From Fr Bob Maguire

Australia Day come and gone. I had a 'gig' at Terang, a beautiful city in Victoria's western district. People of all kinds sang. The band played. The flag was raised. Local high achievers were presented with awards. made a speech. I joined a whole gang of people spread across the State speaking about 'Australian values' and congratulating the locals for ensuring those values in their local community's life and work. It's a good day out for me. Three hours there, three hours back, driving myself. Alone at last! Time to listen to music. Time to let the eyes feed off distance. Inner city eyes are horizon starved. Humans need to know there's something out there bigger than themselves - and it's friendly. So, I'm back now, I've had a satisfying feed of good old Aussie values. Can't remember what was on the menu. But, I feel good, so it must have been good for me.

Maybe Aussie values need to be experienced more and talked about less. I think that's what I liked about Terang. Felt good. That's what I'd like to feel about every place I visit. I can help make it happen or help prevent it not happening here where I live and work in South Melbourne. People entitled to feel at home wherever they lob. That's the great human global ethic. Feet at home and make others feel at home. Hospitality is the go, global hospitality, but that starts with local and local starts with me, personally. Key performance indicators can be applied to local. Local toxins can be identified and dealt with.

I mean, down the road fro me there's lots of vacant land. God knows who owns/manages it. (Maybe God does!) They want to open a 24/7 drinking, singing and dancing place there. Good luck to then BUT they should have to compensate the neighbourhood for the toxic waste, the flashy hedonism that will be in the locals' face. Give them permission, provided they help create a 24/7 drop in centre for local public housing people in the spot best for local, with facilities chosen by locals.

That's what I'm all about, by the way, and why I've founded my own Foundation to ensure projects, like the 24/7 drop in centre, get a chance, at least, to see the light of day. Blokes like me, pains in the ass, have been around Catholicism from Year one. Below is the obituary of one of my earliest mentor 'pains in the ass', Abbé Pierre of Paris.

Abbé Pierre, a Catholic priest who became the conscience of France - a Mother Teresa-type figure - for more than half a century with his fight for the homeless, has died from a lung infection at a military hospital in Paris. He was 94.

French President Jacques Chirac said the country had lost 'an immense figure, a conscience, an incarnation of goodness'. Abbé Pierre, who was in the French resistance in World War II and later elected to the French parliament, was best known as a passionate defender of the homeless from the time he first issued a wake-up call to the nation during the bitterly cold winter of 1954.

'My friends, help! A woman froze to death at three o'clock this morning,' he said in a radio broadcast in Paris that became a clarion call. People had to send the suffering a message of welcome that said 'whoever you are, come in, eat, sleep, find joy again, we love you'. He asked people to deliver blankets, tents and cooking stoves to help the homeless survive that cold winter, and the parliament was moved to pass legislation that created 12,000 new shelters for the homeless.

Born Henri Antoine Groues, the fifth child of a wealthy silk merchant in the southeastern city of Lyon, he went to a Jesuit school before giving up the family wealth to be ordained a Capuchin monk in 1930 and pledging himself to poverty. He took the name Abbé Pierre. Although lung infections forced him to leave the strict monastic life after six years, he was ordained a priest in 1938. He became a member of the French resistance during the war and helped to hide Jews from the Nazis and forged documents to help them escape. After the war, he became a Christian Democrat deputy in France's National Assembly (1945-51), but for most of the time he was best known as a grassroots activist, and with an ex-convict, established a shelter for the homeless in an old building in Paris. In 1949 he founded the nonprofit Companions of Emmaus organisation that has grown into an international movement, with chapters in more than 50 countries, with more than 10,000 apartments and homes for the homeless. A venerated figure in his dark cassock and beret and walking stick, he remained vocal in denouncing political inaction in matters relating to the poor and homeless. He even addressed the French Assembly in a wheelchair a couple of years ago, to stop the repeal of a law that would hit the homeless. In the early 1990s he rejected the national award of the prestigious Legion d'Honneure, but was nevertheless promoted to its highest rank, the Grand Croix in 2004. He also held the Croix de Guerre 1939-45 and the Medaille de la Resistance for his wartime work.

His image was somewhat tarnished in 1996 when he came out in defence of a book that questioned the number of Jews killed by Nazis in World War II and accused Israel of exploiting the Holocaust for political ends. But he later backed away from support for Roger Garaudy, whose book, 'The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics', had been at the centre of his earlier support. He also shook the church establishment when he confessed in a book published in 2005 to having had sexual relations with a woman 'on rare occasions'. In 'Mon Dieu - Pourquoi?' (My God. -. Why?), he also supported unions of gay couples and the ordination of women as priests. For years he topped popularity charts ahead of politicians and movie stars. In 2005, French television viewers voted him the third greatest French person of all time, after Charles de Gaulle and - Louis Pasteur.

