ST AUGUSTINE’S ANGLICAN CHURCH SHEPPARTON
ST LUKE’S DOOKIE AND ST MARY’S KATANDRA WEST
OUTREACH
Easter 2005
FROM THE RECTOR
This magazine you are now holding in your hands is almost certainly the finest, most thoughtful, amusing and stimulating Shepparton publication of the month. Bear that in mind if you are about to cast it on one side as boring, waffle, mere Christian propaganda! It is anything but boring waffle, though it does proudly trumpet the Christian Faith. If you do not like what you see and read, remember, “Outreach” is a mirror, if an ass peers into it he cannot expect an apostle to look out!
They don’t deserve it
This being the Easter edition of the Magazine, you probably expect me to dwell upon the Resurrection, to explain and expatiate upon this splendid, hopeful and glorious doctrine. It gives me pleasure not to live up to any such expectation. I shall be dwelling upon the glories of the Resurrection at 8.30am on Easter Sunday morning in St Augustine’s. If that doesn’t excite you and you cannot bear the thought of a full Easter sermon, come to the 10.30am Eucharist. There the happy chaos that ensues from a swag of baptisms will elicit from me the sweetest of all sermons, a one or two liner!
Those not at church on Easter Day, when able to be there, don’t deserve either to read or hear the glorious good news of Easter. Nor do they deserve to have their path through life illumined by its joy and truth. They also break one of our liberal Church’s few rules, namely the requirement to make your Easter Communion. Holiday makers who are genuinely unable to find a church altar at which to meet their risen Lord, should do so as soon as possible.
Rubbish, nonsense, rot!
All my life my heart has been warmed, my faith in human nature affirmed, my natural wildness and willfulness tempered and civilized by lovely Anglicans. So I get annoyed by the rot I so often hear about church-goers being hypocrites. It is indeed rot! It is rubbish and nonsense! An example of despicable guilt transference. Folk excusing their own guilt at their neglect of God and Church, by unjustly pulling down and vilifying those who do take God and Church seriously. Of course there are hypocrites in church. I am one myself. All of us, to some extent, are hypocrites, but hypocrisy is in no way whatsoever a characteristic of churchgoers, certainly these days. On the contrary, as I say, all my life my heart has been warmed, my faith in human nature affirmed, my natural wildness and willfulness tempered and civilized by lovely, good and loving Anglicans. God bless them.
Squeezed through the pearly gates
I spend a great deal of my time squeezing non-churchgoers through the pearly gates, by assuring people at funerals that you don’t necessarily have to go to church in order to be welcomed into the Kingdom of God. Insisting that God invites everyone in, that the only ones not there will be those who refuse to enter, and so there is hope even for hypocritical old, non-church-going Uncle Methuselah. This might lead people into assuming that church-going is of no importance! That if God welcomes us into his love and Kingdom, whether we’re church goers or not, as he does, whether we are believers or not, as he does, then there is no need to bother with Church at all.
How wrong though that would be. The reason that I remain a practising, church-going Christian is this: more than any other of the great faiths, Christianity holds up Love as the ultimate good. Sacrificing love, forgiving love.
The Cross of Christ is the great symbol of this ultimate good. Sacrificing love, says Christianity through its Christ, lies at the heart of the Godhead, God is love. We exist, says Christianity, through its Christ, in order to learn to love sacrificially, to die to self and learn to love. Love is our raison d’etre. We exist, so sweet Christianity maintains, not to be rich, successful, notable or important, all of which are of no moment whatsoever. We exist not even to be happy. Rather, we exist to learn to love, that is, to die to self and learn to love.
You do not indeed have to go to Church to be Christian
Love, though, is a social virtue, you can’t learn truly to love sacrificially in isolation, or only among those of your own kin, and of your own kind, and of your own sort. True, sacrificing love demands and requires wide and diverse community, communion, society and fellowship. “Oh,” say all those hypocritical people who don’t go to church, “I can be as good a Christian without going to Church as those who go.....” Yes, maybe, but only with great difficulty and hardly ever. For Kingdom-of-Heaven love, Christlike love, the love we have to be able to participate in in the Kingdom of Heaven, is love not merely of family, of kith and kin, is not merely of our own class, our own sort, our own type, our own intellect. Rather it is an all inclusive and unconditional love, of the sort that you find in the authentic Church family, love of lunatic, depressive, down and out; love of neurotic, obsessive, failure, fool; love of homosexual and murderer, love of enemy......
