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News From Mackay

17 August, 2021
Paul Staples, Fr James, Kath Woodruff, Patti Cawte, Jenny Staples, Donna Bianchi

On Saturday 7th August at St Joseph’s 6 pm Mass we said farewell to Kath Woodruff. Kath and her husband Gerry are leaving Mackay to be closer to their four children, located in Brisbane. Kath has served the Rockhampton Diocese since arriving in the north in 1979.

A huge thanks of appreciation to Kath for her generous involvement in many ministries within the Catholic Parish or North Mackay: Music Ministry, Sacramental Team, Liturgy Team, Children’s Liturgy, CWL, Morning Tea Roster and cleaning after Mass and Funerals during the Pandemic.

We wish Kath and Gerry all the best for their future life in Brisbane.

Catholic Mens’ Club Dinner

Monday 26th July was another enjoyable night at the Catholic Mens dinner club. Several of our members travel more than 20Km each night to be at these dinners.

We read the prayer to Mary MacKillop. Rex our secretary said the reflection and Fr Jayanthi said grace. Graham read out excerpts taken from the ‘Message of Pope Francis World Day For Grandparents and the Elderly’ taken from the Rockonia Bulletin, and ‘About the Pope’s Titles?’ from Gladstone Bulletin.

Des Crowe one of our members and a regular attendee was our guest speaker. His talk was about his ‘Review of his life’. Des is a practising Catholic and goes to Mass most mornings as well as the weekend with his wife Carmel. He helps out volunteering in his Church and community.

Des Crowe and Matty Vella

Des found he was becoming very comfortable in all of his relationships including with God. Love cannot become stagnate. In the prayer to St. Theresa we say that we will love God each day more and more. He has been happily married for 56 years but even here he needed to grow his love for his wife and family. With God and his family he now regularly tell them he loves them and to say sorry when he offends them. When his sister became ill and died in Sydney he was unable to go to her, he was glad to know that for the last couple of years he had told her he loved her. Something, at the start, he found hard to say.

He believes we must share God’s love with others. He discovered that if you look, God will show you members of your family, neighbours, people you meet at Church, or in your everyday activities, who need help, prayers or just lonely and need to know God loves them.

In conclusion, Des said we are told we can start to enjoy heaven here on earth. He found what this meant, when Pat Connor, a member of Sarina’s Men Alive team with Des, was told he only had months to live. At their weekly meetings he saw Pat surrender to God’s love and as the end came closer, he had a peace and a trust in his God that was uplifting to all. Several of the priests who came to visit said they felt privileged to visit him. When he died Pat was well prepared to meet his loving God.

It was a great talk, and we all went home to do a checklist on how we are travelling with our life and what we can do for God.

The next dinner is on Monday 30th August at the Boomerang Hotel. Guest speaker is Fr Alex Varghese. Visitors welcome.

Date Claimer: Guest speaker for the October dinner is Jim Ford, Principal for the new Catherine McAuley College, to open in 2022. Ladies are invited to our October dinners.