Author: Fr John Hill

Catholic Parish of Woy Woy Peninsula

The Voice

Psalter Week 1

Our Parish Church

PLEASE REMEMBER IN YOUR PRAYERS
Recently deceased: John Robbie.
Anniversaries: Barry Langdon, John Langdon.
Sick: Adam Gidley King, Robert Harvey, Peter Wellins, Loretta Holt,
Frances Sara, Neil Cameron,
Maryanne Diorio, June Ferry,
Kate Tinson, Beryl Allen,
Lola Proctor, Jack Moulds,
Bruce Spence, Charles Knowles, Arnold Diorio, Alan Harland,
Mary Taylor, Vince Zappavigna.,
Fr. Bill Meacham, Carol Cross,
Fr. Brian Rowland, Grace Williams, Peter Harrison, Natalie Rankin,

As we celebrate the eighth anniversary of the Dedication of the Parish Church, we draw some of its features to your attention.
A well designed church should have a catechetical impact. We can always learn from our friends in the eastern churches, where the faith is passed on and strengthened, not so much by instruction as by taking part in the Divine Liturgy in a church designed to draw the mind to heavenly things.
Our church is built around the idea of the Christian as pilgrim. The pebble surface that begins at the pedestrian gate continues under the covered way, through the main doors and the gathering space to the pews, and is also visible around the altar, ambo and chair. As we enter the worship space, we see on the doors the words (in four languages) from the pilgrim psalm 120 (8): ‘The Lord will guard your going and coming, both now and forever.’
The gathering spaces doubles as a devotional space—an area where we can engage in our private devotions. There are the Way of the Cross and chapels in honour of the Sacred Heart, the Blessed Virgin, St Joseph and St Anthony.
Inside, the stained glass draws our attention to the Patron, Saint John the Baptist (the upper windows, in the colours of red [martyrdom], blue [his baptism], and desert colours), and to our worship in the community of saints and the angels (especially the faces and the angels’ wings).
The altar, ambo, chair and font form a set, made from Persian travertine and highlighted in Roman travertine. They are the focal points of the building, according to what is happening, and they emphasise the unity of sacramental action. It is around these that we gather at various important events on the journey, especially when we assemble on Sunday.
The exact centre of the church is just in front of the altar steps, in the centre. In church-building tradition, this is called the omphalos or “navel”, where really important events take place. The priest stands there to distribute Communion; marriages and ordinations take place there.
The pilgrim route which we mostly follow (in and out the main doors) is not the way in which we finish our journey. We have a special set of funeral doors, like those in mediaeval monasteries, and after the Mass or Service of Christian Burial, the body is taken through these doors to the hearse waiting outside.
(With permission) Fr John Hill.

Inside this issue:

Psalm Response

© Colin D. Smith cfc

Notices and News	2
Sacramental Programmes	3
Devotions	3
Directory	4
Consubstantial and Incarnate	4

Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia! Be watchful, pray constantly, that you may be worthy to stand before the Son of Man. Alleluia!

Dedication of the Parish Church

15th November 2015

The Voice

Around the Parish

Celebration of the Eighth Anniversary of the Dedication St. John the Baptist at all Sunday Masses this weekend.
Parish Christmas Hampers:
Lists of various hampers for you to choose from are on display. Single items can be left in the red bins. No cigarettes, alcohol or perishables please. Hampers will be collected on 5/6 December.
If you know of anyone in need of a hamper, please contact Susie Casey on 0403 417 639.
The Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty in conjunction with the Diocese of Broken Bay invite you to attend an address with Ms Deborah O’Neill “Principles for a Fair and Just Wage System”, Mr Rocco Mimmo LLM “Importance of Religious Liberty in the event of Same-Sex Marriage” and chaired by Dr Nigel Zimmermann.
Sunday 22 November, Leo Mahon Room at 2pm (light refreshments included—gold donation). Please write your name on list in the Gathering area for catering purposes.
Children’s Liturgy Roster 22/11/15: Christine French, Kylie Spicer, Grace Douglas.
Morning Tea Roster 22/11/15: Parents and Friends Group. SJB School.
Volunteer Church Cleaning 20/11/15: Maria Wickens, Mary McCumstie,
Veronica Jordan, Brian Jordan.
C.W.F. Appeal held last weekend has raised $5,832. Thank you for your generosity.
Total quota for financial year 15/16 is $35,498 or $11.823/appeal.
A Cuppa and a Chat: A group of seniors meet every third Monday in the Leo Mahon room due next Monday, 16th November, 1.30pm-3pm. If you would like to join us phone Bernard 4341 5343. Transport provided.
Holy Hour—Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament every Thursday 7.30pm-8.30pm for the needs of the Parish.
Bus Trips
War Veteran’s Village, Narrabeen: 25 November, for lunch and viewing of the War Veteran Museum. Leaving 9am. Cost $15.
Mangrove Mountain, 2 December –sausage sizzle lunch. Cost $20.
Enquiries about these trip: Susie Casey 0403 417 639 or Ph: 4344 1742.
Sacrament of Reconciliation: Please remember our children in your prayers as they prepare for their First Reconciliation.
Ministry to the Sick: Please ring the Parish office 4341 1073 if you know of a member of your family, a friend or a parishioner who wishes to receive the Sacrament of the Sick, Reconciliation or the Blessed Eucharist at home.