Every sort of which person has leavened all the good and lovely Anglican communities of which I have ever been a part, to my great good.
The Church, ideally, is a rag tag and bobtail of all, is a community learning to love, learning to love the unlovable, as did its Christ and as does God. It is very difficult indeed to learn to love with Kingdom of Heaven love, outside of a community like sweet mother Church.
The best of marinades
What is more, learning to love sacrificially in the Christlike way, goes against the human grain. It is so totally opposed to natural human selfishness, that the foundation story, the foundation event, the loving life, death and Resurrection of Christ, the “Fool for Love”, needs to be told over and over again to us, if ever we are going to get the point, see the point, appropriate the love. We need to be steeped in it, marinaded in it, we need to hear scripture read, the Gospel declaimed, Sunday by Sunday, we need to recall to the altar the great sacrifice of love week by week, and hold out our hands to receive the “Man for Others”, we need to bow the knee regularly to the otherness and transcendent beauty of love, if there is to be much hope ever of appropriating even a portion of it.
I look forward to greeting all discerning, non-asinine readers of this marvellous magazine on Easter Morning at St Augustine’s or very soon thereafter. The true believes will be at all the Holy Week services, of course. Fr Andrew Neaum
I PRAY THEE HAVE ME EXCUSED
With hoity-toity, condescending, Grammar Schoolish snicker,
Mrs Wortley-Montagu excuses to the “vicar”
Unvaried non-attendance at the local parish church:
“I’m awfully busy vicar, which is why you’re in the lurch,
But I’m as good as anyone, and God’s among my roses.
I worship him with aphid dust and water from my hoses.”
Smile priest, grin priest, take it on the chin,
Face creased, smile greased, charm the woman in!
The local high school teacher’s got his piffling B.Sc.
No one in a country town is quite as bright as he.
“God’s alright for dim-wits who need a little crutch
To limp through life on. Not for me though, thank you very much.
Opium for the hoi poloi is sometimes just the ticket,
But intellects like mine can say to Church or Rector, ‘Stick it!’”
Smile priest, grin priest, take it on the chin,
Face creased, smile greased, charm the fellow in!
The doctor in his surgery plays God to one and all,
Gives health and life in capsule form to all who on him call.
This tiny god would find it odd to bow his knee at all
To any but the moneyed monkey mirrored in his hall!
“The priest, the Church and God, of me can quietly despair,
For I am God myself thank heavens, God and Medicare!”
Smile priest, grin priest, take it on the chin,
Face creased, smile greased, charm the fellow in!
In clovered paddocks vast and rich there strides the local grazier
To whom the thought of Sunday church appears a good deal crazier
Than castigating other folk for falling shares and morals:
“I take my hat off Vicar, sir! I give you all my laurels.
How hard to preach of God and good in times as bad as these.
The world (not me!) would better be if down upon its knees.”
Smile priest, grin priest, take it on the chin,
Face creased, smile greased, charm the fellow in!
A parable advises priests to ease rejections pains
By touting God and good along the highways, streets and lanes.
To tattooed louts and yobboes then, the priest must preach his God,
But they, as well, with one accord excuses make. How odd!
In tongue refined or vulgar, then, excuses are the same!
“Guzzle, slurp, slap, tickle, burp! Life’s just a greedy game!”
Smile priest, grin priest, take it on the chin,
Face creased, smile greased, charm the people in!
Fr Andrew Neaum
EDITORIAL
by Ron Rose
Shortly the much loved and highly respected Libby is to be priested. That won’t happen in the diocese she serves so well. I have wondered about that.
Let’s face it, I’m prejudiced. I believe that allowing a woman to face and deal with the extreme end of a priests work is a bit like putting them in the drivers chair of a combat machine (tank, bomber or attach submarine).
They are not tasks I think a lady should be allowed to undertake. Once a person is put in such a chair it would be clearly patronizing to restrict the role they play to the “softer tasks”. Today gallantry is apparently misguided and what I feel is clearly old fashioned and in any case irrelevant to the issue of the role of ladies in the Church. But I still like to open doors for ladies.
I know the arguments about women being equally competent and have observed female ministers from various denominations deal not only with the trauma arising from the most horrific situations but also seen them care for the spiritual health of the most heinous of sinners. Of course they don’t like it but neither do the men I’ve seen in similar situations.
I also know the scriptures usually quoted but can, as many have done, explain the contextual limitations to each of them.