You can learn more about Abbé Pierre on here.

Paraliturgy and Reflection session presented by Maria Forde to begin our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday (21 February 2007).

For the past few years Maria Forde have been visiting parishes around and inviting parishioners to reflect upon their Lenten journey. Through the use of prayer, ritual and music, Mary discusses the season of Lent, its historical significance and ways that we can mark our own Lenten path.

By the use of powerful ritual, music and images, parishioners are invited to a place of prayer and reflection, to ponder questions such as: What is my relationship with God? Like the grain of wheat, what part of my life must I let die in order to experience new life?

We are seeking the help of a person who has expertise's in the Display board field. Discussion has been held on providing two communication boards within the church, one that would contain the Church & Community history, the other, a Community News Board with updates of parish events, who to contact about weddings, funerals, baptisms and Mass Times.

If you can offer some help in this area please contact Alba on 0417 831 722 or email Alba at albarob@optusnet.com.au Think Tank group

Many thanks to Angelina who responded to our call for assistance in driving one of our parishioners to Mass on Sundays. If there is anyone else who would like to help every now and then please give Carol a call on 9699 2892.

Your prayers are asked for the family of Marie Hill who died last Tuesday. Marie is survived by her husband Ron and two sons, their daughter passed away a few years ago. Both Marie and Ron have been very strong supporters of our Parish Marie would always take about four boxes of chocolates to sell at work on behalf of the parish school. Her efforts were gratefully received.

Marie's funeral will be on Tuesday at 10.00 am and Rosary will be said on Monday evening at 7.30 pm.

Please remember Made in your prayers and Masses.

A story by Janet McConnaughey, Covington Louisiana (AP) A woman whose frozen embryos were rescued from a flooded fertility clinic weeks after hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans has given birth.

Before the caesarean section on Tuesday, mother Rebekah Markham had decided the baby would be called Noah - if it was a boy - 'because God put it on his heart to build an ark'.

Before Katrina struck, Mrs Markham had been evacuated with her toddler Witt. Her husband Glen, a New Orleans police officer, stayed to work.

Mother and son actually evacuated twice. When the storm toppled 12-metre-tall pine trees and cut electricity across south Louisiana, their first refuge became a poor place to care for a toddler. So they went to her sister's home in central Louisiana.

A mobile phone text message 'RU OK?' the day after the storm told her that her husband had survived.

Mr Markham, 42, never got his wife's answer to his text query. His phone battery was dead. 'It was about two weeks before I found out that they were OK,' he said.

It took longer than that to think about the embryos. When Mrs Markham called the Fertility Institute of New Orleans, she learned that 1400 embryos, including hers, frozen in liquid nitrogen, had been rescued.

Dr Belinda Sartor and lab director Roman Pyrzak had led seven Illinois Conservation Police officers and three from Louisiana State Police on a rescue expedition to the institute in flat-bottomed boats,

The Catholic Education Office Melbourne is offering school leavers the chance to win teaching scholarships at Campion College in Sydney.

Applications for the 2007 CEOM Campion College Teacher Education Scholarships are open to past students of Catholic secondary schools intending to prepare of a career in teaching in Catholic schools. Closing date: Thursday 25th January.

Successful applicants need to commit to teaching within the Archdiocese of Melbourne for at least two years upon completion of their qualification.

The scholarships provide for an amount of $7,000 to be paid directly to Campion College for four years (maximum $28,000). Recurrent funding is subject to ongoing sound academic results.

An application form is available on the Campion College website - www.campion.org.au

In 2007, the Brigidine Sisters will be celebrating 200 years since their refoundation by Bishop Daniel Delany in Tullow, Ireland in 1807.

A range of celebrations has been planned and all colleagues, friends, associates and former students are invited to join in these events. For details on what's happening as part of the celebrations visit www.brigidine.org.au or call 03 9509 0361 for a brochure.

(There's a fantastic photo tour on their site, which gives you a real insight into the 200 year history of the Brigidine Sisters).

The Easter Passion Play is looking of volunteer cast members and backstage personnel for the 11th Annual Easter Passion Play.

The play will be held in Ruffey Lake Park, Doncaster April 2007. There's no experience necessary and if you're interested you can call the Secretary on 9586 8191 or email glory@bigpond.com.

If you like more information, just click here www.passionplay.info

The old St Vincent de Paul boys' orphanage in Cecil Street will host a performance by Essential Theatre of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on next Wednesday (10 January) at 6 pm. Please contact Lucy or Amanda on 9699 9177 for bookings or information. Tickets $20. The gates open at 5 pm. Bring your picnics, rugs and friends and enjoy the evening.