The Just Word

World Toilet Day 19 November: One-third of humanity (2.5 billion people) do not have access to proper sanitation, including toilets or latrines, with dramatic consequences on human health, dignity and security, the environment, and social and economic development.
To address these issues, the ‘Sanitation for All’ Resolution was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in July 2013, designating 19 November as World Toilet Day.
The lack of improved sanitation largely contributes to the fact that almost 2,000 children die everyday from preventable diarrhoeal diseases. It also impacts vulnerable populations such as persons with disabilities and women, who are more exposed to sexual violence. Lack of private toilets in schools is a major reason why girls do not continue their education once they enter puberty.
Poor sanitation and water supply also result in economic losses estimated at $260 billion annually in developing countries. World Toilet Day aims to change both behaviour and policy on issues ranging from enhancing water management to providing dignity for the 1.1 billion people who are forced to defecate in the open air.
Millennium Development Goal 7—Ensure Environmental Sustainability has as a target to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
By working together—and by having an open and frank discussion on the importance of toilets and sanitation—we can improve the health and well-being of one-third of the human family.
UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon, Message for the World Toilet Day.
For more information: www.un.org/en/events/toiletday

From the Diocese and beyond

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Pilgrimage to Greece, Malta and Rome—Fr. Wim Hoekstra will be leading a pilgrimage leaving Sept. 24, 2016 and returning October 14, 2016 to follow in the footsteps of St. Paul. Full details available from Fr. Wim. P.O. Box 1501, Baulkham Hills. NSW. 1755. or email wkh367@gmail.com
Festival of Christmas Fete will be held Saturday, 21st November 10am-3pm. Umina Uniting Church, Ocean Beach Rd, opposite The Mall Shops. Well stocked stalls. Activities for children. Entertainment—10.30am Singing Hands Choir.
More detail—see notice board.
Christmas Carol Service: St. David’s Presbyterian Church , Tuesday, 8th December at St. David’s, Blackwall Rd. Woy Woy. Morning tea 10am. Service 11am. R.S.V.P. 3/12/15. See notice board for more detail.
Serra Vocations Mass and Dinner: Fr. Boguslaw Loska, SDS of Pymble Catholic Parish will be celebrating Mass for Serra at Sacred Heart Church, 2 Richard Porter Way, Pymble. Mass 6.30pm followed by a light meal and short meeting. Fr. Boguslaw, a Salvatorian Father arrived in Australia 1991 from Poland, appointed Parish Priest St. Anthony’s, Greenmount. W.A. 1998. Later appointed Superior of Australian Region of the Polish Province. In 2009, he returned to Poland as Vice Provincial of the Polish Province and has now returned to Australia. We are grateful that Father will share his vocation journey with us. All welcome!
If attending phone Terry Scanlan 0438 887 295. Email:
terry_scanlan@bigpond.com you

15th November 2015

Several years ago, the film ‘The Pianist’ won Best Picture at the Oscars. It’s the true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Brody) who was a celebrated classical pianist in Warsaw during the 1930s. He came from an affluent and intellectual family. Like all Jews of Warsaw, in November of 1940 the Szpilmans are herded into the Jewish Ghetto. Unlike most of the others Wladyslaw comes out each day to work as a cocktail pianist in a Warsaw café. Polish Jews and Christians remember and admire his playing. So much so that in the summer of 1942 while the rest of his family are deported to Treblinka, Wladyslaw is rescued from the train by a Jewish collaborator. The Polish resistance hides him in Warsaw. When his whereabouts are discovered Wladyslaw goes on the run and survives in a city which barely survives the war.
Toward the end of the film there is a magnificent scene where the now-skeletal Wladyslaw is caught by a Nazi Army officer hiding in one of the few Warsaw houses left standing. He asks Szpilman what he did for a living, and then invites him to sit and play the piano in the drawing room of the house. In the midst of the almost total destruction of the world around them, Wladyslaw enables beauty to have the last word over the horror of war. It changes both men. It’s the first time the pianist has played in years, and his concerto touches something human in the German soldier which leads him to protect Wladyslaw.
In today’s Gospel we get a very vivid picture of how the end of the world might break in upon us. It’s clear that Mark thought it was going to happen in the lifetime of some of his hearers. It didn’t, and many generations later we’re still waiting.
This is not to say that the reign of God doesn’t regularly break in upon us. Wladyslaw’s playing shows how music can do it. We believe that every day more good is done in the world than evil; else this world would destroy itself. And we hold that the source of all love is Christ. So, every time we are kind rather than cruel, patient rather than intolerant, generous rather than selfish, beautiful rather than ugly, the reign of God bursts into our lives.
One translation of verse 27 in today’s Gospel reads, ‘Then he will send out the angels and gather together his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven’. The whole idea of ‘the elect’ has exercised the imagination of several generations of Christians ever since this verse was written. The Protestant Reformation was, in part, based on who Christ elects to be his own, how we get elected, and how we stay that way.
John Calvin was especially interested in this question and he rightly linked the goodness of our lives with those elected by Christ. But Calvin and many Catholic scholars have interpreted the meaning of this text too narrowly.
Remembering that Mark thinks the end of the world is soon, that his community is being persecuted for their Christian faith and that Christianity has not spread all that far by the time he writes this Gospel around 65 AD, it’s somewhat surprising to read that the elect might be made up of people who come from the ends of the earth. We can safely assume that at this time not many people, beyond the Mediterranean basin, had heard about Christ. Even if this more generous and inclusive reading is not what Mark means when he refers to this world, it would be mean-spirited of us to imagine that all he means in reference to the elect in heaven are only those professing Christians who had died in his lifetime.
The more consoling reading of who is in the elect, is to understand it as including anyone, anywhere, whose life enables faith, hope, love, beauty, justice and peace to break in upon the world.
And so what makes being a Christian so special? We know who’s doing the electing and why, and we have each other as we struggle to live out Christ’s reign every day – until he comes again.
© Richard Leonard SJ.

