Our Lady of the Mission
July 5th - The 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time
- Next Sunday is The 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time -
Message from Fr Cyp
Greetings and peace to you.
It is truly beautiful and a great relief to be back to full capacity here at OLM, Whitford Parish. What has been a rather grim time seem to look even more encouraging; at least for us here in Western Australia. That in itself is a cause for sincere gratitude from one and all of us to almighty God for His enduring love and mercy. Nevertheless, it is not a time for us to let go of all relevant safeguards for a COVID-safe community. We recommit ourselves to complying with state and federal governments’ regulations for our personal safety and that of the wider community. Thank you for doing your bit and encouraging one another to do the same. As I have highlighted in my recent reflections, let us all continue to pray for better days ahead. We pray that this time next year, things will be well and brighter for us all; regardless of where we are now. Fr Francis and I remain grateful to one and all of you for your prayers, love and enduring support. You can as always, count on our daily prayers. We once again commend ourselves to the powerful intercession of our blessed Mother Mary, Queen of Apostles.
Fr Cyprian M Shikokoti - PP
MASS TIMES 6th July to 12th July 2020
All Masses will be held in the Church
Monday 6th July - 7.00am & 9.00am
Tuesday 7th July - 7.00am & 9.00am
Wednesday 8th July - 7.00am & 9.00am
Thursday 9th July - 7.00am & 9.00am
Friday 10th July - St Thomas - 7.00am & 9.00am
Saturday 11th July - St Benedict - 8.30am & 6.30pm
Sunday 12th July - 8.00am, 9.30am, 11am & 5.45pm
Prayer of the Week
Come Holy Spirit fill us with your love. When we strengthen our faith and despite our anxiety may we find peace.
Introduction:
We are here because the Lord himself has called us. “Come to me,” he says, and we have come to him, full of thanksgiving, to celebrate the Eucharist, to worship him and receive his help.
1st Reading: Zechariah 9:9-10
The Messiah’s coming makes our hearts and souls rejoice, for he humbles himself to share our life.
2nd Reading: Romans 8:9. 11-13
We are spiritual people who belong to Christ and are filled with his Spirit.
Gospel: Matthew 11:25-30
The Lord calls us to come to him, that we may find rest for our souls.
to the Psalm:
I will praise your name for ever, my King and my God.
Parish Notices - Sunday 5th July 2020
1. We are back to full capacity: Under phase four of COVID 19 RoadMap, we are now back to full capacity but MUST keep to 2sqm rule until it is eased on July 18th. You are no longer required to register or leave us your name and contact details. Thank you one and all for your patience, understanding and support.
2. Parish Newsletter: There will be a limited number of paper copies of the newsletter available on the information desk at the back of the Church for those who do not have access to our electronic version we email weekly.
3. Plenary Council: Please note the change of plenary council key dates. Events will now be held in October 2021 in Adelaide and in July 2022 in Sydney. You may also like to have a read of the recently published discernment papers of the six National Themes https://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/continuing-the-journey-of-discernment/
4. 2020/21 RCIA Program: Would you like to become a Catholic or know more about our Catholic Faith? Please come join us on Thursdays at 7.30pm in the parish centre. Starting Thursday 30th of July 2020. Contact Mrs Ann Cunneen on 0410 616 517 for more information or you are welcome to just come join us.
5. Altar Servers: If you haven’t been contacted regarding returning as an Altar Server please contact the Parish Office at whitford@perthcathlic.org.au to let us know if your child is still interested in being on the roster. Many thanks.
6. Communion on tongue: If you’re keen on receiving communion on the tongue, please consider coming at the end of queue and approach the priest; not acolyte or special minister.
7. Infant Baptisms: We are now able to conduct infant baptisms for up to two families at the usual time of 12.15pm on Sundays. Please contact parish office for more information. Forms are also available from the information desk. Thank you.
8. New Collection Practice: Both First and Second collections are now being deposited in special collection boxes provided in the Church foyer upon arrival or as you leave Church after Mass. There will be NO collection at offertory time during Mass. For your information, First collection goes toward support of priests and Second collection is toward every day running and maintenance of the Church.
