Welcome to our 2021 newsletter.  This is the first edition of the Camberwell, Balwyn Deepdene and Surrey Hills Wattle Park Parishes newsletter.  Our newsletter goes to parishioners across our three parishes, to families in our three schools and to friends and supporters of our parishes across Australia and beyond.  The reach of our newsletter has been a by-product of the 2020 Victorian lockdown, during which we refined our online news.  The feedback to our online news and blogs encouraged us to develop this newsletter further.  In last year’s parish survey many parishioners, from across all three parishes, commented on how much they had enjoyed the online news and the variety of stories.  Your ongoing support is appreciated and of course your feedback is always welcome. 

As usual this year we will continue with From the Parish House, where I will share with you news from our parishes and personal views on various topical issues.  This year we will have a regular column from Ann Rennie, Surrey Hills Wattle Park parishioner, educator and writer.  We are grateful to Ann for her thought provoking reflections on faith and life.  Ann’s first piece is in this week’s newsletter.  

Father Frank O’Loughlin will continue to write for us this year.  Frank will take a thematic column on the Eucharist for the first part of the year.  We look forward to the first instalment in next week’s newsletter.  We are encouraged by the great feedback we always receive from Frank’s insights.

In this newsletter you will also meet Shanti Michael.  Shanti has just been appointed to the position of Director of Music across our parishes.  Shanti comes to us with a wealth of experience and expertise in Church music in Australia, the United States and Malaysia.  In particular, she has an interest in conducting and choral music.  We welcome Shanti to our parish communities and look forward to getting to know her and developing our various music traditions with her. 

Our newsletter goes to all the families in our schools and we will have a regular section on school life and topics related to faith, sacraments and families.

The newsletter is also an opportunity to share with you the stories of the weddings, baptisms and other sacraments that are celebrated across our churches.  A collage of these will be presented each month.  

Life is changed not ended is always a well-read section of our newsletter.  The title of the column comes from the funeral liturgy where we pray: ‘for your faithful people Lord, life is changed not ended.’  It is here that parishioners share their obituaries of loved ones who have died.  These are published throughout the year and we thank the families who are willing to share the stories of their loved ones with us.

The newsletter is also an opportunity to share and promote the many activities and groups that make up parish life.  We hope that during this year we can profile some of the many groups and ministries that are at work across our parishes.  These provide us with the opportunity to enrich one another and share and build up ministries and activities across our three parish communities and beyond.  

You will also find links to the Sunday and weekday readings, to commentaries and reflections on the readings and we will continue to provide reflections on the feasts and seasons of the Church throughout the year.  

Thanks to all who have and will contribute to this newsletter throughout the year.

Fr Brendan