Christian theology, arguing that objects and sacramental means mediate divine grace. This article argues that despite the prevailing evangelical thinking amongst the first Christian clergy in early colonial Australia, there were nonetheless some glimmers of sacramentality apparent. The first Anglican Eucharist celebrated in Australia suggests that for at least one of the participants, material objects were of great spiritual significance even though the religious practices of the Church of England that came with the First Fleet was substantially that of evangelicalism. The deficit theology of evangelicalism is explored in the work of the first Church of England Chaplain, the Rev’d Richard Johnson, with some comparison to the abundance of the divine in the creation and in the spirituality of local Aboriginal people. The realisations of one young white marine officer, William Dawes, suggest that he caught a glimmer of sacramentality as he interacted with this strange land and its native people. The enchantment of sacramentality is counter posed with the more recent thinking of Otto and Husserl as a lens to examine the place of the holy in early colonial Australia, especially in Dawes’ relationship with a young Aboriginal woman, Patyegarang, and other Aboriginal people. Dawes’s Notebooks give tantalising glimmers of sacramentality in early colonial Australia related to the presence of the divine in creation and in relationships. The article speculatively points to the secret of the eternal in the enchantment of sacramentality, hinted at by Dawes in his Notebooks and his relationship with his Aboriginal friend Patyegarang. The interaction of white people and Aboriginal are highlighted as an example of intercultural relations in earlycolonial Australia with implications for the enchantment of sacramentality.