Pilgrims celebrate Jubilee 2025 in Victoria’s High Country

Fr George Feliciouz could not imagine who would make the trek to Victoria’s High Country to visit St Francis Xavier’s, the Archdiocese’s northernmost Pilgrim Place. But just a couple of weeks in to the Jubilee Year—even before the church had planned to officially open as a pilgrim destination—a family approached him after an evening Mass and introduced themselves as pilgrims from Malacca, Malaysia.

That visit has set the scene for the Mansfield church to welcome Jubilee pilgrims from all over. ‘We’ve even had pilgrims come from Indonesia,’ Fr George says. ‘An Indonesian community from Melbourne came here and brought some people who had come from Indonesia, and then the very next day there were some Indonesians who were visiting overseas places.

‘There’s a pilgrim register, visitor register, in which people write their names, where they’re from. It’s been quite an interesting journey. I never thought that people would come like that.’

St Francis Xavier’s is located on the northern edge of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, bordering on the dioceses of Sale and Sandhurst. It was blessed and opened by the then-Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix on 19 December 1937 and is one of five churches in the Mansfield parish.

‘Six, if you count Mt Buller. It’s not owned by us; it‘s only the canonical jurisdiction,’ Fr George says, referring to the Mt Buller chapel, which is open during the ski season and where Melbourne Archdiocese Vicar General Fr Tony Kerin has been celebrating Mass for more than 30 winters.

While it doesn’t snow in Mansfield—according to Fr George, who concedes it gets very cold anyway—the High Country town is a stunning winter masterpiece. ‘I love being in the country … this is a beautiful town,’ he says. Fr George has been the parish priest for six years, after several years in Melbourne, having originally come to Australia from Kerala, India.

On the weekend before the official opening of the ski season, when visitor numbers are expected to jump, he is busy preparing for the arrival of a busload of pilgrims from Melbourne’s Polish community.

Pilgrims are welcome at any time at St Francis Xavier’s, Fr George says. But the parish has set aside the first Saturday and the first Wednesday of the month for pilgrim activities. ‘The churches of Mansfield get together every first Saturday for a prayer, and pilgrims can join us. At 11.30 on the first Saturday and first Wednesday, pilgrims can make the sacrament of Reconciliation, then we have the Rosary, the Divine Chaplet and Mass.’

The pilgrim bus arrives and Fr George shows Polish community chaplain Fr Mariusz Han around the church, where he will celebrate Mass in Polish.

‘It’s not the first time we celebrate the Mass in a different church,’ Fr Mariusz says, explaining that the group from the Polish Marian Shrine, a fellow Pilgrim Place, regularly goes on pilgrimage and often celebrates Mass in the community’s first language.

They really do take their pilgrimages seriously. One of the group, Barbara, says she has contacted every Pilgrim Place in the Archdiocese to check they can accommodate the group of 50–60 people.

‘Fr Mariusz is only here for five years in Australia and I’ve been here for a long time, so I know how to do things and I just help him,’ Barbara says. ‘I called the priest here, Fr George, to ask him when we can come, when it’s suitable for him. I ask him, “Can we say a Mass in Polish?” He is very friendly, Fr George. He said, “No problem.”

‘We don’t have a Mass in every church. In some churches, we just go and have our prayer and then we socialise together. We have coffee or something.’

A couple taking part in the pilgrimage, Grazynka and Marcin, describe the group’s outings as creating ‘special bonds’ between members as they get to know each other. ‘You look after each other and it’s really beautiful because then you come back to the Sunday Mass and people smile to each other, they start conversations.’

Going on pilgrimage also reminds them of their home country, Poland, which they left around 30 years ago.

‘I used to walk on pilgrimage like for 11 days, quite a few times,’ Grazynka says.

‘Back home in Częstochowa, where the Black Madonna is, everybody is walking [to the shrine].’

It’s not exactly the same, but Marcin says there are reminders: ‘There’s a Mass. We pray. We sing songs together.’

‘I think especially this year, the Jubilee Year, it’s going to put the community even closer together,’ says Grazynka. ‘And we need that nowadays. Everybody is sort of in their own homes and people aren’t talking to each other as much and don’t know about each other.’

After a pilgrimage, she says, ‘when you pray for people within your community, you can sort of put the faces in your mind to their names.’

Fr George says the beauty of the Jubilee Year is that it represents an opening up to different cultures and ideas.

‘I think that’s the mentality the Church needs to have,’ he says. ‘And I think that’s where the popes have been trying to lead us—Pope Francis and now Pope Leo as well.

‘I personally try to try to learn how others live and what others think, and what others believe as well. I think the year of the Jubilee could be a year to ponder on the hope that people all learn to understand each other.’