The Legend of "Marjorie's Bird"

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WITH bare feet and a Blessed Virgin T-shirt, Tiwi Islander Marjorie Liddy is preparing to touch the hand of the Pope.

She may live on an island along one of the most isolated stretches of Australia's coastline, but the Vatican knows all about Liddy.

Brought up by Catholic nuns on Melville Island, she is the woman behind Marjorie's Bird, a painting Australian bishops believe shows the indigenous image of God visited upon a Tiwi mother of 12 who had never painted before.

It is not quite Our Lady of Fatima, and Liddy is a long way from beatification, but the legend of Marjorie's Bird has swept the Catholic Church in Australia, which has adopted the symbol as the main image of World Youth Day.

Cardinals and bishops from around the world will wear Marjorie's Bird on the back of their earthy-red chasubles, the outer garment of their vestments, and the Pope will stand under the image on the sanctuary surrounding the altar at Randwick before hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.

Whether the vestments of the Pope will contain the image of Marjorie's Bird is the "million-dollar question", World Youth Day organisers say.

Liddy, who lives at Condor Point on Melville Island, three hours' drive through eucalypt and cyprus forest from the closest airstrip, is awestruck that the image of the bird with the golden aura that she saw above her island under a dry-season sky four years ago has attracted the attention of the Vatican.

Liddy will be one of a number of indigenous women who will form a guard of honour for the Pope in Sydney on Thursday, and she has a letter from Cardinal George Pell naming her as a World Youth Day VIP.

"When I first heard that on the island, I just grabbed a handful of dirt, threw it all over myself," she said. "I felt unworthy."

The Tiwi woman says she was touched by God after a day out fishing in the Timor Sea with her son. Under a full moon, close to 9pm on August 30, 2004, Liddy caught her son staring at the sky.

"My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets," she said. "There was a big painting of a bird in the sky, all done in dots. He had a yellow halo across his head. His wings touched from one end of the horizon to the other, just covered the whole sky."

Filled with joy, Liddy began to dance and sing a Tiwi Catholic hymn.

"My son was staring at me, looking at me like I was going nuts," she said.

"I said: 'Son, can you see what I can see?' He told me: 'A bird, Mum.'

"I said: 'That's the Holy Spirit.' And when I said that, that halo burst. Sparkles of gold like I had never seen in my life were just falling on the earth."

The Australian Catholic Church's director of evangelisation, Steve Lawrence, said he had received a strong indication that "the papal household is very happy" that Marjorie's Bird will adorn senior church figures' vestments.

But Mr Lawrence said it did not indicate the Vatican officially endorsed Liddy's vision, describing it as a "private revelation". Mr Lawrence, who has met Liddy, said he believed she had seen the enormous bird in the sky. "She's the genuine article, in my opinion," he said.

Darwin's recently retired bishop, Ted Collins, has no doubt the quiet, gentle woman he has known for almost 40 years saw an indigenous image of the Holy Spirit. "Marjorie is a lady that has been very close to God, and I believed her," Mr Collins said.

Liddy is one of hundreds of Aborigines brought up in missions, which multiplied across the Northern Territory from the mid-1930s. Many former missions retain strong connections to the Catholic Church. The late pope John Paul II visited Aborigines in Alice Springs during his 1986 tour of Australia, saying the church would be incomplete without the involvement of indigenous people.

Of 450 pilgrims travelling to Sydney from the Territory, 183 are Aboriginal. Poor families have raised up to $3000 to send their children to World Youth Day - the first time many had saved such a large sum.

Older people from communities such as Wadeye and Daly River, and the Tiwi Islands elders, have blended their traditional spirituality and dreamtime stories with their Catholic faith.

"Most Aboriginals feel the spirit in the bush," Liddy said.

"The Holy Spirit, the spirit of the land, it is the same. It's in the land for everybody. It is not just for us." The Australian - - - (HatTip to Rocco of Whispers)