I have a vivid and decades-old memory of this day: the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians.

It is of a plain parish school hall with bare floorboards and hard seats. A whole school of primary children heave to their collective feet, enthusiastically billowing out little flowers of visible breath and anticipation.

Despite the cold knees of thin school uniforms and the impending Melbourne winter, our Faithful Companions of Jesus sister props up the Living Parish Hymnal at the piano and the hall resounds with “Help of Christians, Guard this Land” – a genuinely Australian-born and bred petition to the Mother of God.

Music and singing regularly warmed our weeks at our school, but the vigorous and poetic hymns of that crimson hymnal were popular, particularly with the boys. They simply roared out hymns such as “Hail Redeemer” and “By Your Kingly Power O Risen Lord”.

The striking and in places dire Christological theo-dramatics of James McAuley’s verse and rousing 4/4 march of Richard Connolly’s “Camilla” were not lost on the children of those days:

    Help of Christians, guard this land
    From assault or inward stain;
    Let it be what Christ has planned
    His new Eden where you reign.

As far as I can see, this hymn was one of the first collaborations between the great poet, jazz pianist, literary critic, lecturer and Quadrant magazine founding editor James McAuley (1917-76) and composer/broadcaster Richard Connolly (1927-2022). They were both Sydney-born men whose cultural insights touched the whole church in Australia. Together the duo wrote some of the most vigorous and antipodean-orientated church music of our short history and it bore fruit in the collection, Hymns for the Year of Grace.

“Help of Christians” became an important title for the Virgin Mary in Australia but has roots in the gratitude of two Popes Pius – the first being the Dominican Pope Saint Pius V who inserted the title into the Litany of Loreto in 1571, in thanks for the victory of the Christians against the Ottomans (and against all odds) at Lepanto. The confirmation of that title came with the Benedictine Pope Pius VII’s creation of today’s feast day in 1815 in gratitude for his survival of a five-year imprisonment by Napoleon. The title has even more ancient roots.

In Australia it was the pioneer Benedictine John Bede Polding OSB (1794-1877), the eventual Archbishop, who oversaw the first Provincial Synod of Australasian Bishops in Sydney during 1844 and encouraged the dedication of country to the “Help of Christians”.

Bede Polding, who was a tireless and compassionate missionary across the very unruly, knotty and often brutal experiences of the penal colony, knew more than most public figures of the importance of contemplation and Marian protection in the midst of Christian struggle. His attempts at founding St Mary’s in Sydney as a monastic base for the growth of Christian faith was inspired but short-lived.

The "Help of Christians" hymn had an additional life in B.A. Santamaria’s Movement. Due to Santamaria’s closeness and empathy with McAuley’s vision and the hope-rousing hymn itself, it became an anthem for those involved in the oft-beleaguered vocation of social activism and commentary.

Today the hymn has a renewed significance. Some students’ groups and pilgrims have recovered the hymn and among them it is sung as lustily as it was at my primary school (though joined by the baritones and basses missing in my day). There are times when the irrational and violent seep out in our world: “And our peace be trampled down” and “In that night of blood and lies” seems too near to reality.

Humbly and with some of Bede Polding’s warm desire for wisdom and generous communities, we at the Thomas More Centre wish all Christians and people of like-mind the fruit of this insight:

    Teach us that in Christ your Son
    Lies the wisdom to be free;
    For the Cross which we would shun
    Is man’s Tree of Liberty.


YPAT 2024

Applications are still open for YPAT 2024! Launched in 2009 by the TMC, YPAT is an immersive retreat exploring politics and society. With over 250 alumni, we invite 18-30 year olds to apply for the upcoming winter intensive, which will be held from June 25 to July 1 in Sydney. Spend a week making friends and learning how to work and live for the common good.

Please consider sponsoring a young person to attend YPAT this year.


Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us!

Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre