The Prayer of the Church will continue this Wednesday in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church at 7pm and continue weekly. It is an opportunity to pray the “Prayer of the Church” which includes Psalms. and readings from the Bible.
This is the official prayer of the universal Church.
All are welcome.

The Emmaus Charismatic Prayer Group meets at St. Anne’s Church at 10.15am on Thursdays.
All welcome, including children.
For further info/transport please contact Lambert & Elaine van der Weerden on 9744 4029.

The Emmaus Charismatic Prayer Group will not meet on Holy Thursday.
Meetings will resume on Thursday April 12 at St. Anne’s Church at 10.15am.
All welcome, including children.
For further info/ transport please contact Lambert & Elaine van der Weerden on 9744 4029.

Please note that there is a $10 fee for this talk (pensioners and students as you can afford)

First  Friday  Adoration at St Anne’s Church 7-8pm resuming after Easter on 4th May

First  Friday  evening of the month St Anne’s Church 7-8pm.

“This Promise is for You,” a six week seminar on the life changing work of the Holy Spirit, will be held at  St Anne’s Church Sunbury on Thursday evenings at 7.30 pm commencing on February 23rd.  Topics covered include:- The Certainty of God’s Love, Freedom In Jesus, The Power of the Holy Spirit, The Spiritual Gifts or Charisms, Fullness of Life & Empowered to Serve. For further information and registration please contact Lambert & Elaine van der Weerden Ph. 9744 4029 or a member of the Emmaus Charismatic Prayer Group.

The  Rosary is prayed every Saturday morning at 9am in St Anne’s Church. All Welcome.

Reflection on the Gospel-1st Sunday of Lent Year C
Veronica M. Lawson RSM

(Luke 4:1-11)

Lent is a time for personal as well as group reflection, a time for entering into the ‘wilderness’ or ‘deserted place’ and grappling with the mysteries of life. While deserts are often depicted as uninhabited or desolate regions, anyone who has spent time in such places knows that the desert supports a rich diversity of other-than-human life. Human retreat to the wilderness can be an opportunity to encounter God in the unfamiliar and self in relation to the other-than human.  It can reveal to us our capacities for right relationship with God, with each other, and with the Earth. Right relationship resides in ‘power-with’ rather than ‘power-over’.

In Israel’s story, the wilderness is the place of testing for God’s people: ‘Remember the long way that your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness… testing you to know what was in your heart’ (Deut 8:2). Jesus is ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ and, like so many human beings before and since, is ‘led by the Spirit’ into the wilderness to be ‘tested’ there. [‘Tested’ is a more accurate translation of the Greek peirazein than the usual ‘tempted].

The three-fold testing of Jesus in the wilderness is about the proper exercise of power and about trust in a loving God. In refusing to turn the stones of the wilderness into bread in order to satisfy his own hunger, Jesus demonstrates that he is not prepared to exercise power over the other-than-human Earth, even if he had the capacity to work such magic. By refusing to accept the ‘glory of all the kingdoms of the world’, he shows that power over the human communities of the Earth is not ‘of God’, and that worship belongs to God alone. Finally, in refusing to cast himself from the parapet of Israel’s holiest shrine, the Jerusalem Temple, he makes it clear that he is not prepared to test the power of God to rescue him from a self-inflicted death or to use God’s holy place to such ends. The Lukan Jesus passes the tests that the people Israel failed in the wilderness of Sinai.

Adelaide priest, Michael Trainor, in a wonderfully sensitive reading of Luke’s gospel, detects three ecological ethical principles in today’s gospel reading: 1) Earth is to be cared for and treated respectfully, not ravaged through greed; 2) All ecological and environmental engagement is grounded in and enhanced by one’s communion with God; and 3) Earth’s resources are to be respected by all and not usurped as a means of power and control by one over another. These principles derive from the story as a whole with its three-fold testing and from Jesus’ three-fold response to the tests

“THIS PROMISE IS FOR YOU”

This is a six week seminar on the life changing work of the Holy Spirit, will be held at St Anne’s church on the evenings at 7.30pm commencing on February 23.
Topics covered include: The Certainty of God’s Love, Freedom in Jesus, The Power of the Holy Spirit, The Spiritual Gifts of Charisms, Fullness of Life and Empowered to Serve.

For registration please contact a Sunbury Emmaus Prayer Group member or phone 9744 4029.

At the Ash Wednesday Eucharist we are signed with the cross of ash.
At the beginning of Lent “we stand at a cross road and are given an opportunity to re-assess the direction of our lives” (Towards the Light)

As a Parish we intend to have a weekly Lenten reflection, a choice of one of three sessions:
Tuesday 7.30-8.15pm      OLMC Church
Sunday  9.40-10.30am    St Anne’s
Sunday  4.45-5.30pm      OLMC Church

Everyone is welcome to register so as enough resources can be ordered.
Also, we are looking for 3 leaders (we will arrange training) to run the sessions.
If you are able to assist, please contact the Parish Office on 9744 1060.

The Emmaus Charismatic Prayer Group will resume meeting at St. Anne’s Church at 10.15am on Thursday February 2nd.
All welcome including children.
For further info/transport please contact Lambert & Elaine van der Weerden on 9744 4029.

Held at St Anne’s Church on Friday 2 December from 7-8pm.