International Womens Day is celebrated this Sunday on 4 March and is a time to connect with all women around the world. It is also a time to consider the women who have impacted our lives and hold up in prayer those we have never met. It is an opportunity to share inspiring visions of women flourishing and achieving their full potential as people of God; to offer encouragement and hope in facing the rocky paths yet to be trod.

Working Bee on Saturday 3 March starting at 9 til 12.00. Our work will concentrate on the grounds around St Anne’s Church and the Parish Centre. Please bring weeding gear, wheelbarrows, shovels, whipper snippers, etc. All welcome, help make St Anne’s look like the Garden of Eden.

Next Sunday 4 March after 8.30am Mass will be hosted by the Old Town Neighbourhood. Please bring a plate to share and join in for a cuppa and a chat.

Friday 2 March, at St Anne’s Church over 3 million people worldwide will take part in the World Day of Prayer Service, which this year has been prepared by the Christian women of Malaysia with the theme “Let justice prevail.” The Sunbury Chorale will lead the singing. Prayer booklets will be available. As James prayed;:”Father may they all be one… so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21) “Prayer  is  common  to  the  should  of  the  whole  ceremonial  movement.” (Catholic Catechism No 821) As the host Church this year, a large representation of our parishioners would be a sign of our hospitality.

Founded in 1887, this international Order of Service is translated into more than sixty languages and 1000 dialects in 176 countries and islands. In Australia, nearly 100000 people are expected to participate in over 1300 Services to be held in Churches, Centres, Schools and Nursing Homes.

In Sunbury, the service will be held at St Anne’s Church on Friday 2 March at 7.30pm with supper to follow. All parishioners are invited to join our sisters and brothers from other Christian Churches in this special service.
A plate of supper to share after the service would be much appreciated.

CHA represents 75 hospitals and 550 residential aged care services operated by the Catholic Church Australia’s largest non-profit provider of health services.
CHA is urging more funds for health care.

Goonawarra Nursing Home, Sunbury. Friday 2 March 2.30-315pm.
Please come along and help entertain the residents.

We all do things to enhance our lives;  Fitness programs and diets to improve our health ; Professional Development programs to improve our job skills.
We offer you  an opportunity for married couples to give a wonderful gift to your children by enhancing your marriage through a Marriage Encounter weekend.
Take a look at our website on http://www.wwme.org.au
Our weekends in 2012 are:  20-22 April, 15-17 June, 10-12 Aug and 12-14 Oct.
For info and bookings contact Marianne & Marcel Van den Bronk (03)9733 0997 or Email   vicbookings@wwme.org.au

In the past our community has given generously to Catholiccare. Our community has access to the services provided by this wonderful organisation through the outreach program.
It is run through the Sunbury Community Health Service and the hours of operation are: Mon, Tues, Thurs 9-5; Wed 11.30am-7pm.
Services provided range from individual, couple and family counselling, stress management, grief and loss, pain management and parenting.
Please contact 9744 4455 to arrange an appointment if you need to use this service.

Appointed by the Pope is Bishop Timothy Costelloe, our Northern Regional Bishop from 17 March. We thank him for his visits over the past five years especially to parents as they prepared for the Confirmation of their children and for consecrating our altar in 2009.
Father Martin Ashe has been appointed Episcopal Vicar of our Region. Father Martin will do some of the 82 Confirmations in this Region, attend fortnightly Curia meetings and a point of reference for the next year or so until a new auxiliary bishop is appointed. Fr Martin will continue as Parish Priest of Mernda-Whittlesea-Kinglake. Let us keep him in our prayers as he generously has accepted this new ministry.

All are invited to join in every Thursday morning at 9am outside the Administration Office of St Anne’s Primary School.
Get fit and have fun at the same time.
All welcome.

In this week’s reading, “the Spirit” sends Jesus into the wilderness for forty days to fast and pray. He is tempted by the devil to focus on his own needs, to seek proof of His Father’s love and protection, and to pursue wealth and power. Jesus resists these temptations and is strengthened for the mission for which he is preparing– a mission of justice and peace.
Lent is our “wilderness experience”. We can allow the Spirit to lead us to where we can reflect, pray and renew our strength.
This week’s Project Compassion story shares the experiences of Flabiana and her family, who were forced, like many others, to leave their home and seek refuge in the mountains after ongoing conflict and violence in Timor Leste. They were left with nothing and, when they returned, were faced with the task of rebuilding.
Through a program supported by Caritas Australia they are now learning new skills, transforming their lives and building a future which they hope will be prosperous and peaceful because, in the words of Blessed Pope John Paul II, “Peace is essential for development.”
Our mission is for justice and peace too. This connects us to the people of Timor Leste. We can choose to support them as they rebuild their lives. We can choose to be their partners in the process of renewal. We can choose to work for justice– the path to peace.

Click on the image below to go to the Caritas website.

