Sacramental News - There will be an important meeting after the 9:30 am mass on the 30^th of June for all parents of this year’s sacramental candidates. Parents must attend this meeting in order for their children to celebrate the sacraments.

All three sacraments will be celebrated in St Joseph’s parish this year. Candidates for Confirmation will be in Year 5 or above and will already have celebrated the sacraments of First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion.

Eligible candidates for First Reconciliation and First Communion will be in Year 4 or above.

Please contact Leslie King on 6343 1514 or via email (leslie.king@cg.catholic.edu.au) if you require any further information regarding the sacraments.

I smile when I hear people talking about how ‘freezing cold’ it is in winter here. Freezing to me still means -25 degree temperatures and the moisture in your nostrils turning to ice when you breathe in. It means plugging in your engine block overnight to make sure your car will start the next morning. On snowy days, it means waking up half an hour earlier so that you can shovel your driveway and scrape the ice off your windscreen before driving to work. That to me, is winter!

Still, winter, in whatever form it presents itself, gives us plenty of opportunities for reflection. Sitting in front of a crackling fire, chopping up vegetables for a slow cooked soup or stew, indulging in a cup of hot chocolate, snuggling up in bed with a good book; all provide us with opportunities to take some time to be grateful for the good things we have in our lives (even if you don’t think winter is one of them)! If nothing else, winter helps us appreciate summer more, although, for me personally, it’s winter that helps me to endure the relentless heat of summer.

Winter in all of Our Lives

There is a winter in all of our lives, a chill and darkness

that makes us yearn for days that have gone 

or put our hope in days yet to be. 
Father God, you created seasons for a purpose. 
Spring is full of expectation, buds breaking, frosts abating and an awakening of creation before the first days of summer. 
Now the sun gives warmth and comfort to our lives 
reviving aching joints, bringing colour, new life
and crops to fruiting. 
Autumn gives nature space to lean back, relax and enjoy the fruits of its labour, mellow colours in sky and landscape as the earth prepares to rest. 
Then winter, cold and bare as nature takes stock
rests, unwinds, sleeps until the time is right. 
An endless cycle and yet a perfect model. 
We need a winter in our lives 
a time of rest, a time to stand still 
a time to reacquaint ourselves 
with the faith in which we live. 
It is only then that we can draw strength 
from the one in whom we are rooted
take time to grow and rise through the darkness 
into the warm glow of your springtime 
to blossom and flourish 
bring colour and vitality into this world-your garden.
Thank you Father for the seasons of our lives.

- Author Unknown