Notices — Second Sunday of Advent — 5th Dec 2021

NOTICES:

 

Happy Birth­day to: Christine Thur­ley; Jen­nifer B.; Pau­line Newell; Kathy Drum­mond; Chris­toph­er Brooks; Fabi­an LoS­chiavo; Rajah Selva­ra­jah; Ron­ald Naidu; Belinda Reddy; and Thomas Flem­ing.

 

 

Con­grat­u­la­tions: Fr Jeff’s anniversary of Dea­con­ing and Priest­hood was this week on 30 Novem­ber, St Andrews Day.  (Alto­geth­er 28 years of act­ive ordained min­istry).

 

Tonight: 6pm Even­ing Ser­vice.

 

Christ­mas cards sale: New stock now available!  2021 Stock — $8 or $10 per pack; and 2020 Stock — Reduced to $8 per pack.  Sup­port the Lep­rosy Mis­sion.  Avail­able from the Par­ish Resource Centre. Please see Stephan Gates dur­ing Morn­ing tea.

 

Stan­more Nurs­ing Home Gifts:  Money can be donated via the offer­tory plate (placed in a sep­ar­ate labelled envel­ope) or the St Luke’s Church Work­ing Account (see back of Ser­vice book­let for details).  Please remem­ber to ref­er­ence your gift – “Nurs­ing Home”.  Even if we can­not sing Car­ols, we can still take chocol­ates etc.

 

 

 

Advent Reflec­tions: Are being held on Wed­nes­day, after 10.30 a.m. Euchar­ist and Morn­ing Tea from 1^st Dec 2021, and in the even­ing at 7.30 p.m. on those same days.

 

 

 

Beware of Scam­mers!  This week I have had sev­er­al calls from per­sons say­ing they are from the NBN and Tel­stra and want­ing to help me check the speed of the internet.  Luck­ily, I was aware of their scheming.  If you get these calls hang up immediately.  Do not open your computer.  They can and will gain entry to your bank accounts and steal from you.  Fr. Jeff

 

Christ­mas 2021 Ser­vices

Sunday 19^th Decem­ber — 6pm Christ­mas Car­ols with Play – in the Car­park.

Fri­day 24^th Decem­ber — 11pm Christ­mas Eve Ser­vice.

Sat­urday 25^th Decem­ber – 9.30am Christ­mas Day Ser­vice.

 

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Christ­mas Car­ols With Play — the car-park at 6pm on Sun 19th Dec.

There will be abund­ant oppor­tun­it­ies to par­ti­cip­ate in the service.  Volun­teers are needed to read a part in the Christ­mas Play.  We hope as many young parish­ion­ers as pos­sible can take part, sup­ple­men­ted by grown-ups with Fabi­an provid­ing dress-ups.

Since we can all sing the car­ols togeth­er this year, there will be no form­al choir; nev­er­the­less for all who are inter­ested Jo Bur­ton will lead a group of sing­ers in a small num­ber of short excerpts of song to intro­duce the major sec­tions of the play.  There will be a rehears­al after morn­ing tea on Sunday 12 Decem­ber.

Please con­tact Stu­art Veitch at morn­ing tea (or on 0400 312 354) to register your interest/for fur­ther inform­a­tion.

 

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ST PAUL’S PANTRY:

Each week we take any food and oth­er items donated for the pantry at St Paul’s Bur­wood.  Last week we were told the cup­boards were bare, so we donated our reg­u­lar quarterly dona­tion a little earli­er! The fol­low­ing is the email received from Fr James Collins, Rect­or:

“I am most grate­ful to the good people of St. Luke’s, Enmore, for the sup­port giv­en to the Par­ish Pantry here at St. Paul’s.  I have just returned from a meet­ing and checked the bank account and the gen­er­ous $500 dona­tion from St. Luke’s has arrived.  We are truly blessed at St. Paul’s to have such a ded­ic­ated team who care for every­one and anyone.  I think that the pan­dem­ic has exacer­bated some exist­ing divides in soci­ety and that we are going to see an increased num­ber of people in need in our com­munity for the fore­see­able future. Thank you very much for your help.”

Please remem­ber that the bags provided to the needy are need­ing to be taken by hand — most don’t have a vehicle, so if you can keep your dona­tions to rel­at­ively small items like pack­ets of noodles, microwaved rice, small tins of baked beans etc these are the most needed.  Some of the lar­ger items last week were donated to the Bur­wood Women’s Refuge.

 

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Food for our worms –Please leave your worm food gifts at church on Sundays or drop off dur­ing the week.  (NB — no dairy, cit­rus or meat)  Fr. Jeff

 

Lea MacNeil has jam, con­serves, pickles and vari­ous sauces to sell; please email her at lea.macneil@gmail.com to order them from her.  All pro­ceeds go to St Luke’s Par­ish.

 

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EVENTS IN 2022

Mark the date: Sat­urday 12th Feb­ru­ary 2022 for a War­dens Din­ner “Under the Stars”.  Will be a catered din­ner, $20pp with tick­ets on sale in the New Year.

 

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A note from the Treas­urer:

Par­ish Giv­ing through 2021 has been less than for the same peri­od through 2020 with the short­fall mainly due to the declines of June and July of this year, coin­cid­ing with the lock­down (see chart).  While the gap has nar­rowed in the past three months, 2021 Par­ish Giv­ing remains about $4,000 lower than for the same peri­od last year.

