Our One Mission, Two Parishes Theme or Focus

for 2023 is:

Being the Good News

by Promoting God's Hospitality!

and so it gives me great pleasure to welcome YOU
to our Parish Website ...

• St. Timothy and his Church
  
• Saints in Rome & Beyond!: St Timothy
  
• The Catholic Travel Guide
  
• Wikipedia
  
• and our ACBC 2016 Parish Social Profile

Fr Gerard
Parish Priest

Saint Timothy’s Final resting place … Termoli Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Termoli, in the province of Campobasso, central Italy. The dedication is to the Purification of the Virgin Mary, but is commonly ascribed to Saints Bassus and Timothy, patrons of the city. It is the seat of the Bishop of Termoli-Larino.

Born at Lystra, Lycaenia, Timothy was the son of a Greek father and Eunice, a converted Jewess. He joined St. Paul when Paul preached at Lystra replacing Barnabas, and became Paul’s close friend and confidant. Paul allowed him to be circumcised to placate the Jews, since he was the son of a Jewess, and he then accompanied Paul on his second missionary journey. When Paul was forced to flee Berea because of the enmity of the Jews there, Timothy remained, but after a time was sent to Thessalonica to report on the condition of the Christians there and to encourage them under persecution, a report that led to Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians when he joined Timothy at Corinth. Timothy and Erastus were sent to Macedonia in 58, went to Corinth to remind the Corinthians of Paul’s teaching, and then accompanied Paul into Macedonia and Achaia. Timothy was probably with Paul when the Apostle was imprisoned at Caesarea and then Rome, and was himself imprisoned but then freed. According to tradition, he went to Ephesus, became its first bishop, and was stoned to death there when he opposed the pagan festival of Katagogian in honor of Diana. Paul wrote two letters to Timothy, one written about 65 from Macedonia and the second from Rome while he was in prison awaiting execution. His feast day is January 26.

The Missionary Nature of the Church: “The Person who has trust and participates in the faith of the Church wants to believe with the Church. This seems like our life-long pilgrimage: to arrive with our entire life at the communion of faith. We can offer this to everyone, so that little by little one can identify and especially take this step over and over again to trust in the faith of the Church, to insert themselves in this pilgrimage of faith, so as to receive the light of faith ... The essence of Christianity is not an idea but a Person. Great theologians have tried to describe the essential ideas that make up Christianity. But in the end, the Christianity they constructed was not convincing, because Christianity is in first place an Event, a Person. And thus in the Person we discover the richness of what is contained ... How can one's personal authenticity be discovered if in reality, in the depths of our hearts, there is the expectation of Jesus, and the genuine authenticity of each person is found exactly in communion with Christ and not without Christ? If we have found the Lord and if he is the light and joy of our lives, are we sure that for someone else who has not found Chirst they are not lacking something essential and that it is our duty to offer them this essential reality? ... If we are convinced and we have experienced the fact that without Christ life is incomplete, is missing a reality, the fundamental reality, we must also be convinced that we do harm to no one if we show them Christ and we offer them in this way too the possibility to discover, the joy of having discovered life.
(Benedict XVI ‘Benedictus’).

CELEBRATING SUNDAY: ‘Christians are Sunday People. What does that mean? Before we ask ourselves how we "observe Sunday," we have to consider what we Christians actually celebrate on Sunday. The real and first reason for celebrating Sunday lies in the fact that on this day Christ rose from the dead. In doing so, he inaugurated a new age. For the first time someone returns from the dead and will not die again. For the first time someone has broken the bonds of time that hold us all in captivity. But Jesus did not pass quickly into heaven. He did not simply shed time as one might shed a worn-out garment; on the contrary, he remains with us. He has returned and will never leave us again. The feast of Sunday is, therefore, above all a profession of faith in the Resurrection. It is a profession of faith that life is good. Very early in the history of the Church Christians asked themselves: “Why did the Lord choose this day? What meaning did he intend to convey thereby?” According to Jewish reckoning, Sunday was the first day of the week. It was therefore the day on which God created the world. It was the day on which God ended his rest and spoke: “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3). Sunday is the first day of the week, the day of creation. That means, then, that Sunday is also the day on which we give thanks for creation … Creation has been given us by God as our living space, as the scene of our labour and our leisure, in which we find both the necessities and the superfluities of life, the beauty of images and sounds, which we need precisely as much as we need food and clothing.’ (Benedict XVI 'Benedictus')

Journeying together in daily life ...

2nd April 2023 ~ Holy Week begins:

26 March 2023

POPE FRANCIS’ MESSAGE ‘LENTEN PENANCE AND THE SYNODAL JOURNEY’ for Lent 2023.

PROJECT COMPASSION 2023

8 February 2023

CARITAS AGENCIES RESPOND to catastrophic Turkey earthquake Caritas agencies are responding to a series of powerful earthquakes in southeast Turkey (officially known as Türkiye) and Syria, where thousands of lives have been lost already and the death toll increases by the hour.

5 February 2023

ESAFETY WEEK: On Tuesday 7 February 2023, the 20th Safer Internet Day will be observed globally. In a world that is more connected than ever before, online safety awareness is becoming even more important.

29 January 2023

WELCOME BACK to all the Primary School Students, their Families and Staff in both Primary Schools who begin Term 1 of 2023 this week.

21 January 2023

We offer our best wishes to our local Vietnamese Catholic Community who celebrate the Tết Lunar New Year this Weekend and into the early part of the coming week ...

SATURDAY 21-01-2023 @ 7:30PM MASS

Vietnamese New Year Eve Thanksgiving Mass

SUNDAY 22-01-2023 @ 5PM MASS

1st New Year Day, Praying for Peace

MONDAY 23-01-2023 @ 7:30PM MASS

2nd New Year Day, Praying for Parent & Ancestor

TUESDAY 24-01-2023 @ 7:30PM MASS

3rd New Year Day, Praying for Jobs & Farmers

15 January 2023

From January 2023 please be advised that the Parish Office for St Timothy's Forest Hill and St Luke the Evangelist Blackburn South (both Parishes) will operate out of St Timothy’s at 17 Stevens Road Vermont Vic 3133. The telephone numbers remain the same, the email addresses remain the same and the personnel remain the same. The Presbytery at 46 Orchard Grove Blackburn South will remain the residence for the parish priest of both parishes.

5th January 2023