Reading rosters
Check your schedule on Rosters

Patrick Hutchings made these insightful comments about the lithographs given by Andrew to the Parish of Sts Peter & Paul on the Feast of Sts Peter & Paul 2003.

'The Artist as Prophet: Twelve Suggested New Saints for Downunder, by Andrew Sibley - a selection from that set' By Patrick Hutchings

'The Artist can be a prophet in two ways, the first is as one who foretells. Gustav WWI - of the whole culture of his lifetime. Mahler's great 9th Symphony, 1910, is about his own coming death and the death - in The artist can be 'the canary in the mine'. British and Welsh coal miners took canaries down in the cage with them, and when the air was about to become too foul for humans to breathe, the canaries fainted or died. The men got out, if they could. Mahler was such a foreteller: and his symphony has in it too traces of the 'harsh' music of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Alban Berg, Prokofiev, Hindermith and other of the Twentieth Century 'Modems'. Fortune-tellers one mistrusts: Foretellers, one should listen to: they have the new tunes and the new spirit, first. Style comes out of historic 'necessity'.

'The Artist can also be a Prophet in the sense in which our Parish Priest Fr Bob Maguire A.M. constantly uses the word. The Artist can tell you what it's like now: and suggest what you can try to do about it. Sibley is very much a Prophet in this sense. His style owes something to Expressionism - his flattened-out human figures are influenced by this style - one which flourished - if that is the word - in the desperate time between WWI & WWII. But Sibley, whose recent work is often joyous, was always a 'genial Expressionist'. These lithographs are at once hopeful and sad. Expressionism is as proper - as we wait for WWIII (which God forbid) or total Corporatisation of life (which God forfend) - as it was in the 1930s.

St Luke is the Patron of Painters: and there is a tradition that he drew a portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some have claimed that the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in the Redemptorist Church in Rome is - or derives from - this portrait. Everyone has had a holy picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in their prayer book. Sibley's Luke looks rather Gothic than Byzantine, and unlikely to have done an icon. But art, if it's not above style, is in other ways above time. We can learn to read any visual lingo: the past's, the past's represented, the future's.

'St Dorothea is the Patroness of gardens and gardeners: whether you live in St Vincent's Place, or cultivate a bit of scruffy backyard, she is with you.

St Veronica of the Centre; half kneeling in front of the great and sacred Uluru, which insensitive tourists still climb, Veronica holds the famous towel with imprinted on it, as if in the image of the Suffering Christ, the sorrows of her people, deprived of their, land and their culture - of their identity itself. Fr Bob has rightly had the Stations of the Cross in Sts Peter & Paul annotated with small Aboriginal ritual designs in acknowledgement of the Wurrundjeri people on whose land we kneel and stand in Sts Peter & Paul's Church.

A Pensive Christ in Altona, can be a pensive Christ in South Melbourne, Port Melbourne [etc]. Christ asks Himself, 'If I came, suffered and died to bring the Kingdom, then, why are the poor shut up in Housing Commission flats (which are no longer nice places to be): and why do the rich lock themselves away from one another and the community in more luxurious spaces - but in the end ones all too like the - Flats?' This is the question to which Fr Bob Maguire addresses our attention, Sunday after Sunday. How do we get the rich and the poor to come together here - if only for a Sunday hour? Sibley's gift to us may help in this: the cultured and well-informed admire him very much. So should we all. He's 'the real thing'.


'The noble building of Sts Peter and Paul, in fine Gothic Revival style, and with very beautiful nineteenth-twentieth century stained glass windows, has been further enriched by Andrew Sibley's fine and prophetic lithographs. As the neo-Gothic spoke to the nineteenth century Irish poor who built the Church, and the windows answered to their time (and ours), so Sibley's works talk directly to us in an idiom perfectly understandable to people of the Third Millennium. They add a new layer to our history at Sts Peter & Paul. A history itself at once sad and hopeful. As life ever is.'

The Franciscan Suite - St Francis Downunder shows the Saint as painted on to a tile-work shrine, and surrounded by panels of Australian animals. We all know about St Francis preaching to the birds; the episode is included in a panel of St Francis' life in the Bardi Chapel in the Basilica Santa Croce, Florence. We do not know what the birds made of such holy eloquence. What we must recall is what St Francis really did. He was born Francesco Bernadone in 1182 (died 1226), son of a wealthy cloth merchant of Assisi, his mother was an aristocratic lady from Provence, Pica daughter of the Count of Boulement. Leaving his rich family he embraced Holy Poverty, preached the goodness of Creation, and did good works, and before he died he had attempted a reformation before the Reformation, (Martin Luther, 1483-1546), and a renascence before the Renascence. That is why there are Franciscans.

