Notices_Sunday 17th December — Third Sunday of Advent

NOTICES:

TODAY- Nurs­ing Home vis­it: After the ser­vice and morn­ing tea parish­ion­ers are invited to sing car­ols at Stan­more nurs­ing home while gifts are distributed.

 

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TONIGHT: 6pm CAROL service.

We invite every­one to come and participate!

PLEASE NOTE:  The car­park will be closed to all vehicles on the night.  There will be a drive through area exit­ing via the back lane with a des­ig­nated pickup/drop off zone.

 

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MONDAY 18^th Dec: 7.30pm Par­ish Coun­cil meet­ing via Zoom.

 

Christmas Services WEDNESDAY 20th Dec – 7.30pm CHRISTMAS ser­vice (Pre-Christ­mas ser­vice for those who will be going away) SUNDAY 24th Dec – 7.30pm CHRISTMAS EVE ser­vice (Note: One ser­vice at a dif­fer­ent time for this Sunday only) MONDAY 25th Dec – 9.30am CHRISTMAS DAY service. SUNDAY 31st Dec – 9.30am First Sunday after Christmas/ NEW YEAR’S EVE service SUNDAY 7th Jan – 9.30am Epi­phany of Our Lord

 

Nurs­ing Home Gifts: As is our usu­al cus­tom, we take a small gift to each res­id­ent at the Stan­more Nurs­ing Home in Cam­bridge St at Christ­mas time. Your dona­tion no mat­ter how small helps the par­ish to pay for a selec­tion of equal value gifts — usu­ally chocol­ates, or some­thing suit­able for those patients who are dia­bet­ic.  If you would like to donate please place your dona­tion on the offer­tory plate in an envel­ope marked “Nurs­ing Home”, or donate online with ref­er­ence “Nurs­ing Home”.   Many thanks for your generosity!

 

 

Christ­mas Cards for 2023: We have a small num­ber of packs of Christ­mas cards from 2022 for sale in the Com­munity Resource Centre.  Please see Steph­en Gates after church.

 

 

23–25 Feb­ru­ary 2024 — Par­ish Retreat: Booked at the Old Mon­as­tery Stroud (Fri­day even­ing to Sunday after­noon).  We are now tak­ing names for reser­va­tions.  The bed­rooms are nearly all single rooms with shared bath­rooms, and we will be self-cater­ing.  If you are inter­ested, please put your name and num­ber on the notice board or speak to Ruth Champion.

 

 

ST PAUL’S PANTRY needs food, health and clean­ing items: A bas­ket is in the church foy­er for donations.

 

 

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.

 

 

Food for our worms – Leave your worm food gifts at church on Sundays or drop off dur­ing the week.  Please remem­ber to remove the strings from your teabags.  (N.B. — no dairy, cit­rus, onions or meat).

 

 

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Weekly Inter­ces­sions for our Com­munity:

Sunday: Geoff Lind­say and Mandy Tib­bey; Lea MacNeil & Don­ald Thomas; Evelyn Maack; and Jen­nifer McGovern.

Monday: Jon M.; Jo Middleton; Fran Nel­son; Johnny Nitchareon & Eed Intapan.

Tues­day: Ron­ald Naidu; and Anthea, Ron, Ron­an, Veron­ica & Rohan Nath.

Wed­nes­day: Kath­er­ine Old­field; Julie Olston & Phil­ippa; and Andrew Patterson.

Thursday: Fr Jeff & Michelle Park­er; and Mea­ghan Patterson.

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

Sat­urday: Almighty God, we pray for those in areas of con­flict.  We pray for heal­ing and good med­ic­al care for those who have been injured.  For those who have lost homes and pos­ses­sions, please meet their daily needs for food, clean water and shel­ter and com­fort those who mourn the loss of loved ones.  And bless all who are help­ing those impacted.  Amen.

 

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Pray­ers for the sick: Mar­garet Chiew; Dav­id Dun­lop; (Fr) John Bowen; Janet Walms­ley; Joseph Kumar; Ger­ald Grant; Alex Regos; Christine Kon­draten­ko; Salochna Devi; Ruth Dodd; Robyn Palmer; Julie Ankers; Cath­er­ine Lough­man; Helen Woell­ner; Libby Dav­is; Steph­en Grif­fen; Christine Pick­ard; Tom Hall; Auntie Glor­ia (Shipp); Nick Moles­worth; Michael Egan; Amy Bent­ley; and Douglas Seymour.

