ST SCHOLASTICA S PARISH CHRISTMAS SERVICES Burwood Highway BENNETTSWOOD VIC 3125 Phone:

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1 Second Sunday of Advent Year A 3rd & 4th December 2016 Parish Priest: Fr Thanh Tran Thanh.Tran@c.org.au Parish Secretaries Dominique Hockey Carol Leathem Parish Office Hours Tuesday - Friday 9 3 Baptisms Please contact the Parish Office. Weddings By appointment and after Preparation Children s Ministries Kathy Menzies stschpar@bigpond.net.au St Schols Community Centre info@stscholscc.org.au St Scholastica s Primary School Principal: Jenny Rohan principal@ssbennettswood.catholic.edu.au Outside School Hours Care Cp Australia St Scholastica s Kindergarten Director: Catherine Findlay st.scholasticas.kin@kindergarten.vic.gov.au Administrator: Katherine Presley stscholskinderadmin@bigpond.com 348 Burwood Highway, Bennettswood VIC 3125 ABN Phone: Fax: stschpar@bigpond.net.au Website: ST SCHOLASTICA S PARISH CHRISTMAS SERVICES Burwood Highway BENNETTSWOOD VIC 3125 Phone: stschpar@bigpond.net.au RECONCILIATION TUESDAY 20 DECEMBER PM 2 nd RITE RECONCILIATION CHRISTMAS EVE SATURDAY 24 DECEMBER 2016 NO 9.00 AM MASS OR CONFESSION 5:30 PM NATIVITY PLAY 6:00 PM MASS of VIGIL All children are invited to come dressed as their favourite Nativity character. 11:30 PM CAROLS 12:00 MIDNIGHT MASS CHRISTMAS DAY SUNDAY 25 DECEMBER :00 AM MASS 11:00 AM MASS NO EVENING MASS ON CHRISTMAS DAY NEW YEAR S EVE SATURDAY 31 DECEMBER :00 AM MASS FOLLOWED BY CONFESSION 6:00 PM MASS FOLLOWED BY BENEDICTION NEW YEAR S DAY SUNDAY 1 JANUARY :00 AM MASS 11:00 AM MASS 5.30 PM MASS

2 WEEKLY CALENDAR 2016 Remembering Our Community Monday 5 December Communion Service Vinnies GA Sick Justine Hunt, Vern Barrett, Judy Ellis Tuesday 6 December Mass ~ Exposition Carol s on the Green Prayer Group - McAndrew Room Anniversaries Luis Nguyen Dinh Cuong, Tony Borg, John Jee, Mary Hiew, Robert Lee, Peter Quang, Maria Ng Anthony Lee, Jee s Fily Wednesday 7 December Exposition Rosary Anointing Mass ~ Cuppa Legion of Mary GA Rosary ~ 7.30 Novena RIP Fr Peter Lucas, Mark Fernandez & Dennis Burke Thursday 8 December Mass Burwood discussion group Mc Andrew room Congratulations to these couples Celebrating their wedding anniversary in the month of December Friday 9 December Mass Baptism Preparation Class GA Volunteer thank you Mass followed by supper in the hall. Rozanne & Ama 1st Anniversary, Carmel & Bernie Barnewall 39 Years and John & Margaret Burke 61 Years Saturday 10 December Melbourne Overseas Missions collection Choir practice for Christmas Vigil Baptism Preparation Class GA Mass St Scholastica s Parish Volunteers Thank you Sunday 11 December Melbourne Overseas Missions collection 09.00, 11 & 5.30 Masses Saturday 17 December Vietnese Mass 7.15 ROSTERS Day Mass Time 1st Sunday of the month 4 December Readers Altar Servers Special Ministers Saturday 6.00 Paul Borg Senior Servers in high school Mary Ann Borg Christine Wates Dzung Le Sunday 9.00 Maleesa Fernando Felicia Emily Rosa Coniglio Margaret Scully Myrna Beven Laurine Shane Audrey L Jeremy L Jo Jolly Anna Marie Ziino Quyen Truong 5.30 Arden Nelson Mass Time 2nd Sunday of the month 11 December Readers Altar Servers Special Ministers Saturday 6.00 Rachel Cordeiro Stephanie Nicole Jeremy W Jeremy G Charlie Mellican Noela Corby John Corby Sunday 9.00 Margot Westwood Felicia Emily Betty McDonald Murray McCormack Anna Gaetano Bev O Neill Munatsi Jill Bartley Albert Johnson Kath Johnson 5.30 John Doherty Jeremy L AudreyL Sonny Nguyen Margaret Sweeney John Doherty Day Margaret Sweeney Marcia Nelson Arden Nelson THANK YOU Mass will be at 7 on 9 December 2016 CALLING ALL VOULUNTEERS WE WANT TO SAY THANK YOU: Sacristans, Counters,Altar Servers, Altar Carers, Collectors, Eucharistic Ministers, Readers, Musicians, Cleaners, Catechists, Gardeners, Social function helpers, etc etc etc. Anyone who volunteers in any way for the parish. After Mass we invite you to join us for supper in the Community Centre as acknowledgement and thanks for the azing and selfless job that you all do. When: Tuesday 13 December 2016 Where: St Schols Community Centre Time: 12 noon Entry Fee: $5.00 Menu: Aperitif: A glass of sherry, Orange juice Entrée: Nibbles Main: Chicken, H, Roast Potatoes, Peas & Gravy Dessert: Trifle Fruit Cake with Tea or Coffee For catering purposes please contact the parish office or register your ne and contact details on the sheets provided in the Gathering Area or at the Church entrance. RSVP by Friday 9 December 2016! Registration sheets in the Gathering Area or call the Parish office. This is the last luncheon for 2016 so come along and join us. Prep children will sing some Christmas Carols for us and Santa will make an appearance.

