From Fr Greg's Desk: Sunday 1st February, 2026

Hi everyone!
Catechist Sunday this Sunday.
This weekend we put the spotlight on our Catechists who bring the Faith into the hearts of the kids in our State Schools. We will also be congratulating those Catechists who have reached milestones of service: Josephine Papadopoulos for ten years of service and Edna Aldana for five. A catechist will be speaking at all the weekend Masses after communion about their work, and are looking for more help with their pastoral service to these kids. We are all indebted to them for their work.

Family Camp and Youth Camp
We had a very good first "RGCP Family Camp" alongside the RGCP Youth Camp" held simultaneously up at Toukley last weekend. We had a total of 85 youth (including a youth team of 16 led by Fr. Steve and Seamus Cronin) and another 57 on our side (led by Fr. Greg and Philippa Manley). The experience was profoundly edifying, a great 'community builder' ... not to mention a lot of fun as well. We had a nice mixture of young families from our 10 am Kid's Liturgy, along with parents of our IGNITE and SPARC youth groups, enjoying both family times, group formations, liturgies, meals and games together (see group pic below).

The unanimous desire at the end of this inaugural Family Camp was for the Parish to run it again next year, and maybe have a few extra things during the year specifically catering for our regular attending families, like a 'family picnic" or some such event. Huge thank you to Philippa Manley who did most of the 'heavy lifting' of organising and keeping it running, to Ace and Rowena Penano for the group formations, Anna Halabi for leading the kid's activities, and the 'Kid's Team' for keeping the kid's occupied (which, thankfully, tired them out sufficiently so that they would sleep well!).

Welcome Back to our Staff and Students at our local Schools and Colleges
It was heartening to see our school families and staff back 'on board' this week, and especially to see the new 'Kindies' coming to school for the first time on Thursday morning. Many of them were so excited to begin school ... whilst a few were perhaps a little more nervous than excited, or a mixture of both. Still at the end of their first day the general consensus was clear: "we want to be back at school tomorrow!" (with perhaps the odd exception).

It is great to see and enjoy such a strong connection between Parish and School here at Ryde Gladesville, and this is something we want to nurture and develop even more over the coming year. Please make it your mission to invite the ones you know to our Kid's Liturgies and family events and to help each one find their own unique place in our dynamic Parish life.

Sacramental Programmes Beginning Soon.
We will soon be beginning our Sacramental programmes this year, led by our new Sacramental Coordinator Tessa Quan. Our "First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion Information Meeting" will be held via Zoom on February 10 from 6 - 7 pm (see info box on page 3). Please let everyone you know in the area who have children in Year 3 at both Catholic and State Schools, so that they not miss out on this important information evening and can then register their preferences for formation classes and celebrations early on.

Developments On and Around the Parish Grounds
It is great to see the lawns and gardens looking so good at both SCB and OLQP Church grounds after the recent landscaping work and decent rain. We will soon be seeing some construction work going on at the side of the SCB Parish Centre as we install some external steps down to the lower areas, and external storage spaces there over the next few months. Apologies in advance for any inconveniences caused. We have also recently completed the installation of floor to ceiling cupboards in the Mackillop Room at SCB to give our expanding youth ministries more cupboard space for all the incidental props and materials they need to carry on their work throughout the year. This will have the added bonus of freeing storage space in the Gell Room for other groups to use.

And that's about all for now. May the Good Lord continue to bless you all at the start of February and the last part of the summer period, heading into Lent.

Your brother in Christ's missionary service,

Fr. Greg