ST BRIGID’S CATHOLIC PARISH

39-49 McLAREN ROAD, NERANG

POSTAL: PO Box 196 NERANG, QLD 4211

OFFICE HOURS: Tuesday and Thursday – 9.00am to 3.30pm

PHONE: (07) 5596 2632 FAX: (07) 5596 3669

WEB PAGE: www.stbrigidsparishnerang.org.au

PASTORAL & ADMINISTRATION TEAM:

Parish Priest: Fr Isidore Enyinnaya Phone: 0451 140 471 Email: pp.nerang@bne.catholic.net.au

Parish Secretary: Lenette Evans Email: nerang@bne.catholic.net.au

THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B—21ST JANUARY 2018

ST BRIGID’S CRAFT GROUP.

The craft group meet every Tuesday from 9.30am to 11.30am. in the Parish Centre . Everyone welcome.

IN EMERGENCIES or HOSPITAL CALLS

For University & Gold Coast Private Hospital - Southport Parish on 5510 2222

For Robina Hospital - Burleigh Heads Parish on 5576 6466

For Pindara Hospital - Surfers Paradise Parish on 5572 5433

For John Flynn Hospital -Coolangatta-Tugun Parish on 5598 2165

CHILDREN’S LITURGY

Children's Liturgy will be held on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month outside school holidays. For more infor-mation please call the Parish Office.

BAPTISM PREPARATION

The first preparation meeting for 2018 for Baptisms of infants will be held on Sunday 18th February at 10.00am. All parents who wish to have their children baptised in the next few months are encouraged to at-tend.

ST BRIGID’S PARISH WEEKLY FINANCIAL DETAILS as at 16h January 2018

1ST COLLECTION: $ 516.05 - For Clergy Support

2ND COLLECTION: $ 1,099.60 - For Parish expenses such as administration, and maintenance of all our buildings and properties.

I sincerely thank you for your continued financial support. Be assured of our prayers and of your divine rewards. Fr Isidore

We here at St Brigid’s Catholic Parish Nerang as part of the Archdiocese of Brisbane MUST ABIDE BY AND ADHERE TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE PRIVACY ACT & THE AUSTRALIAN PRIVACY PRINCIPLES. The Privacy Act impacts upon us all today and if you wish to peruse the Compliance Requirements and the Privacy Act, please go to the Archdiocesan Website www.bne.catholic.net.au. The Policy is on our website

Please Note: We welcome our visitors and ask all to respect the local practice of receiving the Lord’s Body

and Blood: the Body of Christ is received on the hand or the tongue and the Blood of Christ is received by drinking from the Chalice (cup). We kindly ask you to refrain from intinction (dipping the consecrated Bread into the consecrat-ed Wine) even if this is your parish’s custom.

RITE OF ELECTION 2018

The Rite of Election for 2018 in the Archdiocese of Brisbane will be celebrated in the Cathedral of St Stephen on the First Sunday of Lent, 18th February at 3.0pm. Anyone wishing to become a Catholic should call the office on Tuesday or Thursday for an application form. All forms for 2018 should be completed and returned to the office immediately.

Reflection by Brendan Byrne courtesy of Pastoral Liturgy

Today we begin the sequence of readings from Mark’s Gospel, the proper Gospel of Year B. Appropriately, the

Gospel for the day, Mark 1:14-20, offers a summary statement of the inaugural preaching of Jesus and his call of

the first four disciples.

Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee after John’s witness has come to a close; He has preached and he has been

“delivered up”, a harbinger of the fate that will also await Jesus as the cost of proclaiming the Gospel.