It is clear that arguments on these two grounds have not been able to convince all parties and have in fact led to some pretty heated and dare I say unchristian verbal combats. The one argument I have not heard aired is that one about God’s call. If a woman believes that she is called to a particular ministry, and it does not matter which, she must in my view, be allowed to test that call in the same way as a man. If then an unbiased opinion is formed that she is indeed called to a particular role then those who hinder her are acting against Gods will.
DOCTOR PLEASE
The play was well into the second act, the actors were burbling along, there was not much response from the audience; it did not seem to be required. Suddenly from the stalls a man stood up and said (not very loudly, but clearly): “IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?” There was a tremor in the audience. The actors were not disturbed and continued, but the man remained standing. After a few moments, from the dress circle, a shy little form rose: “Ah, yes,” he said, “I - I am a doctor.” The man in the stalls turned to him: “Oh, doctor,” he called, “isn’t this a TERRIBLE PLAY?”
ROUND AND ABOUT THE PARISH
Ron Rose the Editor
Ron Rose is a most amiable fellow, a well read and sharp-minded fellow who is an invaluable member of study groups because of his perceptive comments and oblique angled perspectives. His obliquity makes him an ideal Editor for this periodic periodical too. Sadly he is in hospital as I write this having his heart closely examined, in the biological and literal sense rather than the metaphorical and romantic one. So I, your Rector, have been left to put the thing together. Any faults, lapses in taste or priestly and personal biasses will be mine not his. He did gather some of the contents together and manage to write an editorial for us, for which I am grateful. We wish him well and are offering prayers for his full recovery.
The Saturday Vigil Eucharist
At 6.30pm on Saturdays, your Rector is in church, rather than partying or putting his feet up before the vapid box. He takes the Vigil Eucharists on Saturday nights which are held to enable those unable to get to Church on Sunday, nonetheless to fulfil their weekly obligation. These services were started primarily to enable confirmation candidates to come to church as well as to fulfil their sporting obligations on Sundays. However, as I say, such services are for anyone and they do tend to attract a small and discriminating permanent congregation. Sometimes Sunday’s sermon is delivered, sometimes not, the decision is made at the Celebrant’s whim. At present we hold the services in the lovely Lady Chapel and will continue to do so unless we become too crowded, which occasionally we come close to. They are quiet and relaxed offerings of worship, so do take advantage of them if unable to attend any Sunday.
Mothering Sunday and Harvest
The Mothering Sunday and Harvest Festival on the 6th of March was a lovely day, with posies, simnel cake and a great display of flowers, symbols of work and vocation and of fruit, jams, general foodstuffs and vegetables. Many thanks to those who contributed to its success, there were far too few of you! Such occasions need wider support than they usually get and are the sorts of services, because different and lighter than normal, to invite, dragoon, bribe or coerce recalcitrant or reluctant friends and relatives to. One of the things that often strikes me among church folk is a lack of any sense of occasion! Confirmation services, for example, are great occasions in the life of the church family, and yet how often your expectant Rector is underwhelmed by those who are present. Likewise our St Augustine’s Day celebrations, episcopal visitations, guest preachers, pet services and so on. The “Important Dates” listed in this magazine and in each week’s pewsheet, are listed for a purpose. They need to be put into your diary and made priorities. The guest speaker at the Mothering Sunday breakfast was Heather Fitzgerald, and as you would expect from this sensitive and highly intelligent woman, her talk was very well worth listening to and acting upon. I hope that all those with the good sense to be present, and the number this year was not at all bad, are seriously considering joining the “500 Club” of supporters of School Chaplaincy it need cost a mere $10 a year! Any queries to Heather Fitzgerald, Rosemary Moore or the Rector.
St Augustine’s Day and Women Priests
On May 29th we celebrate St Augustine’s Day and to lead and guide us in our celebrations is the Revd. Dr. Helen Malcolm. She will celebrate the 8.30am Eucharist and preach at both that service and the 10.30am Eucharist. She will also talk to us at the Luncheon afterwards. Helen is a real daughter of St Augustine’s, a talented member of a family that has been intimately associated with this parish for many, many years, someone to be proud of. It is fitting that she should be the first woman priest to celebrate the Eucharist in our parish church. Later in the year, if not before, on All Souls’ Day, the 2nd of November, I have invited the Revd Gail Bryce to celebrate the Eucharist for the date marks the anniversary of her ordination. We plan to throw some sort of a party in honour of that occasion too. On the evening of April the 29th the Revd Libby Gilchrist, who preached at my Induction, is to be ordained priest in St Paul’s Cathedral and some of us will be travelling down there to support her. If anyone would like a lift please contact the Parish Office or Rectory.