The Renascence is said to have its roots in the writings of Petrach (1304-1374) and begins in the early 1400s in the sculpture of Ghiberti and Donatello. In 1425 Masaccio (1401-1427/29) painted The Holy Trinity about a metre and a half above eye level on one of the walls of Sta Maria Novella, Florence. This work crystallizes the Renascence. The Worshipper and the Trinity occupy the same real + fictive space: Heaven came down to earth. St Francis had tried - and partly succeeded - in bringing the Church down to earth before he died: (1226).

Sid the Salvo - Sid the Salvo is a nineteenth to twenty-first century Franciscan - even if he isn't a Catholic in the tight sense. He serves universally, and Catholic simply means universal.

The splendid nineteenth century Catholic poet, and notable dropout, Francis Thompson, author of 'The Hound of Heaven' wrote warmly of the 'Salvos'. Thompson's essay 'In Darkest England' - after General Booth's book In Darkest England - a terrifying account of the lives of the London poor - compares William Booth, (1829-1912), and his Salvation Army to the spirit and work of St Francis and St Vincent de Paul. George Bernard Shaw, the genial Socialist, adds to the tribute in his own ironic way in Major Barbara, (1905).

In economic rationalist times such as ours - rationalist? - we must not forget St Francis, St Vincent de Paul, and General Booth - a man apt for canonization. His anthem has already been written by the American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954), 'General William Booth Enters Heaven', (1914, revised 1931). We must not ever forget the poor, now more and more with us. In Sibley's Lithograph they stand, ghostly, against the towers of Housing Commission flats; the underclass suffers: Sid serves.

The Lollypop Lady - The persons - mostly women - who watch over street crossings to keep children safe from the heedless traffic are paid little and perhaps enjoy their work: they deserve our respect. They are a kind of Fourth Order of St Francis. And Andrew Sibley has paid them the tribute of alluding - in the large lady - to Piero della Francesca's Mater Misericordia who shelters small grown-up sinners under her great mantle. (Piero della Francesca fl. 1439, obit. 1493). The Lollypop Lady looks a bit like Gulliver in his Travels: but adults look like this to children. This is not a funny image, it's just a very friendly one.

It is apt that this suite of lithographs is on the wall near the kitchen from which SS Peter & Paul's Parish serves its Sunday bun and cuppa. God's mercies are at both ends of the Church building. And very much in the sausage sizzle in the garden, and in the work of the Emerald Hill Mission. General Booth's Darkest England has not gone away - see The Bill, ABC TV, Tuesdays - it has only changed its glad/sad rags. Oz, the Lucky Country, may have just run out of its good fortune. If so, PLEASE HELP. St Francis and his band did. Join in, says Sibley through these works of art.

Patrick Hutchens, Sunday 28 September 2003

The back yard is looking much smarter these days. Maureen chose the lilac paint that has been skilfully applied by Les, Joe and Kevin. Lorraine has tidied up the garden and organised lots of new plants. Frank has contributed lots of herbs. Thank you to our tireless workers.
Many thanks to parishioners for their generous donations of food to give out to those who need it.

Emerald Hill Mission at the parish house is open to all callers between 11 am and 3 pm. The volunteer workers in the house offer visitors a sympathetic hearing, advice if it is wanted, and food to help them survive from pension day to pension day.
Henry Nissan continues to work with the marginalised people who come to him expecting and receiving his loving help. We welcome Corey who is assigned the task of furthering the Mission.

Join us a for free meals: Monday and Tuesday dinner (5 pm), Wednesday breakfast (10.30 am) or Friday lunch (12.30 pm). As with all Emerald Hill Mission offerings, this is dependent on resources being available. So if you or your company would like to be the sponsor, send your cheque (or your bacon, eggs, mushroom and tomatoes, etc) to the Open House at Emerald Hill Mission Inc, Corner of Dorcas and Montague Streets, South Melbourne. Donations to Emerald Hill Mission are tax deductible.

Click here to find mass times.

• Monday to Friday Rosary: 9 am
• Weekday masses: noon
• Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament every Friday 11 am-12 noon
• Emmaus Prayer Group: Tuesday afternoons after 12 pm Mass
• Prayer Group: Friday evening: 7.00 pm
• Open House at the presbytery is from 10 am to 3 pm weekdays (Call in for a cup of tea.)

Please remember us in your prayers.

Money or non-perishable food for Emerald Hill Mission is most welcome. Please bring them to church on Sundays or to the presbytery on weekdays between 10 am and 3 pm.

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