St. John’s Parish Mitcham 494 Whitehorse Road, Mitcham 3132

(Postal: P.O. Box 95, Mitcham 3132) Email: Mitcham@cam.org.au

Website: www.stjohnsmitcham.com.au Phone: 03 9401 6366 Fax No. 03 9872 4316

The Most Holy Trinity June 7 2020—Year A

God loved the world so much he gave his only Son.

As a child I learnt about the Trinity in terms of three persons in one God a short summary of a very complex history of debate about God, Jesus and Spirit. John’s Gospel says this with much greater simplicity in the one word: ‘love’. The very nature of God is to love—to reach out to another in relationship. In this conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus describes why he has come into the world; for love of us God gave us a most precious gift in Jesus. This Gospel makes the promise that those who receive this gift in faith will become children of God (John1:12) which is this Gospel’s way of describing salvation. This means of course that you and I are invited to be drawn into the very heart of God, to be drawn into the Trinity as part of God’s own household.

Earlier in the conversation Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about being born again in water and Spirit—a phrase Nicodemus could not understand. The Johannine community understood that with the gift of the Spirit they were in a sense reborn into the family of God, able to call God ‘Father’ and each other sisters and brothers. If you want a living example of the Trinity look at a family where children participate in the life and love of their parents.

Today, as we celebrate the feast of the Trinity, we are not celebrating an esoteric doctrine from the past; we are celebrating a living relationship with God, in which we now participate.

Sundays Under the Southern Cross—Mary Coloe PBVM

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One of our dear parishioners, Bernadette Rodwell, recently passed away. Due to the restrictions, the family invite you to view Bernadette’s funeral via online webcast by clicking the following link: View the webcast Please use the “Google Chrome” browser to view the webcast and make sure it is the most updated version. If you are using an older version of Google Chrome, the webcast may not work on some devices. In this instance you can copy and paste the link below directly into your browser. http://tobin.5stream.com/webcast/53289

“St John’s Parish community, committed to the Victorian Child Safe Standards

& acknowledges that Child Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility”

Parish Information

Faith Formation, Social & Others

Normal Weekend Mass Times at St. John’s Saturday Vigil, 6pm, then 8.30am, 9.45am, 11.15am, 5pm

Parish Priest

Fr Dispin John Supported by Fr Michael Kelly, CSsR Parish Office

Visitation and Communion to the Sick & Housebound: Office hours: Closed until further notice please call for assistance

Co-ordinator: Cath Brindle 0423 065 825 Monday-Friday 9am-4pm Ph: 9401 6366

Bereavement Ministry: Monika Bredhauer Parish Secretaries: Martine Giles (Monday-Wednesday & Friday)

Schools Elisa Kelesidis (Tuesday-Friday)

St John’s School, 494 Whitehorse Road, Mitcham, 9874 1575 Principal: Mrs Verona Gridley St. James School, 51 Centre Road, Vermont, 9874 1830 RE for Government Schools:

Principal: Mr Dave Mutimer Andrew Puls—0407 352 706

Services: St Vincent de Paul Shop 2/82 Maroondah Hwy Ringwood 9870 9124 - St Vincent de Paul Furniture Pick-Ups 1800 621 349 The House of Books (house next door to the Church) 9401 6306 - St Vincent de Paul Welfare Assistance 1800 305 330

Scripture Readings for week Mon: 1 Kings 17:1-6 Matthew 5:1-12 Tues: 1 Kings 17:7-16 Matthew 5:13-16 Wed: 1 Kings 18:20-39 Matthew 5:17-19 Thur: Acts 11:21-26 13:1-3 Matthew 10:7-13 Fri: 1 Kings 19:9 11-16 Matthew 5:27-32 Sat: 1 Kings 19:19-21 Matthew 5:33-37 The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Deuteronomy 8:2-3 14-16 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 John 6:51-58

AMONGST OUR PARISH FAMILY We welcome into the St Parish Family through the sacrament of Baptism, Poppy Amelia Sessler.

We ask for the grace and peace of Eternal life for those who have recently passed away, Janis Margaret Bilston, Suong Tchea, Mabel Victor Fernandes and for those whose memories are sacred to us at this time especially, David Stewart, John Monk, Jim Coghlan, Josefa Lentejas Torres.

The Travelling Rosary will be held at the home of Anne McAllister from Sunday 7 June—Friday 12 June. We encourage you to say the Rosary in the safety of your own home during this time.

Inspiration for the coming week from the Compassion and Friendship Group

Kindness is loaning someone your strength instead of reminding

them of their weakness.

PARISH OFFICE OPERATION

For general enquiries please contact the Parish Office on 9401 6366 or alternatively email mitcham@cam.org.au and a member of the Parish Team will respond to your query. If you need to contact Fr Dispin urgently, please call him directly 0413 683 153.

