MESSAGE ON THE 16TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YR C)
Friday 18th July 2025.
My dear people,
We are honoured and privileged to be hosting Bishop Martin Ashe for a pastoral visitation on 25th, 26th and 27th July. On Friday 25th July, Bishop Martin will start his visitation with the celebration of Mass at 9:30am. After that, he will visit the two primary schools of the parish. In the afternoon, he will meet with the parish staff and in the evening, he will meet with the PLT and the Finance Committee followed by dinner with them.
On Saturday morning, he will celebrate the 9:30am Mass and after that, he will meet with volunteers involved in ministries at 10am. That meeting will be followed by a morning tea at 11am with an open forum at 11:30am to which you are all invited to both. The open forum will conclude at 12:30pm. In the afternoon, Bishop Martin will visit some of our parishioners who are housebound and then meet with the young people of the parish. The day will finish with Bishop Martin celebrating the 6pm Mass and having dinner with the ministry coordinators. Bishop Martin’s pastoral visitation will conclude on Sunday 27th July with him celebrating the three parish Masses and taking the opportunity to meet people between Masses.
I am delighted to share some wonderful news with you. As many of you know, we ran an Offertory Giving Program in our parish throughout March and April—and I am pleased to say it was a great success! Thank you to everyone who participated and supported the campaign. Thanks to your generosity, we have seen a 45% overall increase in giving, with a total of $3,475.76 pledged weekly to both the Church and Presbytery accounts. A remarkable number of parishioners, 176, returned their pledge cards—among them, 56 are new ongoing givers, and 120 have increased their regular contributions. Your response has been truly heartening and will make a real difference in supporting the mission and ministry of our parish. Thank you once again for your generosity and faithfulness.
Furthermore, I am pleased to advise that the Fundraising Account which was opened in order to collect funds for the church refurbishments and the building of a parish hall now has over $10,000. I thank all those who have deposited money in the account. We were blessed with a donation of $5000 from a parishioner. We were also blessed with the two dance nights on 31st May and 5th July which brought in a total of $3,985.00. I am thankful to Sonny and Jenny Mallia and Joe and Tess White and their teams for organising these fundraising events. I have formed a Fundraising Committee and together we will start thinking about more varied ways of raising funds. Please do not hesitate to share your ideas with me about what we can do for fundraising.
I thank all those who came to the Parish Town Hall last night. It was a wonderful opportunity to discuss matters relevant to our parish. The presentation will be made available on the parish website soon.
We continue turning to our patron saint and we ask for her intercession.
St Catherine of Siena, Pray for us.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Fr Richard Rosse PP