Dear friends,

The school year has come to an end for another year. We offer our congratulations and best wishes to the 35 Year Sixes who graduated on Wednesday night. We hope that they will always remember with affection their time at St. Agatha’s and we hope that their future is blessed with much goodness and success. We have invited this group, and the boys who accompanied them until Year Four, back for a special celebration on February 12th next year at our 5:30pm Mass for what we call “Reconnect7”. We hope that many will gather for Mass and pizza afterwards. For all those who are going on holidays — all our students and school staff — we wish you a relaxing, restful and safe break. Thank you to Mrs. Carol Sayers and all the school staff for a great year of excellence in learning and enriching education in the Catholic tradition. We look forward to seeing you all again next year.

Last week-end, we conducted a parish survey about our 5pm Saturday evening Mass time. Overwhelmingly, the parish has voted to maintain the 5pm Mass time. Only 18 responses were in favour of returning to 6pm. With apologies to those 18, the 5pm Mass will become the permanent time-slot for Saturday evening. I believe this time will allow the Saturday evening Mass to grow in numbers and community spirit. If you haven’t tried the 5pm Mass yet, give it a go over summer.

Thanks to the generous financial support of this community, we will soon be in a position to announce that we have chosen someone to fill the 10 week “Work and Welcome” placement which supports a refugee in gaining valuable work experience. This person will work across St. Rita’s College, St. Agatha’s Primary School and our parish. It is an important initiative and helps us respond in a Christian way to the most vulnerable in our midst. I am sure that you will make this person welcome when he commences in the work placement in late January next year. Again, thank you to all who have contributed financially. It is a “first” within the Archdiocese and for your generosity, I say a very big “thank you”!

Fr. Anthony