3 Nativity Play & Vigil Mass Christmas Eve: 5:30 Nativity - 6 Mass Whether you prefer to call it a Nativity Play, a Christmas pageant, or Tableau, it s that wonderful time of year called Advent when we start preparing our hearts for celebrating the birth of the Christ Child. This announcement (and the Bright Yellow sheet found at each church entrances and the school office) is for anyone who would like to be involved in Nativity play at 530 followed by our Youth & Fily Mass at 6 on Christmas Eve! The Vigil Mass is an opportunity for the Children s Ministries including Children s Liturgy Te, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Sacrental Preparation Group, Kinder, School and our High School and Uni students to come together on this very Holy Night and share something special with our community. Choir Practice for Christmas Midnight Mass Have now commenced. Anyone who likes to sing is welcome. Practices are after the 9-00 Mass. 4th, 11th & 18th December Nativity Play Costume Helpers The costumes are all made and on their hangers, but we need some special helpers on Christmas Eve to help the mothers dress and undress their children. Due to an increasing number of children participating, this job can no longer be managed by one or two people. We are looking for four women who will be able to come and assist us. If you are able to help us on this very Holy Night, please contact the Parish Office on Volunteers Required for Christmas Masses 4 Parking attendants are required for fily mass and Midnight Mass at Christmas. If you can assist please contact the Parish office. And leave your ne and contact details. Altar Server Training January 2017 In January 2010 we ran the first Altar Server Summer School. This type of Altar Server training invited children to experience the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd for their faith formation and preparation to become Altar Servers. Altar Server Summer School has been offered at St Scholastica's every year in January to prepare children for this special opportunity of service and commitment, serving God and our community. Altar Server Summer School will be held January If your son or daughter has received their sacrents of First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion and is interested in becoming an Altar Server, please complete the registration form found at the entrances to the church or the school office. **Current servers who feel they would like to attend are most welcome. If you have any questions, please contact the Parish office on , or Kathy Menzies at dkmenzies@optusnet.com.au. Communion to the sick. Do you know anyone who is sick or housebound, who would like to receive a visit from Father Tran? Perhaps the sick/ homebound person is feeling isolated from the parish community and would like to receive communion on a regular basis. This can easily be arranged by phoning the parish office and leaving details. Dominique or Carol would be happy to hear from you. Tuesday Friday 9.00 to 3.00 on or stschpar@bigpond.net.au Altar Servers Thank you and Special Request for a Sestress Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the special collection last week. We appreciate your support - especially those of us who wear the Altar Server Albs that come up to our knees. Our special request now is to see if there are any parishioners who can follow a pattern from Pat Ovens to kindly make some bigger robes for us. Our goal is to have bigger robes for Easter 2017 since Christmas is coming too quickly this year. Please call the Parish office if you can help. Many thanks and God Bless Parish office Christmas/ New Year The last day for office staff will be Thursday 22nd December and we will re-open on Wednesday 11th January 2017 INTER-CHURCH NEWS 1. The combined churches' Carol Service last Sunday evening at Ashburton Uniting Church was very well attended and many members of St Schols' choir gave a beautiful rendition of Silent Night. 2. CHRISTMAS BOWL this year is on Thursday 8th and Friday 9th December at Burwood Shopping Centre in the Arcade. Representatives from St Schols will be collecting on Friday afternoon. We thank parishioners for their help in the past and hope support will continue if shopping at Burwood. St Scholastica s primary School Carol s on the Green Parishioners are invited to attend. Tuesday 6 December 7 Christmas is a time to gather with fily and friends to celebrate the birth of Jesus and to give thanks for the things we have. Tonight gives us an opportunity to pray as a community. We hope you enjoy our students leading the very special story of the first Christmas. Please join in singing these traditional carols. ST. VINCENT DE PAUL The food collection for non-perishable goods will be taken up at all masses this weekend. As Christmas is coming up food suitable for a Christmas Hper would also be appreciated such as mince pies, cans of h, long life custard. The other staple items most useful are: cans of meat & vegetables, cans & packets of soup, cans of tuna & sardines, baked beans, breakfast cereals, long life milk, pasta, pasta sauces, rice, tins of fruit & biscuits. Please ensure that the items are not out of date because these cannot be used and have to be thrown out. The Poor Box is located in the church near the Gathering Area entry for those who wish to donate that way. There will be no food collection on the weekend in January. Thank you for your continued support. Needing Christmas Ideas The 2017 Columban Art Calendar is now available at the Piety Staff for $9.00. Daily Missals are now available for $17.00 The St Vincent de Paul Society Christmas Cards are now also available Packets of 5 Christmas Cards $2.50 Packets of 8 Christmas Cards $4.00

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5 Second Sunday of Advent Year A - 4th December 2016 Entrance Antiphon O people of Sion, behold, the Lord will come to save the nations, and the Lord will make the glory of his voice heard in the joy of your heart. First Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10 A reading from the prophet Isaiah He judges the poor with justice. A shoot springs from the stock of Jesse, a scion thrusts from his roots: on him the spirit of the Lord rests, a spirit of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. (The fear of the Lord is his breath.) He does not judge by appearances, he gives no verdict on hearsay, but judges the wretched with integrity, and with equity gives a verdict for the poor of the land. His word is a rod that strikes the ruthless; his sentences bring death to the wicked. Integrity is the loincloth round his waist, faithfulness the belt about his hips. The wolf lives with the lb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion cub feed together with a little boy to lead them. The cow and the bear make friends, their young lie down together. The lion eats straw like the ox. The infant plays over the cobra's hole; into the viper's lair the young child puts his hand. They do no hurt, no harm, on all my holy mountain, for the country is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters swell the sea. That day, the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples. It will be sought out by the nations and its home will be glorious. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Psalm: Ps 71: R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever. O God, give your judgement to the king, to a king's son your justice, that he may judge your people in justice and your poor in right judgement. R. In his days justice shall flourish and peace till the moon fails: He shall rule from sea to sea, from the Great River to earth's bounds. R. For he shall save the poor when they cry and the needy who are helpless. He will have pity on the weak and save the lives of the poor. R. May his ne be blessed for ever and endure like the sun. Every tribe shall be blessed in him, all nations bless his ne. R. Second Reading: Romans 15:4-9 A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans Christ, the hope of all people. Everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope from the exples scripture gives of how people who did not give up were helped by God. And may he who helps us when we refuse to give up, help you all to be tolerant with each other, following the exple of Christ Jesus, so that united in mind and voice you may give glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It can only be to God's glory, then, for you to treat each other in the se friendly way as Christ treated you. The reason Christ bece the servant of circumcised Jews was not only so that God could faithfully carry out the promises made to the patriarchs, it was also to get the pagans to give glory to God for his mercy, as scripture says in one place: For this I shall praise you ong the pagans and sing your ne. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Maranatha, Maranatha Lord, show us your mercy and love, and grant us your salvation. Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12 A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. In due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.' This was the man the prophet spoke of when he said: A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight. This man John wore a garment made of cel-hair with a leather belt round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to fly from the retribution that is coming? But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abrah for our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abrah from these stones. Even now the axe is laid to the roots of the trees, so that any tree which fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire. I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who follows me is more powerful than I, and I not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.' The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Communion Antiphon Jerusalem, arise and stand upon the heights, and behold the joy which comes to you from God. Sunday 11th December 2016 First Reading: Isaiah 35: Second Reading: Jes 5:7-10 Gospel: Matthew 11:2-11