9. The Word Among Us: The July/August edition is here - Daily meditations for Catholics. Spend just 10 minutes a day with The Word Among Us, and you will learn how to love God, others and self. It is a great tool for us to deepen our own devotion, spirituality and faith. It’s only $5 per copy (cost price) and they are limited. You can get it at the back of our church. Let us embrace God’s Word and listen to Him.
10. 2020 Sacramental Program: We are now able to provide some update on 2020 sacramental celebrations. First Holy Communion and First Reconciliation for all school-aged students will go ahead as earlier planned - Please refer to your calendar of events. Unfortunately, celebration of Confirmation remains on hold as we work through a number of logistical matters on the same. We are confident to have details soon and celebration happening sometime this year. Due to uncertainties and tight timeframes, there will be no workshops. However commitment Masses for all the three sacraments will go ahead as previously planned, please refer to your calendar of events. Keep an eye on our parish newsletter and communication from your school or from our sacramental coordinator.
11. Visit to the sick in homes and hospitals: Visit to the sick in homes and hospitals: Fr Cyprian and Fr Francis are now able to visit our sick parishioners in homes and hospitals. If you know a family member or parishioner who may benefit from such visit, please let us know. We are soon going to resume bringing communion for the sick. We thank you all for your patience, understanding and support over these past difficult months.
12. 24:7 Whitfords Youth Group: 24:7 Whitfords Youth Group is for all youth in Years 6-12. Every 1st, 3rd and 5th Fridays 7pm-9pm @ Whitfords’ Parish Hall. Call Amanda 0421 144 992 or Luke 0401 822 932 for more information.
13. Free People Science Assessment: Would you like to discover more about your ‘soft skills’, and the values, abilities and personality characteristics that underpin these skills? Interested participants will receive a detailed and confidential report describing their character and temperament, as well as the social, emotional and cognitive abilities which are increasingly important within the future of work and life in general. Please contact Dr. David Stritch for more information at david@people-science.com.au
14. NEW ENVELOPES for 2020/2021: All envelopes for 2020/2021 have now been posted out. If you received a call to pick up, your envelopes are ready for collection from the Parish office or from the Church as discussed.
15. Planned Giving New Year: A new 2020/21 cycle of planned giving has commenced. If you have been thinking of joining now would be a good time to start. Please take a form from the information desk or contact parish office for more information. We would like to thank one and all who continue to support this program as it is the only way we remain viable and available to parish responsibilities. May God bless you and all your loved ones; and indeed bless our parish community.
16. Planned Giving: Where does your money go? 1st Collection & Easter Offering Envelopes: This money goes to pay our priests a basic income. A percentage of the 1st collection goes to helping priests in smaller parishes so that they too can receive their basic income. 2nd Collection: This is the money you put in your planned Giving Envelopes and any loose cash put into the 2nd Collection baskets. This money maintains our presbytery, church, office, parish centre and pastoral group expenses. Join any time by filling in a pledge card at the information desk.
17. Whitford Catholic Primary School: Whitford Catholic Primary School is a community that celebrates faith and achievement and promotes excellence in all we do. Please visit our website www.whitfordcatholicps.wa.edu.au, our Facebook page or call (08) 9404 4200 for more information. We are currently taking expressions of interest and interviews for enrolment across the 7 year groups.
18. Padbury Catholic Primary School: Padbury Catholic Primary School is a welcoming, inclusive and faith-filled community which caters for students from Pre-Kindy to Year 6 in a double-stream setting. We actively promote our school values of Respect, Excellence, Sacredness and Togetherness. Please visit our website www.padcath.wa.edu.au or call 9404 4000 to express your interest or request an interview (no interview required for Pre-Kindy
Rosters - 12th July 2020
NEWSLETTER NOTICES DEADLINE: Wednesday at 12pm Noon.
RELIGIOUS GOODS STALL: Cathy Mola/ Pat Nerva/ Bernadette Nadham/ Colette Newbond/ Lynn Harrison.
READERS: Rossemarie Ramirez-A & Madison Ramirez-A/ Trish Smith & Teresa Rose/ Emma Waters & Rachel Wanless/ Diana Baulch & Angela Sanderson/ Meka McCormack & Kate Allen.
