From Fr Greg's Desk: Sunday 8th June, 2025

Hi everyone and Happy Pentecost Sunday
The weather has turned cold this week, all of a sudden, and lots of people have been sick with the flu, covid, you name it. The good thing is that this weekend we have the Feast of Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit due to come into our lives in a new and hopefully powerful way, and 'warm the cockles of our souls'! I hope and pray that both this weekend's Pentecost Prayer Vigil, in addition to the weekend Masses, will be a practical way to welcome the Holy Spirit back into our lives once again, and help him 'renew the face of the earth' starting with our own Parish. So, why not come along to the Vigil and pray with us?

Pentecost Prayer Vigil SCB Church This Saturday 7 June 7.30 - 10 pm
The Pentecost Prayer Vigil starts Saturday night, 7.30 pm, SCB Church. I will be giving a short reflection at the start, and there will be times of silence, song, and shared prayer. Stay as long as you like, until we finish at 10 pm. Little Noah's Cafe will be open for coffees after the 6 pm Mass to encourage as many as possible to 'stay awake an hour' for the Spirit's reception.

Grab an Omelette for Breakfast/Brunch This Sunday at SCB
As mentioned last Sunday, this Sunday is also 'Omelette Sunday' and our resident Chef Song Fa-a-loon (and family) will be whipping up an omelette of your choice from the ingredients you choose. All we ask is a small donation for the Omelette, and the proceeds from the day will help find our upcoming 'Mission trip' to the Philippines in October with some of our youth. Bring it on, Song!

Huge Thanks for the Huge Response to 'Survey Sunday'
I was 'blown away' by the massive response to the National Church Life Survey undertaken last weekend at all our Masses and available online even now if you missed out at: www.rgcp.org.au. We will leave the Survey open until next Tuesday, to cater for anyone 'missing in action' last week. At time of writing, we have received a total of 1057 completed surveys, consisting of 940 adult surveys (585 online, 355 in paper), and 117 child surveys (45 online, 72 in paper). That is a fantastic response, and way exceeded my own optimistic expectations. So a huge 'thank you!' to all of you who participated, which is the vast majority of our regular Mass going parishioners, and another to those who helped prepare and run the survey, particularly our RGCP Parish Forum Team, chaired by Andrew McLachlan. It may take a couple of months to compile the results, so please be patient.

Don't forget - Sunday 22 June is 'Walk With Christ' Sunday
And we will be participating as a Parish in the event, under our RGCP Parish banner, with not one but two buses booked for you all to get there. So please reserve your free seat on the bus ASAP (see flyer on page 3 for details). The buses will leave the Parish at 12.30 sharp to make sure we get there in good time. Let's pray for good weather!

And that's about it for now. God bless you all,

Fr. Greg