As per the NSW Government COVID-19 lockdown, all churches in the Macarthur and Illawarra (including Shellharbour region) will be closed to the public until at least 12:01am on Saturday 28 August 2021.
During these times of uncertainty and isolation, nourishing our faith becomes even more important. Through spending time with God and with one another we find the hope, comfort, guidance and certainty that our loving God and Father wants to share with us. Jesus wants to be with us and care for us during these days.
Along with the list of livestreamed masses and devotions, we have put together the following resources to help support your own faith along with your children and family.
On this page you will find resources for:
Participating in Masses and other liturgies and prayer gatherings
LiturgyHelp provides a range of online resources which include daily prayers and readings, prayer services, the Sunday Mass, commentaries, homilies and reflections as well as Gospel based activities and resources to support personal and family prayer.
Created by the Australian Province of the Redemptorist Missionaries, this app provides reflections on the daily scripture readings. Bread 4 Today is as a free, accessible meditation aid which people can use to come closer to God and effect positive change in their lives and their community.
The prayer archive allows users to search past entries by category so that they can reflect on prayers that match their frame of mind. Its categories include: Courage, A Just World, Relationships, Hope, Hard Times, Faith, Forgiveness and special intensions (calendar days of prayer and reflection). All prayers can be shared via social media with a tap of the screen, thanks to its integrated social media
Our regular free weekly single-sided A4 PDF resource that contains the upcoming Sunday Gospel reading as well as a reflection on the Gospel (usually by Pope Francis) accompanied by questions for discussion and prayer points. It is a great resource for individual and families to use at home.
Connecting online – simple steps for staying in touch
Connecting online can be simple and fun, enabling you to feel supported, connected and able to pray and share faith and life together. The following simple process will give you access to a 40min time period of a zoom video call:
Journey Catholic Radio is a weekly radio program and podcast developed by the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong all about faith, hope, love and life. It includes awesome music, a weekly Gospel reflection, interviews and a variety of weekly inputs from some of the best Catholic presenters in Australia.
CAtHFAMILY provides a selection of activities, prayer rituals, crafts and recipes for families to use in nurturing faith. Part of this suite includes CathKids: A weekly interactive experience with a two-minute animated reflection on the Sunday reading, questions to stimulate discussion, a simple activity and prayer. Families in the diocese are encouraged to utilise these resources at home to share faith with kids. Visit www.cathfamily.org to sign up. It’s free for the first three months during this Covid-19 pandemic.
A resource website containing thousands of short faith formation videos, movies, programs, audio and books covering all aspects of our Catholic faith. You can sign up for a 40 day free trial after which the monthly cost is only about AU$12 per month—same as Spotify!
From the founders of Alpha, Nicky & Pippa Gumble take you through a reading of the whole bible, with reflections, in one year. Taking 20-30 min to soak in scripture.
By making a commitment of only twenty to thirty minutes a day, you can prayerfully read through the entire Bible and/or Catechism in one year! Use whatever Bible translation you like that contains the entire Canon of Scripture. This guide is divided by month, but you can start at any time.
Account means the account held at your financial institution from which we are authorised to arrange for funds to be debited.
Agreement means this Direct Debit Request Service Agreement between you and us, including the direct debit request.
Business day means a day other than a Saturday or a Sunday or a listed public holiday.
Debit day means the day that payment is due.
Debit payment means a particular transaction where a debit is made, according to your direct debit request.
Direct debit request means the Direct Debit Request between us and you.
Us and we and our means the Catholic Development Fund.
You means the customer(s) who signed the direct debit request. Your financial institution is the financial institution where you hold the account that you have authorised us to arrange to debit.
Debiting your account
By submitting a direct debit request, you have authorised us to arrange for funds to be debited from your account according to the agreement we have with you.
We will only arrange for funds to be debited from your account:
As authorised in the direct debit request; if the debit day falls on a day that is not a business day, we may direct your financial institution to debit your account on the following or previous business day. If you are unsure about which day your account has or will be debited, please check with your financial
Changes by you
If you wish to stop or defer a debit payment you must write to us at least 5 business days before the next debit day.
This notice should be given to us in the first instance.
Your obligations
It is your responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient clear funds available in your account to allow a debit payment to be made.
If there are insufficient clear funds available in your account to meet a debit payment:
you or your account may be charged a fee and/or interest by your financial institution;
you or your account may be charged a fee to reimburse us for charges we have incurred for the failed transaction;
you must arrange for the payment to be made by another method
Please check your account statement to verify that the amounts debited from your account are correct.
Dispute
If you believe that there has been an error in debiting your account you should call us on 1800 047 703 and confirm the details in writing with us as soon as possible so that we can resolve your query quickly.
Accounts
You should check:
with your financial institution whether direct debiting is available from your accounts offered by financial
your account details which you have provided to us are correct by checking them against a recent account statement; and
with your financial institution before completing the direct debit request if you have any queries about how to complete the direct debit
Warning: if the account number you have quoted is incorrect, you may be charged a fee to reimburse our costs in correcting any deductions from:
an account you do not have authority to operate; or
an account you do not
Confidentiality
We will keep any information (including your account details) in your direct debit request confidential.
We will make reasonable efforts to keep any such information that we have about you secure and to ensure that any of our employees or agents who have access to information about you, do not make any unauthorised use, modification, reproduction or disclosure of that information.
However, we may use your contact details to provide information about the fund. Should you wish this not to be the case, please advise the fund in writing.
Our diocesan logo is theologically rich and very succinct. As a hand, it depicts our mission as a diocese and as individuals within the diocese, of bearing (bringing, carrying) Christ’s love to one another and to the world around us. In this, we are the hand of Jesus Christ, and we are offering ourselves to him so that he might work through us.
We can be the bearers of his love only as a response to his call and in the strength of his grace. We are reminded of this in two ways—through the symbol of the dove (the Holy Spirit) also present in the logo, and by the incorporation of the cross that segments the logo. The presence of the cross is a reminder that bearing the love of Christ will inevitably cost us if we live it authentically. However, in the way that the Cross is the portent of redemption and life—an echo of the tree of life in the book of Genesis—so becoming bearers of the love of Christ will also bring us to life.
The four fingers of the hand also represent the four regions of our diocese. The first is bluerepresenting the beautiful water of the Shoalhaven. The second is a blue and green combination representing the waters and escarpment of the Illawarra. The third is greendepicting the hills and plains of the Macarthur. The fourth is dark green illustrating the forests of the Southern Highlands.