The “Gospel of God” that Jesus begins to proclaim is essentially a message of freedom. It takes Isaiah’s “good

news” of freedom for Israel exiled in Babylon and applies this to the liberation associated with the onset of the

“Kingdom” or “Rule of God”. Instead of captivity in Babylon, what is presupposed in Jesus’ proclamation of the

Kingdom is the sense that human beings currently labour under the opposing “rule” of Satan, manifest in multiple

captivities of body and spirit. Jesus comes as the Son of God, empowered by the Spirit to wrest human beings from

captivity to the demonic and reclaim them for God’s rule, that is, for the original and abiding intent of the Creator

for human life. From the start, then Mark’s Gospel portrays Jesus as locked in a mighty conflict with the demonic,

best understood as referring to controlling forces of various kinds –all that stunts human lives, alienating them from

life-giving relationship with God and their own true humanity. On the individual level we can think, not only of sin

as such, but also of various kinds of addictions; on the social level, we can think of systems of exploitation and op-

pression, economic and political. Jesus is the “Stronger one” who has come to “bind” Satan and break his grip upon

human life in all these ways.

To benefit from this liberation what is required on the human side is “repentance” and faith. Repentance is not

simply repentance for sin but an openness to a whole new vision of God and God’s action in the world, something

that will radically shake prevailing expectations. Faith is then the conviction that, in the teaching and activity of Je-

sus, the liberating power of the Kingdom is truly present and effective. Faith is the essential channel through which

this power takes hold of human lives. Its absence can cause “blockage” (as will be the case when Jesus visits his

home town, Nazareth). Hence the summons to “believe the good news”.

Following the summary of Jesus’ inaugural preaching, the gospel goes on to describe his calling of disciples to assist him in his mission. The double call involving two sets of brothers enables us to discern a common pat-tern: Jesus “sees” and “calls”, they “leave” and “follow”. In fishers of fish Jesus sees a capacity for a new kind of “fishing”. He calls them to cease being fishers of fish and become, through following him, fishers of people –sharers, in other words, in his mission of reclaiming human lives for the life-giving rule of God.

As is always the case when people are called by God in the Scriptures, before they can follow the call they must leave significant aspects of their former life behind. Here the disciples immediately leave their old liveli-hood (nets, boats, hired men) and their family (father). They will find a new “boat”-the Church– and new “family”-the band of disciples gathered around Jesus who he will induct into the intimacy of his familial rela-tionship with God. Hearing the call of Jesus today may not, as in the case of those four disciples, involve leav-

ing one’s present occupation. But it may so deepen the way one lives that occupation as to transform it into a true catching of “fish” for the Kingdom.

The Gospel is aptly foreshadowed in the First Reading by the call of the prophet Jonah and his summons to the people of Nineveh to repent in view of a threatened punishment by God-a punishment which their repent-ance averts.

The Second Reading stands rather apart from all this. Congregations today will be shocked to hear Paul coun-sel, “Those who have wives should live as though they had none”! His advice reflects the intense expectation of the end of the world in the early Church. A glance at the wider context shows that he is not counselling the abandonment of marriage or engagement with the business of the world but a refusal to be absorbed in such realities, since the only lasting reality is that of the coming Reign of God.

CHURCHES

St Brigid’s Church 39-49 McLaren Rd

Nerang Q 4211

[[

St John’s Church Windabout Rd Beechmont Q

4211

SCHOOL

St Brigid’s Primary

McLaren Road Nerang Q 4211

Phone: 5596 4188

WEB PAGE:

www.sb.qld.edu.au

DAVID SEWELL Principal

.

REQUEST FOR MORE PEOPLE TO BE INVOLVED IN THE LITURGY

We urgently need more people to do some of the Liturgical functions at the Vigil Mass on Saturday evening and Sun-day morning Mass. Anyone who is interested in becoming involved in any capacity in the Parish, as:- Sacristan, Readers, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, or in any other ministry, please call the Parish Office or speak to me directly. Full training will be provided by Fr Isidore, and no one will be asked to participate until they are comfortable and ready for the Ministry.