CLEANERS: Friday 10th July 2020: Marisa Gazey/ Tara Griffiths/ Kari Stott/ Shannon Davies/ Kylie Giles/ Romina Cangelosi.
DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS: Is held on the first Friday of every month during 9.00am Mass. The next Devotion will be on Friday the 7th August
EXPOSITION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT: Adoration is held on Wednesdays 9.30am–7pm and Fridays 9.30am–7pm.
PRAY FOR THE SICK: We pray for all those in our parish’s Book of the Sick. You are most welcome to add names to this book in the foyer of the Church. Please cross out when our prayers are no longer needed.
Death & Anniversary
Our Prayers this week will be offered for Barney Morier, Vo Quoc Ve, Nguyen Huu Vai, Eric Lyons, Gordon Lyons, Sr Mary Berry, Zoilita de Pacheco, Karin Hofer de Martinez, Mario Mauricio Yazbek, Mannapuri Padmanabham, for all our departed loved ones, all Holy Souls, all victims of Covid-19, all those recently deceased and those who have their anniversary around this time.
Stewardship Corner
“Let all Your works give You thanks, Oh Lord, and let Your faithful ones bless You,” says the psalmist. Stewardship is this “attitude of gratitude” for the many gifts God has given us.
General Notices
1. Catholic Mission: As the COVID-19 pandemic inflicts all sorts of difficulties around the world, Pope Francis in his Missionary Prayer Intention for June asks us to pray for those who are suffering. He reminds us that many people are suffering due to the great difficulties they are enduring and that we can help by accompanying them in prayer. Pope Francis asks us to pray that all those who suffer may find their way in life, allowing themselves to be touched by the Heart of Jesus.
Fr Cyprian's Weekly reflection for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - A
For the better part of the Hebrew scripture, God loves His people and treats them as a groom loves and treats his bride. The Israelites were the bride and God their groom. The prophet Hosea writes: ... I will lure her into the desert and speak to her heart. There, she will respond as when she was young; as on the day she came out of Egypt. When that day comes, you will call me ‘my husband’. One can only imagine the joy that filled the Israelites realizing that they had in fact been saved from the hands of the Egyptians. To that they must have responded to God’s call with sincerity that stemmed from gratitude and awe for Him. It is this joy and response Hosea recalls when he prophecies to the chosen people. He is in a way asking them: have you forgotten God’s work among you?
Referring to the Israelites, the prophet Zechariah in today’s first reading calls on the daughter of Zion, the daughter of Jerusalem to rejoice and shout with gladness. Why? Because her king is coming! This king of hers will protect her and deliver her victory and peace. Not by military power or war. This would have seemed to be pure nonsense given at this time, the Israelites were being colonized by other nations. They were under immense stress with no deliverance in sight. The prophet Zechariah means to say to them: do you actually think your God; your lover will let you perish under this oppression? Of course not! Zechariah’s prophecy must be understood beyond just the Israelites as it is more cosmic. The prophecy points to a time when God will deliver and redeem the whole of His creation; establishing love and peace.
Christ Jesus is the prince of peace. It is to Him that the prophets pointed to. Jesus’ mission is as it were, to reveal His Father and our Father to us. We have come to appreciate that it is in knowing the Father that we experience eternal life. Of this, Saint John writes: And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. What then frustrates Jesus is that those who appear learned, clever or educated do not seem to know God. At the time of Jesus, it was the leading scribes and Pharisees who had a distorted image of God. They would make laws and rules that made religion and God inaccessible to average people. How burdensome!
The exclamation Jesus makes in the gospel today must be sweet music to so many in the world where burdensome situations weighs on so many people. Poverty, sickness, unjust government & political systems, illiteracy, war and even death are somewhat the order of our days. Currently, the whole world is hurting from COVID 19 with so many lives lost and certainly more to go. The anguish that fills our hearts for not being able to freely cross into each other’s territories for fear of spreading or catching this virus is unreal. The emotional, social and economical toll this situation is costing us is humongous! The words and invitation of Jesus in today’s gospel could not be timelier. He is in fact precise: shoulder my yoke and learn from me’.