Par­ish Coun­cil acknow­ledges with thanks that most parish­ion­ers now give by way of reg­u­lar online trans­fers, and strongly encour­ages this means of giving.  With the hol­i­day sea­son approach­ing, the reli­ab­il­ity of estab­lish­ing a reg­u­lar dir­ect trans­fer can be a help­ful means of ensur­ing that par­ish giv­ing does not go along on hol­i­days with you.  In the New Year, if your cir­cum­stances per­mit, parish­ion­ers may con­sider mak­ing a small annu­al incre­ment to your giv­ing, even a dol­lar or two a week will make a pos­it­ive dif­fer­ence.

 

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Weekly Inter­ces­sions for our Com­munity:

Sunday: Beth Arm­strong; Jen­nifer, Peter, Elise & Blake B.; Fr John & Joanne Bowen; Fr Philip & Rose­mary Brad­ford; and Tony Brown­low.

Monday: Ian Barnett; Ken­neth Bar­ongo; and Chris­toph­er Brooks.

Tues­day: Les & Lyn Car­ring­ton; Ruth Cham­pi­on; and John Dick­son.

Wed­nes­day: Tiffany, Kev­in, Alex­an­der & Nich­olas Chiew; Kathy Drum­mond.

Thursday: Ron, Binh, Milly, Nam & Viol­etta Clarke; and Edi & Oscar Dav­is.

Fri­day: We pray for Fr John Bunyan’s pas­tor­al care min­istry at Bank­stown Hos­pit­al and all those he min­is­ters to.

Sat­urday: Dear lov­ing Fath­er, please deliv­er us from the coronavir­us and lim­it its impact on Aus­tralia and the world. In your mercy bring a swift end to this crisis.  Please pro­tect with your lov­ing care those we love — our fam­il­ies, friends and neighbours.  Let your fath­erly hand guide, shel­ter and strengthen them.  Cast out all anxious fears and doubts.  Give us an increas­ing trust in you and fill our hearts and minds with your peace.  We pray for those around the world now strug­gling with vari­ous COVID strains.  Heal and com­fort those who are sick and suffering.  Pro­tect and guide the health pro­fes­sion­als who are at the front line.  Please give wis­dom and cour­age to those who bear respons­ib­il­ity for con­front­ing this chal­lenge. We ask these things through the power­ful name of Jesus.  Amen.

 

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Pray­ers for the sick: Julie Olston; Ari­el Som­mer; Noel Jeffs; Joan Dale; Judy Jew­son; Aman­da Romeo; Maryrose Crowth­er; Angus; John Bowen; Robert & Lyn­dall Dubler; John Can Pahali; Alex Regos; Aman­da Cow­ley; Peter Knox; Barry McKay; Ruth Dodd; Andrew Strat­golda; and Phil­lip Hall.

 

Recently Depar­ted: Noelene Humphries and Tosia Crib­ben.

 

Anniversar­ies of the Depar­ted: Jes­sica Juer­gens; and Kath­leen Ander­son.

 

Saints Commemoration:  6^th Nich­olas of Myra, Bish­op & phil­an­throp­ist (d. c. 342);  7^th: Ambrose of Mil­an, Bish­op & teach­er (d.397);  and 8^th: The Con­cep­tion of the Blessed Vir­gin Mary; & Richard Bax­ter, Pas­tor and spir­itu­al writer (d. 1691).

 

Long Term Pas­tor­al Pray­er list: Ray Som­mer; Robyn Old­field; Isa­belle Djor­gjevic: Lyn Car­ring­ton; Steph­en Thur­ley; John Dick­son; John Hardy; Shir­ley, Bar­bara & Jade Allen; Kiki Chun; Beth Arm­strong; Ann Jeffs; Rhi­an­non Henry-Edwards; Marissa; Jude, Isla, Meg & Al Don­nell; Pau­line Newell; Ann Con­nolly; Day­alan Sam­inath­an; Kuwert; Grace & Han­nah Ashton; Anaisha, & her par­ents Anu & Digvi­jay; Rev Laurie McIntyre; and Loch­lan Lones­bor­ough.

 

Read­ings for Next Sunday — Third Sunday of Advent:  First Read­ing: Zephaniah 3.14–20; Psalm: A song of Isaiah;  Second Read­ing: Phil­ip­pi­ans 4.4–7; and Gos­pel: Luke 3.7–18

  

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Points for Thought/Discussion from WorkingPreacher.org

1. When have you seen or exper­i­enced new life in your­self or someone else? (Luke 3:6)
2. Can you think of a time you were a mes­sen­ger who pre­pared the way for good news? (Mal 3:1)
3. If “thoughts and pray­er­s” seem trite, who might you con­sider telling “I hold you in my heart”? (Phil 1:7)

This week’s Reflect & Con­nect ques­tions writ­ten by Julie Sev­ig.

 

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We appre­ci­ate things may have been fin­an­cally harder due to COVID-19, but ask that you con­sider mak­ing a dona­tion to sup­port both the Christ­mas Bowl and ABM Advent/Christmas Appeals.

The Christ­mas Bowl Appeal — annu­al appeal of the Acts of Peace, the inter­na­tion­al aid agency of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Churches.

We encour­age parish­ion­ers to donate online via actofpeace.org.au/christmasbowl (our par­ish is registered as ‘Enmore-Stan­more Anglic­an Par­ish’), or call 1800 025 101.

 

 

ABM 2020 Advent and Christ­mas Appeal.

We encour­age parish­ion­ers to use QR Code on the digit­al dona­tion card­s or make a dona­tion online at abmission.org.au/Christmas21

 

 

Please note: There are a lim­ited num­ber of dona­tion envel­opes in the church foy­er for those who do not use mobile phones or have inter­net access.