From Fr Greg's Desk: Sunday 7th April, 2024

Hi everyone!

First of all, a huge thank you to the many volunteers who helped to make Holy Week and the Easter Liturgies/Masses such a huge success (some of whom doubled or tripled up at various liturgies). We had somewhere between 2800 - 2900 people in attendance at our Easter Sunday Masses (including both Vigils), not counting the hundreds who attended the other liturgies, so it was very highly attended.

A lot of preparation goes into these Holy Week events, and we could not have tended to so many without our army of volunteers, who generously gave their time to the parish to help in many different ways. Again, a heartfelt 'thank you!'

Clergy Conference Next Week (all Priests Away from Mon - Thurs)
Fr Dan, Fr Steve, Fr Daniele and myself will be attending a 'live-in' Clergy Conference in Wollongong from Monday to Thursday. Yep - attendance of all of us this time is compulsory. Because of that there will be no Priests available to celebrate Masses at either the 6.30 am (OLQP) nor 9:20am (SCB) Masses (Tue - Thurs). However, a Communion Service will be held instead at those same times and places, led by our 'resident seminarian' Br. Antonio. The Tuesday Night School of the Word will be on at the usual time, also led by Br Antonio. The Parish office will also be open, and we will try to arrange other priests to assist for any urgent needs.

Divine Mercy Holy Hour This Sunday
As this Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday, Fr. Daniele will be leading the Divine Mercy devotions at OLQP Church from 1pm to 3:30pm. We look forward to seeing you there as well.

Noah's Ark Cafe
Without doubt, one of the best initiatives we've taken at RGCP over the last few years has been "Noah's Ark Cafe", run by Dom and Jessica (and Rita!!) Herring during that time, with all their friendly and enthusiastic hospitality. It has served to create a community gathering space in a lovely outdoor setting, successfully complementing the "hospitality" programs we began from our Parish Forum's back in 2018.

Over the last month or so, however, we have mentioned in the bulletin that Noah's Ark Cafe would be leaving us. We are very very grateful to Dom, Jessica, Rita and all their extended family who have made the service possible, even though we realised over the last year that, well, as a 'commercial venture', it couldn't continue.

Noah's Ark Cafe also had a smaller offshoot: “Little Noah", which became a reality about a year ago as a mobile service for Dom and Jessica. Little Noah has visited many venues, schools and other places over the last year serving coffees and cakes on a smaller scale to the present van we have outside the Parish Office.

Dom and Jessica have kindly offered that, in place of Noah's Ark Cafe, we might consider taking on 'Little Noah' instead. This would also involve a much simpler operation than the larger "Noah's Ark Cafe" service, with the added advantage of greater mobility, meaning that we could also move Little Noah down to OLQP (or elsewhere) for special occasions.

I think that this could well be the 'next best thing' to what we have had up until now with the Herrings and "Noah's Ark Cafe". But we would need people to help get this 'up and running' and provide the service. To keep the costs down, we are looking for volunteers to operate a much simpler (and more automated) coffee machine, serve a much more limited range of food and drinks, and to clean up afterwards.

Depending on the availability of volunteers, wouldn't it be wonderful to have it open in the mornings during the week, as well as on Sundays from, say, 9am to 12pm?? We could offer Coffee, Tea, Hot Chocolate, water and poppers, perhaps a small selection of toasted sandwiches, along with cakes, muffins and biscuits. And we could pull out the BBQ occasionally for a bacon and egg roll, or a sausage sizzle...

Would that be something you'd be willing to help with, on a rostered basis, with a little army of volunteers to share the load?

If you have questions or might be interested in being a volunteer, please come along to a 'Friends of Little Noah's Ark' Information Evening on Wednesday 17th April at 7:30pm in the SCB Parish Hall. I will certainly be there, and I would also be interested in hearing from you even before then, if you have any further ideas.

God bless, and a beautiful Divine Mercy Sunday to you all,

Fr. Greg