Welcomers and Sides-people
We have a team of “Welcomers” rostered for each Sunday. Their greatest difficulty is discerning who is a Visitor, who is a Newcomer and who is a Regular. To say to someone who has been attending the church for sixty years “Are you a visitor?” can be taken very badly! However, the risk needs to be taken if welcomers are properly to fulfil their role. Newcomers need to be given a pink Roll Form to fill in, Visitors should be asked to sign the Visitors’ Book and Regulars need a cheerful greeting. This is a vital and important job, not to be undertaken half-heartedly or casually. Perhaps the Welcomers should split up, one to deal with the Narthex’s North Door and the other the South Door. The Sides-people could then stand closer to the actual Church entrance to hand out pew-sheets and encourage folk to sit towards the church’s front. The Sides-people are responsible for hymn and prayer books, for pew-sheet distribution, the bread and wine of the Offertory and the Collection. They are also responsible for good order, and so need to keep a watchful, though charitable eye on any odd or disturbed people who grace us with their presence as well as on anyone who is ill, faints, or needs help in anyway.
Children’s Church
Every second Sunday of the month we have “Children’s Church” at 10.30am. All parents with primary school aged children should bring them along. We enjoy their company and I think they enjoy ours. A lot of work goes into preparing worthwhile activities for the children and any parent who has made baptismal promises on behalf of their children and doesn’t seriously attempt to ensure their child’s attendance at these services, at very least, is flirting with serious dishonesty. In this magazine there is a “Children’s Church Page” with a competition and prize. Please encourage your children to enter if they are of Primary School age, even if they are not Children’s Church members. Each month we send an invitation to list of children whose parents have indicated an interest. Sign up if you would like your child to receive such an invitation.
Gardens
The gardens at St Augustine’s are much appreciated and that they should be as good and lovely as they are without a gardener is a tribute to some wonderful voluntary workers as well as to our Garden Committee under the guidance of Barbara Whyte. To look after so large an area of garden is a major undertaking and the Garden Committee wonder if any folk would like to take on being the “minder” of a particular bed, ensuring that it is weeded and watered and loved. The Committee has an overall plan of what should be in each bed and so on, but a minder for some of the beds would be a great help. Let Barbara or Father Andrew know if you are interested.
Confirmation
The Confirmation takes place this year in November. I would like the names of candidates to be forthcoming now please. Preparation sessions are relaxed and enjoyable.
Parish Roll
The Parish Roll is in constant need of updating. If you have not received a copy of this magazine with your name on it and would like to, please let us know. If you have received one and no longer want to, likewise let us know please.
Lady Day in Wangaratta
Any cooking for the “Pie Stall” at Wangaratta on Lady Day the 5th of April will be appreciated. We can take any number of pies, sausage rolls, pizza, large & small quiche, zucchini loaf or slice, egg & bacon pie, savoury roll, sweet pies, fruit, jam & custard tarts, jam, slices, muffins. Please mark frozen goods with a red marker. Any goods can be picked up, simply ring Nola Brewer (58219410) Cars will be leaving the church car park at 9.00am. All proceeds go to A.B.M.
Notes from the Treasurer
Parish finances have started the year on a positive note with both pledge envelope giving and “open plate’ giving up on the previous year. Total pledged giving for the months of January and February is $11,927 compared with $10,320 for the same two months in 2004 and open plate giving $2,100 compared with $1,726 in 2004. This is an overall increase of just on $2,000. Also the Diocese has reported the results of Parish funds invested in the Diocesan
Common Fund for 2004 will be up 30% on the 2003 year and, following a Parish Council decision to re-invest 10% of the interest earned, will still result in an increase in the income budget reported at the Parish Annual Meeting. These increases will be welcome as the Parish seeks to appoint an assistant priest and fund the renovations to the Parish Hall kitchen. Norm Mitchelmore, Treasurer.
St. Augustine’s Evening Guild
Evening Guild’s opening meeting for the year left everyone feeling happily satisfied, held in the narthex, because of works currently being undertaken in the hall, it was preceded by the Eucharist, our thanks go to Father Neaum. There were 22 members present and we were able to cover some very useful work. Several purchases have been approved and it is to be hoped the items will be a worthwhile contribution to the church. Discussion about the next garage sale was deferred but we have decided to hold it sometime in June.
