This annually continuous event since its 1988 foundation will occur on the actual anniversary of this Conventual Franciscan friar’s death:

Sunday, 17th February, 2019 at 8am.

VENUE: verandah of the Laperouse Museum

Mass in the traditional Latin rite of the Catholic Church that was used at Botany by the two priests of the Laperouse Expedition at Botany in early 1788.

The only Mass rite known to St. Francis of Assisi (ca.1181-1265) and to the two French priests of the Laperouse Expedition and to all the Catholic clergy of the Roman Rite in 1788. The first two Masses were celebrated either on the day of the expedition’s arrival, Saturday 26th January, 1788 ,the feast of St. Polycarp or the next day which was Sexagesima. .Under the 1765 royal Ordonnance de la Marine, which specified the duties of all types of French naval personnel,,chaplains in the royal navy were obliged to say Mass on Sundays and feast days without exception unless bad weather prevented it and on other days as often as possible. Here was the mandate for the introduction of the Mass to Australia in early 1788 which continued what had occurred throughout the Laperouse voyage aboard the two French frigates.

The two priests did not concelebrate as concelebration of Mass by two or more priests did not exist in the 18th century on land or at sea.

The Mass was introduced to Australia by two French scientific savants, a Conventual friar, whose death occasioned a Requiem Mass by his brother priest ,a canon of Ste. Genevieve in Paris and the Latin Office of the Dead which was mandatory at the funerals of naval personnel.

AMDG

Frank Carleton, Convenor, PERE RECEVEUR COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE

In the current issue of The Great Circle:Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History (volume 41 no.1 2019) appears my article ‘The First Masses in Australia at Botany Bay in early 1788’ (pp. 81-95). The article details and corrects egregious errors about the type and incidence of Masses during the Botany Bay tenure of the Laperouse Expedition.