MESSAGE ON THE 20TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YR C)
Friday 15th August 2025.
My dear people,
A very Happy Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary to you. Today we celebrate Our Blessed Mother’s entry into heaven at the end of her earthly life. Since Our Lady was preserved from Original Sin from the moment of her conception, her days on earth did not finish with death and she was assumed body and soul into heaven. Whenever we celebrate Our Lady, we remember that she is for us the perfect model of discipleship and the best example of fidelity to Christ. We also remember that she is in heaven seeing Our Lord face to face and in that capacity, we can turn to her for her intercession for all our needs. Four Masses are to be offered in our parish today to celebrate this Solemnity, with two at the church, one at Christ the Priest and one at St George Preca.
The next fundraising activity in our parish will be a Grand Final Fundraiser. At this stage, I ask you to kindly keep the afternoon of Grand Final Day free (27th September 2025) and more details about the fundraiser will be shared with you as soon as they become available. The members of the Fundraising Committee are Robert Durai, Shirley Chung, Angelina Forneas, Joe White, Joe Sequeira, Sonny Mallia and me. Please do not hesitate to contact any of us for ideas you may have about fundraising activities. Again, the purpose of the fundraiser is to enable required refurbishments to the church and build a parish hall.
The archdiocese is running the Archbishop’s Campaign again this year. Last year’s campaign was a huge success. Information booklets about the campaign are available in the gathering space for you to take home and learn more about the campaign. The funds raised will help the archdiocese with the following: Corpus Christi College Building Fund, Priests Retirement Foundation, University of Divinity Building Fund, John Pierce Centre, and other entities such as Catholic community agencies and community service organisations. The collection itself will be taken next week.
Last week, we launched the Grief and Bereavement Ministry in our parish. I once again thank all those who have volunteered to be members of this ministry and invite you to pray for its success. There have already been two people who have availed themselves to this new ministry. The members will soon be commissioned. As was mentioned last week, the task of the Grief and Bereavement Ministry will be a listening presence to people in the parish who are grieving and bereaved. We all know that there are many different reasons which cause grief and people often just need someone to talk to.
It is wonderful that this weekend, we will continue celebrating our younger parishioners receiving Holy Communion for the first time. First Holy Communion will continue to take place over the next two weekends and I invite you to continue praying for our first communicants and their parents. We pray particularly that these children and their families realise how awesome it is to be receiving Holy Communion for the first time and to make sure it is not an isolated event in their lives but one which ignites in their heart a great love for Jesus and for his Church.
I will be absent from the parish next week from Monday evening to Friday morning as I will be at the Annual Melbourne Clergy Conference. I invite you to pray for all the priests of the archdiocese as we participate in ongoing formation and fellowship with one another.
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