It was decided to ask Lorna Morriss to speak at our April meeting. We plan to have an afternoon tea to which everyone will be invited. Lorna is an excellent speaker, she works in a voluntary capacity with the family law courts and her experiences make for enthralling listening. Two Simnel cakes were contributed by our guild for Mothering Sunday on March 6th. My thanks go to the two ladies who made them. This was a pleasant meeting with much achieved. Our usual afternoon tea of tea and biscuits was augmented by bickies and cheese and some slice (just to mark the occasion). Our next meeting is our Annual Meeting so watch our for developments. Come along and join us. Margaret Kidman (President)
Devonshire Tea and Guest Speaker
Evening Guild invites everyone to an afternoon tea & to hear Mrs. Lorna Morriss, she serves as a support person with the Family Court in Melbourne, a most interesting subject. Thursday April 2nd at 1.45pm in St. Augustine’s Hall. Entry $4.00.
St Augustine’s Afternoon Ladies’ Guild
We had a very successful year in 2004 both financially and socially and we are looking forward to 2005.Our annual meeting will be held on Tuesday March 15th, which is the week that “Outreach should be printed. It takes place at 1.30 pm and is followed by the general meeting at 2.00pm. Pat Griffin (Secretary)
WISHING WELL TO A JEHOVAH’S WITNESS
A parson heard a knock at his front door and put his head out of the window and shouted: “Hullo there! Who is it?” “I am a Jehovah’s Witness,” came back the voice. “Good,” said the parson, “tell him I hope he wins his case.”
VOLUNTEERS WANTED!
Yes, there are yet more opportunities for parishioners who like to help others to do just that! Expertise, compassion and good ideas are also welcome.
Joking aside the Social Responsibilities committee is starting to pull together some ideas on how in a small way we can plug some of the gaps that exist in social service provision in Shepparton.
Social Responsibility committees are an initiative of Anglicare, which came into being as the result of the amalgamation of all the small Anglican welfare agencies in Victoria a few years ago.
Anglicare has asked several parishes to consider what welfare services they could provide to fill some of the gaps in local service provision. Although this scheme is supported by some funding, it is very limited and anything we do will have to be managed, staffed and nurtured by volunteers – in other words by US.
The embryo committee at this stage comprises Father Andrew, Heather Pearson, Sandra Simonis, Andrea Fisher and Charlotte Brewer.
Given the funding constraints, it is clear that we need to start in a small way. We would have two objectives: first to help people in sorrow, need or any other sort of adversity (oh for the old words of the Book of Common Prayer) take a step towards overcoming that adversity, whether it be starting to feel better about themselves and thus better able to cope with our complex world, or even move into employment; and secondly to show our community that the Anglican church is caring and proactive. We are, in fact, plagiarising some of the concepts practised by Hands on Health, a church based charity which started some years ago in St. Kilda and now has similar services run through churches of several different denominations in other parts of Australia and in the Philippines.
One idea we are considering is asking people from all sorts of occupations, mainly but not exclusively the ‘helping ones’ to give a little of their time on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis. So if you have some expertise, it does not matter if you have retired, or the ability to give a little more time to helping others, please join us at our next meting on Tuesday 12 April at 5.15 in the Narthex. If you are unable to attend but have some ideas, please talk to one of the committee. Charlotte Brewer - Social Responsibilities Committee
THANK GOD FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS
In spite of Belloc’s description of Lord Heygate as:
The sort of peer who well might pass
For someone of the Middle-Class,
the label does not, thank God, carry with it the pejorative associations of the label bourgeois. Both in France and England, until very recently, nearly all the writers, painters, composers, scientists, and philosophers came from this class, but we do not, like our unfortunate French colleagues, have to apologise for the fact.
One may sneer as one will at its narrow-mindedness, its repressions, its dullness, but let it be remembered that it was the middle-class who first practised, if it did not invent, the virtue of financial honesty, the first class to be scrupulous about paying bills and taxes. The aristocracy paid its gambling debts but not its tailors’ bills; the poor stole.
