Parish News

The five New Saints

Pope Francis declared five new saints at the beginning of a festive Mass in St. Peter's Square, on October 13, attended by more than 50,000 people from all continents. Each of these saints bear different stories. One of them is Cardinal Henry John Newman (1801-1890), the famous intellectual and theologian, baptised Anglican but later decided to be admitted into catholic faith at the age of 45 and became a priest, then bishop and then Cardinal in England. The other four saints were women; Italy's Giuseppina Vannini (1859-1911), founder of the Daughters of Saint Camillus; India's Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan (1876-1926), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family; Brazil's Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes (1914-1992); and Switzerland's Margherita Bays (1815-1879), a laywoman. The first three spent their lives working for the poor. Giuseppina Vannini, lost both her parents by the age of seven and grew up in an orphanage near St. Peter's Basilica run by the Daughters of Charity. She wanted to join that religious congregation, but after being rejected due to her poor health, she then went on to found the Daughters of St. Camillus to care for the sick. Her order has today 800 sisters working in 22 countries.

St. Mariam Thresia, was an Indian mystic who cared for the poor, the sick and lepers. She experienced visions and ecstasies and received the stigmata at the age of 33. Five years later, in 1914, she founded the Congregation of the Holy Family to care for families. Today it numbers some 1,500 sisters in communities around the world that care for families and run hospitals and schools. St. Dulce Lopes Pontes, often referred to as the Brazil's Mother Teresa of Calcutta because of her great care for the poor, was born into a well-off family. She felt attracted to minister to the poor from an early age and joined the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God and devoted herself to the education of workers and care for the poorest. She founded the largest charitable organization in Brazil that today includes a teaching hospital and educational centre which provides free education for very poor children. The fourth woman, St. Marguerite Bays, was a laywoman mystic from Switzerland. She was a seamstress and dedicated herself to work in a parish and care for her family. She was miraculously cured from bowel cancer, but went on to suffer for Christ as she had requested and regularly experienced the stigmata during the rest of her life

Have a good week, Vicki, Brian and Martin

VCE

VCE Prayers (Res & StA) Please keep our students in your prayers as they begin their exams this week. The parish have sent an individual letter to each student nominated assuring them of our prayers for their exams.

Social Media

Social media of our parish (StA) We have our presence in three important social networking platforms; Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  Facebook - St. Anthony's Parish, Noble Park,  Instagram - stanthonysnoblepark, and  Twitter - Stanthonysparishnoblepark Please follow and like our pages to get more information about parish programs. We would like to get some help from qualified persons to facelift parish website. If you can help us please contact the parish office.

St Anthony's Christmas Carnival

ST. ANTHONY'S CHRISTMAS FAIR Our Carnival for 2019 is taking on a new look. St. Anthony's Christmas Fair will be held on Saturday, 7 December 2019. As church renovations will be well on their way, we are making a few changes to the setup and adding some new flavours to the mix. We are hoping to have a plant stall: jam, chutney and pickle stall; and even fruit and vegetables from your own backyard stall. So this is an early notice to those interested to get your plants blooming and jams boiling in time for the Christmas Fair. Anyone interested in running a stall or have any ideas for stalls please feel free to email us at StAnthonysNPEvents@gmail.com, call Glen D'Cunha on 0422 892 541or Suzan Gerreyn on 0497 478 662. Don't forget to keep an eye out on the facebook.com/stanthonysnbp for updates.