The Little Flower has got her mojo back. After many humdrum years, St Therese’s parish in Lakemba celebrated her feast day last weekend (28 September) with a vibrantly multicultural parish Mass and fete.
It was also the 90th anniversary of the church, dedicated to the 19th century Carmelite, St Thérèse of Lisieux, in 1935.
The new parish administrator, Fr Paul Van Chi, told The Catholic Weekly that the day’s festivities symbolised the revitalisation of his parish.
He was delighted to see the food stalls, the face-painting, the jumping castle, the hair-braiding, the three-point basketball competition, the raffle for a signed Bulldogs jersey, and all the cheerful hurly-burly of a local fete on a bright and sunny Sunday.
The day marked an inflection point in the parish’s long history. As well as serving the local community, St Thérèse will now be a base for Sydney’s Vietnamese chaplaincy. The church is being renovated; the presbytery is being refurbished; the church grounds are being spruced up.
The president of the parish council, Edward Vinod, who is originally from India but has lived in Lakemba for decades, said that he was delighted to see how smooth the transition has been.
The parish has a proud link with Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP. He was baptised there in 1960 and attended the parish school in 1965 and 1966. To help commemorate the centenary of the school next year, in 2026, he will be paying a return visit to celebrate Mass.
The parish and the school reflect the highly diverse demography of Lakemba, which has more than a hundred nationalities.
In the parish and the school are people from Lebanon, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Nepal, Sudan, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, the Cook Islands – and even a few Tasmanians, joked school principal Kelley Conlan.
In the minds of most Sydneysiders, Lakemba is best known for its imposing mosque, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from St Thérèse’s church.
The suburb is around 60 per cent Muslim, mostly people from Lebanese and Bangladeshi backgrounds – 50,000 people flocked there every night during Ramadan for its famous food and feasting. But there is no friction, says Vinod. A few Muslim children even attend St Thérèse’s primary school.
The parishioners are looking forward to a more vibrant profile in the local community, even if they live in the shadow of Australia’s biggest mosque.
The head of the Vietnamese community in Lakemba, Ngoc Sinh Nguyen, said that he has lived there more than 30 years and watched the Catholic presence slowly fade. Now he’s enthusiastic about the future.
Andre Abouharb was managing a stall for his company Catholic Apparel at the fete. He told The Catholic Weekly that he had been baptised in St Thérèse’s in 1977 and went to school there.
He reflected that Lakemba had changed rapidly as Lebanese Maronite families moved out and Muslim households moved in. He is delighted with the new direction for the parish.
“It’s a brilliant thing to have the Vietnamese represent this area,” he said, “because the Vietnamese Catholics, much like the Maronites, were persecuted in their country. They’re designed for battle; they’re designed for toughness; they’re designed for challenges.”