We even have our martyr, Sir Walter Scott, who, when made bankrupt through no fault of his own, worked himself to death to pay off his creditors. In our modern economy it seems unlikely that the middle-class morality about money will be able to survive. I, for example, was brought up never to buy anything until I had the cash to pay for it. If everyone did the same, i.e., bought nothing on credit, our economy would go smash. W H Auden in 1971
TIMING THE SERMON
After the Reformation the churches of the sixteenth century acquired a new article of furniture, the hour-glass by the pulpit. “These” writes Owen Chadwick in his book ‘The Reformation’, “were rare before the Reformation, and became common in English parishes during the reign of Elizabeth. Many sensible men regarded an hour as the limit which their congregation could bear, though on special occasions like Lutheran funerals sermons of three hours were not unknown. Calvin rebuked Farel for preaching long and tedious sermons.
Cranmer advised Latimer not to preach for more than an hour and a half, lest the king grow weary. Most church orders demanded the full hour, at least on Sundays. But printed sermons prove that there were many shorter. The humane Melancthon thought that half an hour was enough, as the ear is the first of the senses to tire. Half-hour glasses are known; and the makers, not always accurate, sometimes erred in favour of the congregation. There is a surviving hour- glass which unwaveringly completes its hour in forty-eight minutes......
A BLOODY WISH
Professor A B Macauley knew a great theologian, who was, he says, almost a teetotaller, except for whisky. He used to relax on Mondays by playing a round of golf on the links, and might carry a small flask with him. One icy winter’s day he slipped and fell. As he got up he felt a drip down his trouser-leg. “Blast,” he said, “I hope it’s blood!”
QUOTES FROM HERE AND THERE
From Ghandi (who lived from 1869-1948)
A warning against seven social sins;
Politics without principals
Wealth without work
Commerce without morality
Pleasures without conscience
Education without character
Service without humanity
Worship without service.
From The Glorious Qur’an (transcribed by Muhammad who lived from 571-632CE)
Those who listen , To the Word,
And follow, The best (meaning ) in it,
Those are the ones, Whom God has guided,
And those are the ones, Endued with understanding.
From Chairman Mao (who lived from 1893-1976)
Protect the interests of the youth, women and children – provide assistance to young students who cannot afford to continue their studies, help the youth and women to organize in order to participate on an equal footing in all work useful to the war effort and to social progress, ensure freedom of marriage and equality as between men and women, and give young people and children a useful education.
From William Barclay (who lived from 1907-78)
There is the gift of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. This was the essential message of the gospel. This was the essential message of the early preachers. They were sent out to preach repentance and remission of sins (Luke 24:47). It was Paul’s message at Antioch in Pisidia … (Acts13:38). To be forgiven is to be at peace with God, in fellowship and friendship with God - and that is precisely the gift that Jesus brought to men. ( I’m sure Bill means “and women”)
From John Austin Baker (who is still with us)
To belong to the family of God is the true life for which all human beings are made, and they can in the end find their way to that life only through Jesus and the truth that is in him.
From Ginger Meggs (who never really was)
Admit your mistakes at once, before someone exaggerates them
COMMENTS ON ANY OR ALL OF THE ABOVE
WILL BE WELCOMED AS “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR”RR
BALDING
Balding is God’s way of showing you are only human....he takes the hair off your head and sticks it in your ears.Bruce Willis
The most delightful advantage of being bald, one can hear snowflakes. R G Daniels
GARDEN CLUB.
Barbara Whyte.
The working bee held on Saturday the 5th of March, saw a wonderful turnout of willing workers to help in the beautification of the church gardens. Due to the Mothering Sunday Breakfast, which was to be held next day, our capable gardeners’ talents were spread over various areas.
To accommodate the breakfast the hall, after it’s facelift, needed some attention, posies were made for the women of the church, and the church itself, with an absent cleaner was cleaned by us all as well. With all this diversity, work was also done on some of the beds, John Pleming installed a watering system in the Agapanthus garden, thank you John, this will make the upkeep of the area easier.
Merv Cowland put in some sterling work trying to beat the couch grass in the back garden, others also made a great impact on the overall appearance.
Harry & Heather Nichols have kindly allowed us to remove rocks from their property at Dookie, we intend making a picnic day of our hard labour, remember many hands make light work, date to be finalized.
Much to Doris Nichols’ surprise, a birthday cake appeared at morning tea, with much aplomb Doris effortlessly did justice to the one candle.
As usual on completion of our work Father Andrew & Margaret made us most welcome for an enjoyable luncheon. Thank you very much.
