Harmony Week in Australia is a weeklong celebration that coincides with the United Nation’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD) on March 21st, 2025. Harmony week is full of festivities with school assemblies, national costume days, morning teas, concerts, and fairs across schools, businesses, community groups, and federal, state, and local government agencies.
At the center of this national observance is the chance to acknowledge the rich cultural diversity that allows people from different ethnic backgrounds to co-exist in harmony with one another as Australians. From our indigenous first peoples to the most recent arrivals, Harmony Day is a time to celebrate the values of freedom, respect, fairness, and opportunity for all.
- More than half (51.5 per cent) of Australian residents were born overseas or have at least one parent who was.
- Since 1945, more than 7.6 million people have migrated to Australia.
- Nearly every single country from around the world was represented in Australia's population in 2020.
- More than 150 Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander languages are spoken in Australia
- Apart from English, the most common languages spoken in Australia are Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Punjabi.
- There are over 300 ancestries identified in Australia.
While Harmony Day is not celebrated within the Catholic Church as such, it does embed Christian values of “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matt 22:39) and “inviting or welcoming the stranger who thirsts and hungers” (Matt 25:35).
Reflecting this for the Columban Fathers is the priority on “Migrants and Refugees” from its 2024 Acts of the General Assembly where every Catholic is invited to be humble and vulnerable in spirit so as to empathize with people who are new to the country, whether that be by choice or circumstance.
The Assembly stated,
“We are enriched by and celebrate the many contributions that people on the move make to their host countries and communities.
In the context of Interreligious Dialogue, we see and feel the urgent needs of vulnerable people who are fleeing conflict, poverty, environmental destruction, and are denied their basic human rights.
We affirm and recommit to our tradition and experience of working with people on the move globally and within national borders.”
The movement of people across borders is a tale as old as time and for Australia this has meant the interwovenness of cultures, traditions, religions, languages, and food. For many who now call Australia home, their experience of migration evokes the emotion of joy and gratitude after overcoming challenges to get here.
The sacrifice of loving parents helped Fr. Tien courageously cross borders with his siblings
This was the case for Columban Father Nguyen Xuan Tien (A migrant journey from Vietnam to Columban priesthood), who migrated to Australia in the 80s after the Vietnam War. A young man barely out of his teen years, he experienced sickness, hunger, and the responsibility of being “carer and provider” for three younger siblings in a refugee camp. Yet thankfully for Fr. Tien, he was to find relief and joy when they all arrived safely in Australia.
Fr. Tien would go on to complete three years of secondary school as a mature-aged student before entering the seminary and being ordained as a Columban Missionary Priest on the 24th of June 1995. He now resides in Japan as a Parish priest looking after three parishes in Tokyo, demonstrating the result of divine providence in his early life which has trained him to now care for Catholic congregations abroad.
Harmony Day celebrates the freedom, respect, fairness, opportunities, and safety that are available to everyone who gets to call Australia home. This day should also be a reminder to all Catholics that welcoming migrants is akin to welcoming Jesus himself, who similarly to Fr. Tien’s arrival in Australia, crossed borders under the care of his family to find refuge in Egypt (Matt 2:13).
“… for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…” Matt 25:35 (NRSVCE)
Adi Mariana Waqa is the Partnership Coordinator at the Columban Mission Centre in Essendon.