Parish News for the weekly Newsletter

The Parish Newsletter which will be posted on the parish website each week. Please feel free to email the parish office any parish news, recent deaths or anniversaries of loved ones and want to share.

Giving—Our Parish needs your support Details are: First Collection: Account Name: St John’s Presbytery Account BSB 083343 Account No. 515 469 035 Second Collection: Account Name: St John’s Church Account BSB 083347 Account No. 676 841 942 Reference field: Envelope number and Surname (contact the Parish Office if you don’t know your envelope no.) You can also mail a cheque, mentioning the split between the 1st and 2nd collections. Please mention your name and envelope number. If you have any questions about this, please ring the Parish Office 9401 6366 or email: mitcham@cam.org.au

NEW LITURGY ROSTER Even though our roster is not functioning at the moment, a new one for 2020/2021 needs to be drawn up.

If there is any one who would like to come on the roster as Lector/commentator or Special Minister we would love to hear from you. Any new person will need to acquire a Working with Children Check. The Parish office will explain the procedure.

There may be someone who feels the need to come off the roster and we will reluctantly accept this.

Please contact Tricia Spencer, 9872 4903 with your requests.

ST VINCENT DE PAUL DRIVE BY FOOD DRIVE

Our Team continues to provide emergency food aid to people in our area. We need food donations to help continue this work.

From Tuesday through to Friday between 10am till 2pm, the garage behind the Parish Office will be open for food donations.

You will be able to drive in and drop off food donations in the plastic bins in the garage.

The priority items we need are rice, pasta, pasta sauce, coffee, tins of soup, breakfast cereal, long life milk, biscuits.

Faith Formation, Social & Other

Nothing can Separate us from the Love of Christ It is encouraged to continue active participation in the life of the Church, through activities such as time in personal and family prayer, reflecting on the Scriptures and making a spiritual communion.

Please be aware that you can access the parish website to view the video of Fr Dispin’s Homily and Gospel of the weekend https://www.stjohnsmitcham.com.au/ or you can participate in a Mass online via http://bit.lyMassOnDemand, or www.wordonfire.org/daily-mass

Masses are livestreaming from St Patrick’s Cathedral Monday—Friday at 1pm, Saturday 8am and Sunday 11am. This is available to view on demand until one hour prior to the next scheduled Mass https://www.cam.org.au/mass

We are pleased to share that during this time of physical isolation due to COVID-19, the 11am Sunday Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral will continue to be televised free to air on C31 (often listed as Channel 44 on digital TVs) as well as live streamed on our website and YouTube channel. We invite you to share the news widely, particularly with those who might be limited to TV viewing.

CHILD SAFETY

To view our Safeguarding Children & Young People Code of Conduct, go to stjohnsmitcham.com.au

Catholic Social Teaching—What Can I Do About it here and Now?

HOUSE OF BOOKS

Have you read everything on your bookshelves during the stay at home period? Then we have good news for you. The House of Books will re-open on Monday, 1st June for limited trading hours. The shop will be open from 10am until 1pm, Monday—Friday.

The team at the Bookshop has implemented a CovidSafe plan designed to keep customers and volunteers safe. The total number of customers in the shop at any one time will be limited to eight people. Social distancing rules will be observed and hand sanitiser available. Extra cleaning will be done. Customers will be asked to provide their name and a contact phone number. Please note that the Bookshop cannot currently offer “contactless” payments so extra care will need to be taken in making payments. Due to safety concerns, the Bookshop will not be taking donations at the present time. Apologies for any inconvenience. The really good news is that we have lots of great books and our prices are still mainly $1—$5.

Our new phone number at the Bookshop is 9401 6306.

It’s Time to Lift Our Spirits

We invite you to contribute to our new initiative eg Household tips, Gardening Tips, Simple recipes, Sharing Stories of Hope.

Your contributions will be included on our parish website. If you would prefer, your contribution can remain anonymous.

Please send your contributions to the parish office via email: mitcham@cam.org.au or by post or please call Monika on 0438 220 361 for any queries.

Cooking tip

There has been a shortage of cannelloni shells in the supermarkets. One mother who regularly

makes spinach and ricotta in shells substituted her crepes recipe and reports success. Please

keep your recipes coming in.

Gardening tip

Winter has come suddenly. A popular plant is the snake plant or mother-in-law’s tongue. While

this is very hardy it dislikes frost so bring it under cover now.

Poem of the week

The following poem was submitted by a compassionate parishioner.

Thoughts on a mother’s love (For all our Mum’s and Grandma’s, in loss, in grief, in

heaven and in lockdown)

Mum means love, hugs and smiles, even over many miles

How much I miss our small interactions,

When we can’t experience what we have taken for granted

Is it too late to show appreciation in these difficult times?

Will we continue to appreciate what we have missed?

Can we go back to the way life was?

What was love?

Was it mum always being there for me,

Or was it because I can’t manage without her?

Or was it love pure and simple?

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