We still have a choice in these tough times. We can either take on Jesus’ invitation and learn from Him or destroy ourselves in anger, blaming each other, allowing fear to tear us apart and despairing. Someone has recently commented: history will judge us on how we tackle things and behave or rather act through this pandemic. Yes, there are so many of us if not all who are doing and giving their very best; well beyond the call of duty for the good of all. But we also know, there are a handful who are making bad situation worse for everyone else because of their bad choices; for instance, stripping supermarket shelves of essential goods that we all need for comfortable daily living, those deciding to be ‘heroes’ by going out or to work when they’re unwell. We have unfortunately witnessed some leaders who have placed their careers ahead of the safety and lives of their citizens. This must be called out unanimously.
This week, let us pray for the grace to lighten each other’s burdens. Let us pray, in the words of St Mary of the Cross McKillop: to never see a need and do nothing about it. Let us take care of each other because we all are children of our Heavenly Father who Jesus His Son has revealed to us. With generosity, let us respond to Jesus’ invitation for in His embrace we find rest for our troubled souls.
Fr Cyprian Shikokoti, Parish Priest
Mass Readings
Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 47: 10-11
Your merciful love, O God, we have received in the midst of your temple. Your praise, O God, like your name, reaches the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with saving justice.
Opening Prayer:
O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world,
fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
First reading: Zechariah 9:9-10
The Lord says this: Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion! Shout with gladness, daughter of Jerusalem! See now, your king comes to you; he is victorious, he is triumphant, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem; the bow of war will be banished. He will proclaim peace for the nations. His empire shall stretch from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 144(145):1-2,8-11,13b-14
Response: I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.
I will give you glory, O God my king, I will bless your name for ever. I will bless you day after day and praise your name for ever. R.
The Lord is kind and full of compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love. How good is the Lord to all, compassionate to all his creatures. R.
All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord, and your friends shall repeat their blessing. They shall speak of the glory of your reign and declare your might, O God. R.
The Lord is faithful in all his words and loving in all his deeds. The Lord supports all who fall and raises all who are bowed down. R.
Second reading: Romans 8:9,11-13
Your interests are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him, and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you. So then, my brothers, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives. If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live.
Gospel Acclamation: Matthew 11:25
Alleluia, alleluia! Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth; you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the kingdom. Alleluia!
Gospel Reading: Matthew 11:25-30
Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’
Prayer over the Offerings:
May this oblation dedicated to your name purify us, O Lord, and day by day bring our conduct closer to the life of heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Communion Antiphon: Ps 33: 9
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed the man who seeks refuge in him.
A Prayer in a Time of a Pandemic
Holy God, you are our comfort and strength in times of Crisis, Pandemic and Uncertainty. Surround us now with your grace and peace through this global pandemic of COVID 19. By your Spirit, help those for whom the effects of this pandemic have been severe and even tragic. Sustain those who are working hard through it. Grant your wisdom to those governing and guiding us to a sense of normality. Fill us all with courage and hope of better days ahead. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
Contact us!
Parish Priest: Fr Cyprian M. Shikokoti
Ph: 0450 464 678
Assistant Priest: Fr Francis Quoc Tran
Ph: 0466 909 282
Parish Office
Secretaries: Christine List & Mary McGrath-Yek
Office Hours: Mon – Fri 9am –4pm
Sacramental Coordinator: Brigid Fredericks
Ph: 9307 2776
Email: sacramental.whitford@perthcatholic.org.au
Missioncare: Donna Moxey (Meals, Visiting & Family help)
Ph: 0434 637 355
Youth and Young Adult Contact Details
Youth Choir: Nicole Westneat - 0411 542 619
Youth & Family Choir: Fran Christie Zscherpel - 0433 852 967
WyFi: Luke 0401 822 932 or Amanda 0421 144 992
Safeguarding Officers:
Andrew DeMaio 0422 236 051
Clare Ogden 0422 551 375
Rachel Wood 0400 958 513
Email: whitford@perthcatholic.org.au
Website: olm.myparish.net.au
Location: 270 Camberwarra Drive, Craigie WA, Australia
Phone: 9307 2776
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Our-Lady-of-the-Mission-Whitford-Parish-105788500874671/?ref=br_rs