Pope Benedict has appointed Melbourne auxiliary bishop Tim Costelloe the new Archbishop of Perth, reports The Age.
The Melbourne-born member of the Salesian order, who has been a bishop fewer than five years, replaces Archbishop Barry Hickey as one of Australia’s seven archbishops.
Archbishop-elect Costelloe, 58, who was ordained in Melbourne in 1986, is also an adjunct professor at the Australian Catholic University and serves on two Australian Catholic Bishops Conference committees – education, and doctrine and morals. He spent four years in Perth in the 1990s.
In a statement, Archbishop Philip Wilson called the appointment good news not only for the people of Perth, but for the Church in Australia. “Bishop Timothy Costelloe is a gifted, highly intelligent pastor who has shown consistent leadership in Melbourne where he has been an Auxiliary Bishop over the past five years”, he said.
“He is a very insightful person who has an excellent pastoral manner and a keen intellect”, he said.
In response to his appointment, Archbishop-elect Costelloe said he admires the
“commitment and strong sense of solidarity among the clergy of the Archdiocese” in Perth.
“I hope that I will be able to foster this spirit of mutual respect and cooperation in my new role as archbishop. I came, too, to value the vibrancy of the faith of the Catholic people of the Archdiocese. We are a very multi-cultural society and, consequently, a very multi-cultural Church. This is a source of strength and hope for us all.”

Morning tea will be co-hosted today by the Youth Group and the Parish and School Leaders. All are welcome to share a cuppa.

This Sunday at 10.30am Mass, teachers, staff, catechists and pastoral associates, together with student leaders will be commissioned in the important mission of bearing witness to the Gospel as they continue their work in 2012. Today’s ceremony focuses on 50th Anniversary of Vatican II.

Workshop available on Friday 2 March from 10.15 to 12.30 at Thomas Carr Centre, 278 Victoria Pde, East Melbourne. Please call 9267 0228 for bookings.

MacKillop Young Adult Community (MacYAC) invites young adults to come & visit significant sites in the life of our first Australian saint here in Melbourne. Meet at St. Francis Church, Cnr. Elizabeth & Lonsdale Streets, Melbourne at 2pm on Saturday, 25th February- visit the birthsite, Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre and the site of the First Providence.
Come and be inspired by the person of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop – Australia’s First Saint in her home town.
If you can’t make it this month, the walks are held on the fourth Saturday of each month.
For bookings phone:  9926 9300 or macyac@sosj.org.au
MacKillop Young Adult Community (MacYAC) – a ministry of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart of the Victorian Province.

Liturgy Lines

(Liturgy Lines are short 500-word essays on liturgical topics written by Elizabeth Harrington, The Liturgical Commission’s education officer. They have been published every week in The Catholic Leader [Brisbane] since 1999. They may be reproduced by parishes for private non-commercial use, provided that the copyright line is retaineDate – 12/02/2012

Communion in the Hand

Last week a priest emailed me this question: “Many conservative young people are telling me that the pope now wants people to receive communion on the tongue only – did I miss something with the new translation?”

I had only just emailed my reply (below), when I read about two Australian priests conducting an online petition calling on Pope Benedict to eliminate receiving the Eucharist in the hand because it “inflicts great spiritual harm on the Catholic faithful”.

This push for receiving communion on the tongue has nothing to do with the implementation of the revised Roman Missal, which involves a change in wording only. The “General Instruction of the Roman Missal” # 161 makes it quite clear that the choice of how to receive communion is the communicant’s. No minister may dictate whether communicants receive in the hand or on the tongue.

Receiving communion on the tongue when the majority receive in the hand disrupts the unity that uniformity of posture and practice at Communion symbolises and builds. It is awkward for ministers to give communion on the tongue to people who are standing, which is the recommended posture for communion in Australia, and it is unhygienic because it is difficult for ministers to avoid passing saliva on to other communicants.

Historical accounts make it quite clear that communion was received in the hand in the early Church.  In the middle of the fourth century Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem gave this instruction to those who were about to join the church: “When you come forward for communion, do not draw near with your hands wide open or with fingers spread apart; instead, with you left hand make a throne for the right hand, which will receive the King.  Receive the body of Christ in the hollow of your hand and give the response: Amen.”  It was only later that over-emphasis on Christ’s divinity and on human sinfulness led to a ban on people receiving communion in the hand. In fact, people seldom received communion at all.

We now understand that Christ is present in several special ways at Mass apart from in the consecrated elements, for example in the assembly which gathers. We “touch” Christ in these other manifestations, so it would be inconsistent not to be able to take Christ under the form of bread in our hands. The bread which becomes the body of Christ is described in the liturgical texts as “work of human hands”. There is nothing unworthy about our hands. After all, we use them to do Christ’s work. As St Teresa said, “Christ has no other hands but yours”.

If, as claimed, “a disturbing number” of communicants do not know how to receive Communion reverently, the best response is to provide formation about the meaning of this sacred action and the appropriate way to participate in it.

The proponents of the petition cite rumours of people taking consecrated hosts to use at “Black Masses” or of visitors at big events at the Vatican slipping consecrated hosts into wallets to keep as souvenirs. It hardly seems appropriate, however, to make rules for the universal Church based on unsubstantiated stories of aberrant behaviour by a few individuals.

copyright: The Liturgical Commission

Monday 13 February 2012 marks the first anniversary of a significant moment in the history of Australia. The Aboriginal Catholic Ministry remember the apology from former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who apologised to the Aboriginal people for the “Children of the Stolen Generation”- a very sad part of our Australian History. We remember this day, and pray that as we move forward as a nation, that we learn from the mistakes of our past and remember the dignity of all families and all people.

Last Wednesday, 600 people took part in his funeral at St James the Apostle, Greensborough North, including five bishops and seventy priests. The singing by all the people was wonderful. His family described the funeral as “Magnificent”.

I thank you for your expressions of sympathy in the loss of my best friend of nearly
50 years. His parents became friends of my parents.
…Fr Kevin McIntosh

Christian families in Bethlehem are supported by making and selling items of a religious nature made from olive wood.
At Masses on 4/5 February and 11/12 February there will be a sale of items priced from $5 to $150.00.