The readings today speak of the end of the world and the coming of the kingdom. ‘Life to come’ is in continuity with this present life through the human goods, the worthy human purposes, which people foster now.’ May our good stewardship help us to be numbered among the chosen on the last day!

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Catholic Parish of Woy Woy Peninsula

Woy Woy, Umina, Ettalong, Koolewong, Tascott, Blackwall, Booker Bay, St Hubert’s Island, Empire Bay, Horsfield Bay, Pearl Beach, Patonga, Woy Woy Bay, Daley’s Point and Phegan’s Bay.

St John the Baptist Church, corner of Blackwall and Victoria Roads, Woy Woy

Parish Office
P.O. Box 264
54 Victoria Road
WOY WOY N.S.W. 2256

Ethel Cox Parish Centre
Walter Baker Hall
100 Blackwall Road

Phone: (02) 4341 1073
Fax: (02) 4341 0214
Email: parish@woywoycatholic.org.au

"He must increase, I must decrease"

Fr. Jack Robson. Parish Priest. Fr.Timothy Raj. M.S.F.S. Fr. Phillip Thottam. M.S.F.S.
Assistant Priests.
Office Staff: Helen Cameron, Raelene Spithill, Margaret Cooper.
Office Hours: 9.30 a.m.—4.00 p.m., Monday to Friday
Deadline for The Voice: 3.30 p.m. Wednesday

SUNDAY MASS TIMES
Vigil Saturday 5pm; Sunday 7.45am, 9.15am, 6pm.
WEEKDAY MASS TIMES
Monday-Friday 7.45am (Monday & Tuesday with Lauds); Saturday and Public Holidays 9am; First Friday 4pm (with Anointing of the Sick).
SACRAMENT OF PENANCE
Friday after morning Mass; First Friday, 3.30 p.m.; Saturday 11.30am; & 4.30pm ; Sunday 7.15 a.m.
SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM
1st & 3rd Sundays, 11am; 5th Sunday, during 9.15 a.m. Mass.
Godparents are examples of faith to the child. They must be confirmed and practising Catholics, at least sixteen years old. If there is at least one godparent, a non-Catholic may act as a Christian witness. Parents and godparents must attend a pre-baptismal instruction, held on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month at 9.30 a.m.
EXPOSITION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Every Saturday after 9am Mass until 10am; every Monday until 9am (Public Holidays 10.15am). Every Thursday 7.30pm-8.30pm for the needs of the Parish.
CATHOLICCARE Counselling and Family Relationships.Ph:4356 2600.
MARY MAC’S PLACE Volunteers provide nutritious, freshly cooked meals and information and referrals to appropriate community services. Open Monday to Friday, 11am-1pm, at the Ethel Cox Parish Centre. For more information, please contact Robyn on 4341 0584.
CASH HOUSIE every Saturday night at Peninsula Community
Centre. Cnr. Ocean Beach Rd and McMasters Rd. Games start at 7.30pm and finish approx 10.20 p.m. Cash prizes. Ticket sales from 6.00 p.m. Proceeds benefit Parish. Enquiries Rob 0427 990 818.
ST JOHN THE BAPTIST YOUTH MINISTRY— for information and events contact Parish Office 4341 1073.
PARISH CHOIR— Practice Wednesday nights in the church, 7 p.m.
Enquiries: 4341 3367.
St John the Baptist Catholic Primary School,
21a Dulkara Rd South Woy Woy 2256. Ph.4341 0884 Fax: 02 43 44 5049.

We’re on the Web!
www.woywoycatholic.org.au

Fr Jack’s November Dates:
Mass—5pm Saturday, 14 November
Mass—9:15am Sunday, 15 November
Mass—7:30am Sunday, 22 November
Mass—7:45am, every Tuesday & Wednesday Mass—9am, every Thursday, Reynolds Court, Bateau Bay

Diocese of Broken Bay