MASS AND PRAYER TIMES AT ST BRIGID’S CHURCH JANUARY 2018

Week Day Mass

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday ,Friday 7.00 am

Saturday 9.00 am

Mass for the Sick with Anointing is on the First Saturday of each 9.00am

The next Anointing Mass will be 3rd February 2018

Sunday Mass

Saturday Vigil 6.00 pm

Sunday 8.30 am

Rosary

Monday, Tuesday, Friday at 7.30 am, Saturday at 8.30am. And Sunday at 8.00am

Divine Mercy Prayer Thursday 7.30am

Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Saturday 9.30 am Reconciliation: St Brigid’s Church Saturday 5.15pm – 5.45pm Sunday 8.00am - 8.15am

St John’s Windabout Road, Beechmont

2nd Sunday of each month

Next Mass at St John’s Sunday 11th February 10.30 am

HOME VISITS TO THE SICK AND AGED

Fr Isidore is happy and available to visit sick or aged parishioners in their homes. If you are housebound and would like a visit, or you know someone who is, please call the office or his mobile number to arrange for a visit. Let us all show concern and care for the sick, the needy and the aged.

We remember all those who have gone before us to rest in the loving embrace of Jesus

We pray for the recently deceased :

We pray for the dearly departed whose anniversaries occur at this time: Albert Evans & Len Guinea

We also remember their families—may they be comforted and supported in their loss by This Community of Faith.

We pray for those who are sick or in hospital: Jasmine Fay Parada, Maureen and Paul Humey, Patricia Smith, Patrick Mackey, Valda Silvy, Joan Gordon, Patricia Solomon, Amanda Gordon Shelly Ryan , Jim Gardiner and Christine Kay

Our prayers are also offered for those who are elderly and in Nursing homes.

SCHOOL OF THE WORD

Come and pray with the Word of God The theme for this year will be “Christ set us free, so that we should remain free” (Galatians 5:1) Every last Saturday of the month—10 am to 12 pm at St Brigid’s Parish Next meeting Saturday 27th January 2018 Conducted by the Verbum Dei Missionaries. Contact: Ph (07) 3495 7105 Mobile 0410 802 810 / 0424 777 232 Email: vdmfbris@gmail.com

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B Sunday, 21 Jan 2018

FIRST READING Jon 3:1-5. 10

A reading from the prophet Jonah

The word of the Lord was addressed to Jonah: ‘Up!’ he said ‘Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to them as I told you to.’ Jonah set out and went to Nineveh in obedience to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was a city great beyond compare: it took three days to cross it. Jonah went on into the city, making a day’s journey. He preached in these words, ‘Only forty days more and Nineveh is going to be destroyed.’ And the people of Nineveh believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least.

God saw their efforts to renounce their evil behaviour. And God relented: he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 24:4-9. R. v.4

(R.) Teach me your ways, O Lord.

1. Lord, make me know your ways. 3. The Lord is good and upright. Lord, teach me your paths. He shows the path to those who stray Make me walk in your truth, and teach me: he guides the humble in the right path; for you are God my saviour. (R.) he teaches his way to the poor. (R)

2. Remember your mercy, Lord, and the love you have shown from of old. In your love remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord. (R.)

SECOND READING 1 Cor 7:29-31

A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians

Brothers, our time is growing short. Those who have wives should live as though they had none, and those who mourn should live as though they had nothing to mourn for; those who are enjoying life should live as though there were nothing to laugh about; those whose life is buying things should live as though they had nothing of their own; and those who have to deal with the world should not become engrossed in it. I say this because the world as we know it is passing away.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION Mk 1:15

Alleluia, alleluia! The kingdom of God is near: believe the Good News! Alleluia!

GOSPEL Mk 1:14-20

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark

After John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the Good News from God. ‘The time has come’ he said ‘and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.’

As he was walking along by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the lake – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him.

Going on a little further, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they too were in their boat, mending their nets. He called them at once and, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the men he employed, they went after him.

2018 SACRAMENTAL PREPARATION

It is now time to enrol children who have been baptised, who are in Year 3 or have turned 8 years of age but have not received the Sacrament of Confirmation and children who are in Year 4 or have turned 9 years of age and have not received the Sacrament of their First Eucharist. The parent meeting will be held in Feb-ruary and all parents who wish to enrol their child or children for 2018 please contact the parish office to obtain the enrolment forms. We will celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation on Sunday 5th August 2018 at 8.30am and the Sacrament of First Eucharist on Saturday 24th November at 6.00pm and Sunday 25th November at 8.30am.