Do join us for our next working bee, it is not all hard work, we all enjoy the fellowship.
TWO BLASTS FROM THE PAST
(1) 1991 – from Outreach May 1991
The beautiful valley of Howqua near Mansfield is once again the venue for the Parish Weekend; Friday May 17th to the afternoon of Sunday may 19th.
The theme for the Parish Weekend is “Being The Family Of God”. Fr. Cliff Penniceard, the Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Education at Melbourne University will be conducting the weekend with Fr, John Price and possibly other clergy assisting.
… Costs have been kept to a minimum. Adults $53. Teenagers $30. Children $25 and no charge for all those under five years. Endeavour to keep the motto “All one in 91" and be there.
HANDS UP THOSE WHO WENT
LET’S HEAR YOUR MEMORIES FOR THE NEXT OUTREACH.
(2) 1997 – from Shepparton News 1997 Winter Cook Book
Tasty beef cashew hot-pot
Ingredients
800g topside or round steak (cut into thin strips)
2 sliced onions
2 cups water
½ cup tomato sauce
1tbsp sweet chilli sauce
1 pkt Dutch Curry and rice soup
1 green apple peeled and sliced
Method
Brown steak in hot pan with a little oil add onions and water, tomato and chilli sauce, and soup. Add apple cover and simmer gently 1-1½ hrs.
Serve on a bed of rice and sprinkle with cashews. Beryl Goodfellow
THE ROSES HAD IT LAST MONTH AND REALLY ENJOYED IT
PARENTHOOD
A pair of progressive parents decided that, in order not to induce any inhibitions in their offspring, they would never refuse him any request that he might make. They were therefore rather taken aback when the child said; “I want to eat a worm.” So daddy went into the garden, dug out a worm and brought it in. The boy looked at it with distaste, but he did not want to change his mind so he compromised. “I want it fried.” So daddy fried it. It still did not look appetising, and so the boy compromised again. “Daddy eat half.” So daddy cut it in two, closed his eyes and gulped down one part. “You’ve eaten my half!”
FROM THE PARISH REGISTERS
Baptisms
December 26th Nathan Hobley-Gray, William Holyman
January 23rd Avah Topp, Hayden Brock, James Brock
February 27th Brayden Jones, Joseph Hammond
Marriages
December 18th Chris Stajanovski & Kirsty DePalma
January 8th David Leonard & Michelle Waller
February 5th Andrew Groves & Dorothy Varapodio
12th Troy Tayor & Shannon Baldi
19th Timothy Sali & Kristy Benson
Funerals
December 10th Marjorie Green, 16th Christopher Walsh,
21st Bernard Bazeley, 4th Jack Bryne
January 14th Annie McPhail, 19th Rowland Taig, 24th Valerie Ford,
22nd Fanka Petrovskia 27th, Dorothy Blizzard 27th
February 16th Angel Taylor, 23rd Peter McNamara
March 1st Frederick Baldyn
16th Christine Warburton
17th Yvonne Young
TIMEKEEPING
Late home for supper,
He mustn’t seem drunk.
“The pob cluck”, he begins,
And knows he is sunk
Wendy Cope from “If I Don’t Know” - Faber and Faber 2001
ON MYTHS
From “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell.
‘That puts the kibosh on the peace talks.’
One of our problems today is that we are not well acquainted with the literature of the spirit. We’re interested in the news of the day and the problems of the hour. It used to be that the university campus was a kind of hermetically sealed-off area where the news of the day did not impinge upon your attention to the inner life and to the magnificent human heritage we have in our great tradition - Plato, Confucius, the Buddha, Goethe, and the others speak of the eternal values that have to do with the centring of our lives. When you get to be older, and the concerns of the day have all been attended to, and you turn to the inner life - well, if you don’t know where it is or what it is, you’ll be sorry.
Greek and Latin and biblical literature used to be part of everyone’s education. Now, when these were dropped, a whole tradition of Occidental mythological information was lost. It used to be that these stories were in the minds of people. When the story is in your mind, then you see its relevance to something happening in your own life. It gives you perspective on what’s happening to you. With the loss of that, we’ve really lost something because we don’t have a comparable literature to take its place.
These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with the themes that have supported human life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deeper inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don’t know what the guide signs are along the way, you have to work it out for yourself. But once this subject catches you, there is such a feeling, from one or another of these traditions, of information of a deep, rich life-vivifying sort that you don’t want to give it up.
