How wonderful it is, to be able to gather once again as community and family, to worship our loving God!

I am still missing my hugs though, as we practise social distancing and related Covid restrictions.

Fr Matthew Moloney is on holidays at the moment, and yesterday we had a surprise visit from Bishop Michael, who visited Mary Immaculate Church in Emu Park, to celebrate Mass with us. Thank you Bishop Michael!!   Fr Matthias celebrated Mass at Sacred Heart Church, Yeppoon this morning. Thank you Fr Matthias!!  Thank you also to Fr Andrew Hogan who will be celebrating Mass with us over the next two weekends.

Our wonderful IT expert – Denis Murphy, has been keeping us up and running with zoom meetings and live streaming Masses every day. We have been meeting for conversation hours to just keep in touch when unable to gather. We have been and still are, meeting for gospel readings and discussion every Saturday, as well as praying the Rosary before live streaming the Mass on certain days of the week. 

The Parish Leadership Group and Finance Committee are also still meeting via Zoom. Thank you to all the parishioners involved in these groups, as well as Fr Matthew, who are keeping our Parish moving forward. We have added a much needed shade sail out from the community room and have painted outside the church and presbytery.

Two more people who are hard at work keeping the parish running are Vanessa Ramswarup and Andrea Canavan. These ladies have a majority of our parishioners, now receiving the parish bulletin via email, and Vanessa worked very hard keeping us informed while in lock down. The parish office is now back up and running - thank you ladies for all your hard work.

How beautiful does the restored Tabernacle at Sacred Heart Church look? The Paschal Candle stand is also being restored at the moment by Lance Cook Restorers from Brisbane.   I believe this Tabernacle is approximately 100 years old. It may have been in the original church which commenced under St Ursula’s College in 1918, but was certainly part of the church in John Street which opened on August 18, 1929. When this church was destroyed by cyclone David in 1976, it was moved to the new church which was completed in 1978/79.   It then moved to the present site of Sacred Heart Church at Lammermoor in 1995.

A big thank you must also go the Sisters of Mercy for their generous gift of double seated pews, and other church items from the chapel at Loretto, which have been a great addition to our church. Thank you to Sr Joanne Molloy for organising this donation to our Parish.

St Vincent de Paul Update

Vinnies remains very active on the coast during the COVID-19 pandemic. After being shut initially, the Yeppoon and Emu Park shops re-opened in May with normal hours of operation, though under COVID hygiene/distancing regulations. Assistance to disadvantaged families on the coast continues, also with rules regarding social-distancing. Case-loads were initially down due to the doubling of the unemployment benefit under the Jobseeker program. Expectation is that when the Jobseeker/Jobkeeper schemes are wound back there will be a surge in requests for aid. Society members and volunteers are doing all they can to maintain their level of care for those in need in our coastal community. Vinnies charity work is the major response by the Church to the poor among us. Please think of the Society’s purpose and be generous in donations of furniture and clothing to our centres of charity and financial aid via the poor box.

 Helen McIntyre