National Volunteers Week

Friends, today marks the conclusion of the annual National Volunteers Week.

Every year we celebrate the contribution of volunteers in Australia because – and at the risk of stating the obvious – our communities, including our faith communities, are built upon the generosity of those who serve.

It is a little-known fact that the Catholic Church is the third biggest employer in Australia behind Wesfarmers and Woolworths but our significant volunteer network is perhaps unknowable. While, St Vincent de Paul is the largest and most extensive official volunteer network in the country with over 30,000 volunteers, the unmeasurable contribution of regular parishioners in regular parishes like ours is cause for thanks and celebration.

To anyone who gives their time in the service of our parish and wider communities, a grateful parish says “Thank You.”

Invitation to the Strategic Plan Launch at Pentecost

In September last year we, as a parish, commenced a deliberate strategic planning process for the next five years with the assistance of Evangelisation Brisbane. Multiple parishes around our Archdiocese have entered into this process to create a plan that will guide and inform their/our approach to the core business/mission of making disciples – Jesus’ commandment in the Gospel for Pentecost (Mt 28:19).

You are invited to gather and celebrate the launch of our Strategic Plan, along with the commissioning of the six Ministry Leadership Teams (MLTs), at the 9.30am OLR Mass next week on Pentecost, Sunday 28 May. Mass will be followed by a cutting of the cake, tea and coffee, as well as a sausage BBQ cooked by our two school principals.

I cannot understate the significance of this opportunity to gather and celebrate this occasion. While we have parishioners from most of our worshiping communities involved in the six leadership teams – Children & Families, Faith & Formation, Worship, Community Life, Youth & Young Adults, and Service & Outreach – who will be commissioned, the outcomes and strategies of each ministry will, in time, affect each and every worshiping community in a positive way. In fact, Outcome #2 in the Community Life Ministry is to ‘Advocate unity across all the communities of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish.’ One of the strategies to achieve this outcome is to run an annual ‘whole-of-parish’ event (like this one) where as many people as possible gather at one Mass to celebrate together.

Reception of the Precious Blood

It has been two weeks since we reintroduced reception of Jesus’ Precious Blood from the chalice during Holy Communion and by-and-large, we have experienced a smooth transition back to the option of Communion under both species; thank you to those who have assisted in this process. There are a couple of minor things that bare mention in this forum: most importantly, if you wish to receive Jesus’ Precious Blood, please do so by drinking from the chalice – there is no self-intinction (dipping the host in the chalice) please. Communion is always received from someone else rather than taking Communion.

Second, there is no need for the priest to have a separate chalice; Holy Communion is distributed from the ‘one bread’ and ‘one chalice’. We do, however, have the capacity for more than one chalice to assist with distribution but there is no need to have a separate chalice for the presider.

Finally, those Extraordinary Ministers of Communion who distribute the Precious Blood should be prepared to both receive from and finish the chalice at the end of Communion (if there is any Precious Blood left over) before returning the empty chalice to the altar for purification by the presider. Thank you, once again, to those you are assisting this process of reintroduction of Holy Communion under both species.

See you at our Pentecost celebration of the Birth-day of the Church and the launch of our Parish Strategic Plan.

God Bless you

 Fr Josh