Welcome to our parish to speak to us all on Stewardship. Fr. Peter is parish priest of Cheltenham, chairperson of the Retired Priests’ Foundation and lecturer at Catholic Theological College. We are grateful for all the time and effort he has put into our Stewardship Renewal.
Today, the second Sunday of Lent, our Catechumens, Candidates, their sponsors and families together with the RCIA team will join hundreds of others at the Rite of Election at St Patrick’s Cathedral at 2.30pm. The Candidates and Catechumens are presented on our behalf by their sponsors to the Archbishop and reaffirm their commitment to becoming members of our Catholic community. It is a very moving ceremony which marks the beginning of an intense period of preparation for those who will be received into the Church for the first time at the Easter Vigil. If anyone is interested in attending this inspirational ceremony, you will be most welcome. Contact Jo Wiegerink on 9744 5788 to arrange transport.
Meet at St Francis Church, cnr. Elizabeth & Lonsdale Streets, Melbourne at 2.00pm on Sat 26 March. Bookings: 9926 9300 or macyac@sosj.org.au Further info. on noticeboard.
Lord, we thank you for your unconditional love which we celebrate in the Eucharist.
During this time of preparation, enable these children to discover more and more the gift of your love for them in the Eucharist.
Draw them and all of your family ever closer to you and to each other as we meet around your table.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
Last Tuesday night Stephen Littleton was a guest of our parish to launch the Stewardship Program. We started with a welcome from Fr Kevin who led us in the Stewardship Prayer. Stephen Littleton then took over and summarised Christian Stewardship. He said it is primarily a personal call to renew ourselves, a call to holiness, worship, and action. Having renewed ourselves over the years it may be easier to visualise as refreshing ourselves through our prayers, our efforts, and our sharing, in love, of ourselves with others. I see Stewardship as carrying on with that which Jesus asked of us when he said: “I have called you friends” and “I chose you, and I appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
In this same spirit Stephen Littleton went over the recent history of our parish. What had been achieved in the way of bricks and mortar at our churches and our schools and what we needed to be concerned with in the future. Things such as the pastoral care of a much greater population, the foundation of one or more schools, increased ministry to the elderly and so many other functions required by a greater and greater community. All of which costs more money than we currently have. Our expenditure on maintainance, salaries, utilities, loan repayments etc is more than our envelope collection each week. Our average envelope amounts to $8.44. The message was that in order to meet our present costs and future expansion, we need to boost our income, but as followers of Jesus. We can’t get caught up in how little some give as that’s not our concern. Remember Jesus in Luke’s Gospel with his reaction to the widow who gave all she could, small as it was. Our reaction as the friends Jesus left behind to carry on as his stewards should first be to pray about it. Maybe we could ask what we should do, ask the Father for help. As Jesus said in the Gospel of last Sunday, “enter into your inner room……..and pray to your Father”. We will be answered in some way or other. It could be to take the message to others, to ask for the help of others, to contribute more ourselves, to pray more for the parish community, to put more effort in to the workload of the parish. We also evangelise by our example.
Stephen Littleton then threw the meeting open for questions and then Fr Kevin closed the meeting with a prayer.
With sadness and much regret, we learn of Irene’s decision to cease being our pastoral associate. Over twelve years Irene has served our parishioners, especially the housebound, in aged care, in palliative care and suffering chronic illness.
Irene is blessed with faith, perception, compassion, discretion and a marvellous memory (ask her husband Keith!).
Fellow pastoral associates, parish staff and priests have all greatly benefited from Irene’s presence among us and her support to us in our pastoral ministry.
Our prayers of gratitude and best wishes for your future as you move into the next phase of your life…..Fr Kevin
About 40 pastoral associates, principals, priests and teachers from Narre Warren, Berwick, Epping, Sunbury, Melton South, Laverton and Werribee parishes met at St Joseph’s Church (1884) and school (2010) in Mernda on Thursday to discuss our schools within the life of our parishes in the growth corridors of Melbourne.
Compared to some others, our parishioners are well served with schools, churches, shops and transport.