.....People say that what we’re seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That’s what it’s all finally about, and that is what these clues help us to find within ourselves.
Submitted by Joan Harder
CHUTZPAH
The classic definition of chutzpah: that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, threw himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.
EASTER DAY - THE PASSOVER OF GLADNESS
Easter Day demands that we change our attitude, from the long weeks of Lenten penitence, to joy and rejoicing; and to do this is not easy nor does it come naturally. For many of us, there is less effort required in being sad and depressed, than in being joyful. It comes to us more easily to weep with those who weep, than to rejoice with those who rejoice. Rejoicing, which is appropriate for Easter Day, needs faith to set it in motion, specially in a bleak world of hunger, disease and violence. What is there to be joyful about? Christ’s resurrection, the reason for joy, seems irrelevant. There is no problem about being miserable on your own; it is not so easy to rejoice on your own. The natural thing is to call together your friends and neighbours and say, Rejoice with me. Joy is social: unhappiness tends to isolate us. How wise, then, of our ancestors to say that “Every Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one”. The service, the readings, the presence of other people, the whole occasion, draws us out from the privacy of depression and misery into a new world of joy. We had forgotten a new world of joy. We had forgotten that it was there, but the day calls it to mind and plunges us into it again:
Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness,
Leave the gloomy haunts of sadness,
Come into the daylight’s splendour,
There with joy thy praises render
Unto him whose grace unbounded
Hath this wondrous banquet founded;
High o’er all the heavens he reigneth,
Yet to dwell with thee he deigneth.
John Fenton
THE WORST POET IN THE WORLD
William McGonagall (1825-1902) enjoys the reputation as the world’s worst poet. When I was at university there was a McGonagall Society, and his amusingly bad poems were declaimed in the Student’s Union café to our great delight. He came from Dundee where for three months in 2000 I looked after a parish The following is irresistible:
The chicken is a noble beast,
But the cow it is forlorner.
Standing in the pouring rain,
With a leg at every corner.
William McGonagall
CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS
There is no necessary connection between being a Christian and a socialist, any more than there is between being a Christian and a conservative. Faith is a gift of grace, not a matter of opinion. Political allegiance is merely a matter of opinion, and of habit and prejudice. Faith concerns what is perfectly true; politics is just a question of somehow, imperfectly, getting by.
Christians can justifiably support any party which does not explicitly reject the Christian God, as Communist parties do and the Nazi party, slightly less directly, did. There are Christians who sincerely believe that a police state, or complete nationalisation, or capital punishment, or 98 per cent income tax, or the feudal system, or slavery, or apartheid can be made compatible with their religion. I do not think we can say that they are definitely wrong, as long as they refrain from saying they are definitely right. It is tolerable though silly to say that you think Jesus would have voted for Mr Howard or Mr Beasley; it is intolerable to suggest that Christian belief must go with one political creed - that any political party can be holier than thou.
For the sobering thing about Christianity is how radically critical it is of all politics. There is only one phrase about politics in the Mission Statement of Christianity, but which you and I know as the Creed. It is "He....suffered under Pontius Pilate". This event was the point in history at which divine power intersected with temporal human power. In temporal human terms, politics came off better than religion. Jesus was executed and Pontius Pilate remained governor of Judaea. But it is an article of Christian faith that, in terms of the divine plan, politics and the world it represented were overcome, then and for ever....... C Moore
Holy Week & Easter Services
PALM SUNDAY 20th March
8.30am & 10.30am St Augustine’s Blessing of Palms & Eucharist
9.00am Dookie and 10.45am Katandra Blessing of Palms & Eucharist
HOLY WEEK
8.00am Monday and Tuesday St Augustine’s Eucharist
10.00am & 6.00pm Wednesday St Augustine’s Eucharist
MAUNDY THURSDAY 24th March
7.30pm St Augustine’s Eucharist - Washing of Feet,
Altar Stripping and Watch of the Passion
GOOD FRIDAY 25th March
9.30am St Augustine’s The Liturgy of the Day
9.00am Dookie and 10.45am Katandra Devotional Service
HOLY SATURDAY 26th March
7.30pm St Augustine’s Easter Vigil: Easter Candle, Renewal
of Baptism vows & 1st Easter Eucharist
EASTER DAY 27th March
8.30am & 10.30am St Augustine’s Eucharist & renewal of Baptism Vows
9.00am Dookie and 10.45am Katandra Eucharist & renewal of Baptism Vows