The Santa Teresa community in Central Australia celebrated its feast day – the feast of St Therese of Lisieux - recently in true Aussie fashion, by hosting a race meeting which attracted people from right around the local outback area.

The Santa Teresa Races are a fixture on the outback racing calendar and they are part of a weekend of celebrations for the feast day of the community’s patron saint.

Parish Priest, Fr Prakash Menezes SVD says people came from not only Santa Teresa, but also other communities at Hermannsburg, Wallace Rockhole and Walkabout Bore.

“The people look forward to it out here,” Fr Prakash says. “One of the beautiful things about it is that all the families come from all around and camp out around the race course, so it’s a great social gathering.

“Apart from the races there are different activities for the women and kids, including foot races, rolling the swag, horse riding, etc.”

Mass was celebrated on the Sunday, with a cutting of the cake by local community members, and a morning tea.“St Therese is a prominent part of the weekend’s activities,” Fr Prakash says. “The race day program had a picture of her on it and we were talking about the feast all the time, promoting it from the Church point of view, so it was a good opportunity for evangelisation.”

“St Therese is part of who we are as a Catholic community here at Santa Teresa.”

“For the people here she makes a lot of sense. She was a young girl, who struggled with sickness, but she talked about love and doing things in her own little way and that strikes a note with a lot of people here.”