Saturday 29 July 2017

Holy Family Adoration Chapel blessing and opening:

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
July 29-30:  Ordinary Time 17th Sunday


Holy Family Adoration Chapel blessing and opening:

This coming Saturday evening, August 5, we cele-brate liturgically the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.  It is indeed a  fitting feast day to inaugurate our new Adoration Chapel.
  
Bishop Vincent will celebrate our 6pm parish Mass, and the Mass will conclude with the transfer of the Blessed Sacrament, in procession, to the new chapel. The final blessing of the Mass will be given after the placing of the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel taberna-cle.
  
People will be free to pray in the chapel after the blessing and final dismissal.
  
There will also be light refreshments and some formalities in the hall immediately after the final     dismissal. All parishioners are welcome to share in the celebration in the hall.
  
If you would like to bring a plate to share, please bring it to the hall before Mass if you can. 
 
The chapel and surrounds are substantially complete. There are gates and a small fence to be inserted in the garden area in the next few weeks, and a couple of    minor furnishings yet to come for the chapel.
When you come to the hall, feel free to enjoy the supper on entry. Shortly after we enter, we shall have some formalities:
  1. Bishop Vincent: an opportunity to address us.
  2. Fr Brendan: A word of thanks.
  3. Mr Paul Newton, artist, will speak about his art works which adorn the chapel walls (Early Catholics of Sydney, Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, and Father John Joseph Therry)
  4. Mr M Seecy, project supervisor.
  5. A musical feature.

William Davis, priestless Sydney 1818-1820,
the Blessed Sacrament and St Patrick’s Church, The Rocks
 


First Catholics of  Sydney, circa 1818
Artist: Paul Newton

From May 1818 until 1820 there was no Catholic priest in Sydney. Each Sunday the Catholics gathered at the home of William Davis at The Rocks, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament left behind by Fa-ther Jeremiah O’Flynn before his deportation in 1818. There the little community recited the Mass prayers and prayed the rosary.
Built in the early 1840s, St Patrick’s stands in Syd-ney’s historic Rocks area, with a history reaching back to the very beginnings of Catholic life in Australia. In-separably linked with St Patrick’s history is the name of William Davis, an Irishman transported for his part in anti-British uprisings in Ireland in 1798. Davis ob-tained land in The Rocks in 1809, and in the early years of the colony, when there was no resident priest in Sydney, his home became a centre of Catholic prayer.
In 1840 William Davis donated the land on which St Patrick’s is built, gifting that section of his 1809 grant bounded by Gloucester and Grosvenor Streets. The foundation stone was blessed on 25 August 1840, and the now elderly Davis astonished everyone when he came forward and placed a cheque for £1000 on the stone, an incredible sum in those days. Davis had pros-pered over the years through his business ventures, which included interests in grazing and licensed prem-ises. Davis’ donation was matched by an equal grant from the colonial government.