Our Neighbourhood structure is addressing some pastoral care issues.
……………………….Fr Kevin
On Thursday evening I attended two Education Boards (Parish and Salesian) over three hours where the presence of new principals and board chairpersons have changed the dynamics as they continue the good work of previous members and bring a fresh commitment wanting the best for our students. We parishioners are fortunate to have such dedicated leaders.
…………………………………………………….Fr Kevin
Open Day at our two schools is on this Tuesday 15 March with sessions at 9.30am and 2.00pm.
Information Sessions for parents will be held on Wed 23 March in the Parish Centre with sessions at 2.00pm and 7.30pm.
Encased in a statue of the saint surrounded by young people is presently on a world tour and will be at Salesian College on 17 & 18 March.
On the afternoon on Thursday 17 March there will be a quiet vigil between 3.45 and 5.45pm in the Chapel around the statue.
Parishioners are warmly invited to visit the relic and say a quiet prayer at this time.
Charismatic Renewal will hold a Western Regional Day at St Paul’s Church, 230 Sunshine Avenue, Kealba on Sat 19 March from 9.30am to 4.00pm.
It will include Mass at 11.00am. BYO lunch.
For further info. please contact Lambert & Elaine van der Weerden on 9744 4029.
Married couples, make 2011 the year that you prioritise your relationship. It underpins your family life. Please join us for a Marriage Encounter weekend this year. Our weekend helps you to remember why you married and gives you skills to maintain your love for each other. Couples and a priest present the weekend. It is based around Catholic values but you don’t need to be Catholic to attend.
The next weekends will be held on 8-10 April, 3-5 June & 19-21 August.
Further info/bookings contact Peter & Erika Smith (03) 9899 0824 or email vicbookings@wwme.org.au.
Checkout the website for more info on http://www.wwme.org.au Information brochures available at back of St Anne’s Church.
Thank you to those members of the Knights of the Southern Cross who cleaned up weeds etc around the front of St Anne’s Church last Saturday.
Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fast and abstinence. The law of fasting binds those who have completed their eighteenth year, until the beginning of their sixtieth year; the law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year (CCL 97, 1251-52)
Please take home a Project Compassion Box and/or a set of Lenten envelopes and give generously to the appeal during Lent.
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For your generous response to the Christchurch earthquake. $1158.30 will be forwarded to Caritas New Zealand.
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From St Vincent de Paul Society Rockhampton, Queensland ‘Thank you for your most generous donation of $1,940.00 towards the Society’s Flood Appeal. The Society’s resources at these times of natural disaster are always stretched and it is only through the generosity of our donors and benefactors that the Society can give the assistance it does to those families who do enjoy the full support of the St Vincent de Paul Society. May God’s choicest blessings be bestowed upon you…..Neil Dwyer, President’.
On February 7th seven elders journeyed from the Northern Territory for a forum held at Melbourne University on the impact of living under the intervention. Copies of a request from the elders to the people of Australia to walk with them to bring about change together with copies of a media release can be obtained at the information desk. Rosalie, one of the elders, spoke about recently going to Geneva to the United Nations Conference. Initially worried about how she would be accepted she now feels very sad that she had to travel so far from her home to be recognised as an equal human being.
Our first function for the year.
St. Patrick`s Day,Thursday 17 March, Seniors Lunch. Sunbury Football Club, a la carte menu, 12 noon.
Cost $14
Bookings Frances 9744 1999.
Tuesday April 5
Speaker from Sunbury Community Register, followed by afternoon tea, 2.00pm, St Anne`s Parish Centre.
Cost $5
Bookings Frances 9744 1999.
Volunteers needed on Wednesday after 9.15am Mass in Parish Centre to help with compiling of envelopes.
Children, we give thanks to God for the joy and the special gifts which you bring to your families, schools and our community, and we celebrate the blessing which your families bring to our Parish and to our wider community, and so, with Saint Paul, we pray for you and your families:
Out of his infinite glory, may God our Father give you the power, through his Spirit, for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will, with all the saints, have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, until knowing the love of Christ which is beyond all knowing, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.
Amen
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish Sunbury 
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