Archbishop Jensen on the 225th Anniversary of Australia’s first Christian service

Posted on February 5, 2013 
Filed under History, Sydney Diocese

Archbishop Peter JensenHere’s Archbishop Peter Jensen’s sermon given at St. Philip’s York Street on February 3rd 2013. It was the 225th Anniversary of the first sermon preached in the Colony of New South Wales, by the Rev Richard Johnson.

“Today we have little concept of the difficulties and dangers through which the First Fleet passed in order to deliver its cargo to these shores. Its arrival here was a masterpiece of organisation, skill and courage.

Given the ubiquity of modern communications, we can scarcely imagine what it was like to travel so far with little chance of report or cry for help. We forget how rarely European ships had passed this way and how uncharted the sea was. We can scarcely conceive how frail their ships were, how powerful the forces of nature that imperilled them, how lacking in the technical instruments by which the path may be found and the course traversed in safety.

I think we may say that in truth the voyage of the First Fleet was one of the greatest feats of seamanship in recorded history. …”

– Read it all at SydneyAnglicans.net.