Dear friends,

As I mentioned last week, this coming Friday we will be celebrating the feast day of St. Agatha (which is actually the 5th Feb.). St. Agatha is, among other things, the patron saint of those who suffer from breast cancer. With this in mind, we will be holding a women’s breakfast (men can come along too) in the Presentation Centre, followed by a guest speak, Erin Heath, who will speak about the needs of sufferers and how we can be of assistance. Following Erin’s talk, we will gather for Mass with the school community at 9am. For more details, please see the flyer which accompanies this newsletter. Please feel free to contact the parish office. We have also produced prayer cards for the feast day, and these will be available next weekend.

You may also remember that last year we raised money to support the work placement of a refugee through the MDA “Work and Welcome Program”. This week, Omid started his ten week placement, which covers the parish, St. Agatha’s primary school and St. Rita’s College. Omid will be working in the parish on Tuesdays. This is an important initiative, and our parish is the first parish to participate in the program and the first time a tripartite arrangement has been developed with MDA. I thank you for your financial support to enable this placement to happen. Omid’s story is on page two of this week’s newsletter.

This week’s gospel places before us the familiar text of the Beatitudes as the basic pattern of Christian life. I am grateful that our parish community is putting into action these virtues of Christian life through activities such as our breakfast on Friday and our support of refugees such as Omid. May these virtues of Christian living continue to be the mark of St. Agatha’s parish community.

Finally, this weekend we welcome Fr. Orm Rush who will be regularly assisting with our weekend Masses. Fr. Orm is a world renowned theologian and teaches theology at ACU, and I am very grateful of his on-going assistance. Fr. Orm is no stranger here, and I am sure you will enjoy his homilies and his presence.

Fr. Anthony