 

 

Anniversar­ies of the Depar­ted: Sid­ney Smith; Sid­ney Anson; Guiseppe Bruzzese; Suz­anne Crowth­er; Bill Carter; and Arthur Porter.

 

 

Saints Com­mem­or­a­tion: 21st: Thomas Apostle & martyr.

 

 

Long Term Pas­tor­al Pray­er list: Simone Crowth­er; Ruth Cham­pi­on; (Fr) John Hawkins; Robert & Lyn­dall Dubler; Andy Ser­afin; Florence Shel­lard; Ray Som­mer; John Hardy; Lyn Car­ring­ton; John Dick­son; Bar­bara Allen; Marissa; Jude, Isla, Meg & Al Don­nell; Ann Jeffs; and Noel Jeffs.

 

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Read­ings for 7.30pm Pre-Christ­mas Service

First Read­ing: Isai­ah 9.2–7                     Psalm: 96

Second Read­ing: Tit­us 2.11–14               Gos­pel: Luke 2.1–14

 

Read­ings for 7.30pm Christ­mas Eve

First Read­ing: Isai­ah 9.2–7                     Psalm: 96

Second Read­ing: Tit­us 2.11–14               Gos­pel: Luke 2.1–14

 

Read­ings for 9.30am Christ­mas Day

First Read­ing: Isai­ah 62.6–12                 Psalm: 97

Second Read­ing: Tit­us 3.4–8a                 Gos­pel: Luke 2.8–20

 

Read­ings for 9.30am Sunday after Christmas/New Year’s Eve

First Read­ing: Isai­ah 61.            10–62.3             Psalm: 148

Second Read­ing: Gala­tians 4.4–7                        Gos­pel: Luke 2.22–40

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Con­grat­u­la­tions to Andy Serafin

As many of you know we nom­in­ated Andy (Angelo Ser­afin) for the Region­al and State Volun­teer­ing Awards this year.  We have already con­grat­u­lated Andy for win­ning the Mid-West­ern Region Seni­or Volun­teer Award. Last Thursday 7 Decem­ber Andy was a final­ist in the State Awards and he and Ruth, his guest, atten­ded the State Gala Cere­mony at Norths Club Cam­meray presen­ted by The Centre for Volun­teer­ing, sponsored by Your Loc­al Club, Ser­vices NSW, MINT Awards and SiXT.  Ambas­sad­or to the organ­isa­tion is Paula Duncan AM and the Pat­ron is The Hon. Jod­ie Har­ris­on MP.

It was a won­der­ful occa­sion — with live music and a 3‑course sit down lunch­eon.  There were six cat­egor­ies and 24 entrants in three of those cat­egor­ies.  So, that meant a lot of speeches!!  There was evid­ence how­ever of some spec­tac­u­lar work done by some volun­teers — one couple in the Not-For-Profit Vol­un­tary Gov­ernance Award worked with their com­mit­tee to raise over $19million for the Children’s Hos­pit­al!!  The woman (Leanne Hill­man) who won the State Seni­or of the year award was act­ively work­ing in the court sys­tem to provide sup­port and inform­a­tion to vic­tims and also to wit­nesses who are often trau­mat­ised when they are faced with the accused.  Leanne has been doing this since retire­ment and was warmly con­grat­u­lated by all at the gathering.

 

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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 scan the code link and donate online (our par­ish is registered as ‘Enmore-Stan­more Anglic­an Par­ish’), or call 1800 025 101.

 

 

ABM Advent and Christ­mas Appeal

We encour­age parish­ion­ers to scan the code link to donate online.

 

Please note: There are a lim­ited num­ber of dona­tion envel­opes for both ABM and the Christ­mas Bowl Appeal avail­able in the church foy­er for those who do not use smart mobile phones with cameras.

 

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Christmas Closure…

The Par­ish Office: Will be closed from 3.45pm on the 21^st Decem­ber 2023 and will reopen at 9.15am on 2^nd Janu­ary 2024.

The OpShop: Will close at 2pm on Sat­urday 23^rd Decem­ber and reopens at 10am on Tues­day 2^nd Janu­ary 2024.