6 Scripture Commentary for Second Sunday of Advent, Year A As mentioned in the general reflections on the Advent season I offered last week, what that season puts before us is longing for the fulfilment of the messianic age. Because salvation in its complete sense is still outstanding, Christian believers continue to make their own the longings for divine intervention expressed by the prophets of Israel. The First Reading for today, like that of last week, again features one of the classic expressions of messianic hope taken from the prophet Isaiah (11:1-10). This time, however, there is a significant difference. Whereas the reading last week expressed the hope in more general terms, today s reading at its beginning and at its end focuses that hope more precisely upon a saving figure who is to come from the house (literally, the stock ) of Jesse, that is, from the royal house of David. So the longing is now more strictly messianic in that it centres upon the coming of an ideal king of David s line, who is personally to inaugurate the messianic age. What is to give this figure his unique quality is the fact that he is to be empowered, in manifest ways, by the spirit of the Lord. Among the many gifts the spirit will bestow upon him is knowledge of the Lord. We should understand knowledge in the full biblical sense implying not merely intellectual awareness but deep personal intimacy. As the text goes on to suggest, it is out of this deep awareness of God and God s will for human beings that the ruler will be able to institute true justice in the Land, with a particular bias towards the cause of the poor. The text then moves into a justly fous sequence describing the harmony in the natural and animal world that will attend the messianic age. It virtually ounts to a restoration of the original vision of Eden. All comes to a climax in the magnificent statement that the whole country will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters swell the sea. That is, the knowledge first mentioned in relation to the Davidic ruler, will radiate out from him to the whole of society and even to the animal world. In a way that catches up the vision of the nations streing to Zion in last week s reading, the text ends with an affirmation that Israel and her ruler so established will stand as a signal to the nations of the world, who will seek out her wisdom. Christian interpretation will find prefigured here the role of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, the one in whom the nations will place their hope (Matt 12:21; cf. Rom 15:12). The Second Reading, from Romans (15:4-9), has Paul addressing Gentile believers in Rome as the beneficiaries of this role traced out for Israel s Messiah. Across differences in community living that may arise, they are to accept ( welcome ) one another, conscious of the fact that in the person of the Son, Israel s Messiah, God has reached out beyond Israel to include them in the community of salvation. The acceptance they have received from God and the hope that it has brought into their lives should lead them to be accepting and tolerant in their turn. The Gospel, Matt 3:-12, presents us with the appearance and preaching of John the Baptist. John s message, Prepare a way for the Lord, virtually states the theme of the season. Nonetheless, it is not all that easy simply to take his words and proclaim them as Christian Gospel. Jesus hardly filled the role of preacher of end-time doom that John here sketches out for him here. More of this next week! What is essential and truly preparatory to Jesus proclation of good news is John s summons to conversion of heart. The way that Isaiah wanted prepared in the wilderness is one that must be prepared in the wilderness of the human heart so that the good news may truly enter in when finally it is proclaimed. The greatest obstacle to that entrance is complacency a complacency that rests upon privileged status ( We have Abrah for our father ) and a sense that one is different from the despised outsiders and so can rest secure. Jesus will baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. That is, he will seek to catch up human lives into the fire that is God s love, communicated through the Spirit (Rom 5:5). But only hearts that are truly repentant and converted will be able to be grasped within a baptism of this kind. John s baptism with water is a preparatory rite of conversion, readying human hearts for the entrance of this message about God s love, this true knowledge of the Lord which Jesus will impart. Brendan Byrne SJ