Feast of St Pius X

Fr Paul reads today’s Gospel from Matthew (22: 34-40) where Jesus is questioned by the Pharisees about which is the greatest commandment.

Fr Paul says that today we celebrate the life of St Pius X, who was born in the village of Riese near Venice in Italy. He was one of ten children born into a very poor family.

Pius was ordained a priest at the age of 23 and went on to become Bishop of Mantua and then Bishop of Venice. He was elected Pope against his wishes in 1903. In his time as Pope, he sought to restore all things in Christ.

Pius insisted on a separation of Church and State. He revised the code of Canon Law, which is the law that governs the Church, and he founded an institute for scriptural studies.

Even when Pope Pius lived in great poverty, he preached sermons in the courtyard of the Vatican to anyone who would listen to him. The request for his canonisation started immediately after his death in 1914. It was said that he died of a broken heart due to the outbreak of World War I.

Today, Fr Paul invites us to remember and celebrate the life of St Pius X

Father Leo Donnelly: Centacare grew out of a very obvious need and if you look at the projects Centacare has realised the extent of those needs. They have been an extraordinary force in our Parish here in Port Macquarie and they have been in existence now for 20 years and I would like to congratulate them on the wonderful work they have done over those 20 years.

Tony Davies: I suppose the original way of 1995 was the commencement of Centacare. We were the first Parish model Centacare in Australia to be recognised and be allowed to be a member of the Catholic Social Services Australia. That was a major breakthrough.

The second one was probably the development of our programs for people with disabilities. That was the creation of the group home, I.M.A.G.E group home. And that allowed us to have a base to operate our disability services.

The other one was, in the early days, was the achievement of retrieving the current funding of the Youth Refuge, all done on voluntary basis. So they were the three main early ones.

Then we went into the mid 90 type areas or the late 90 type areas, and we started to work on the development of community housing and now we have just over 48 properties across the Hastings area. Supporting people who are socially and financially disadvantaged.

They’re some of the major achievements. Some of the other ones that we worked alongside with was the development of the Peace Community Youth Club, establishing this and we basically went parallel with this for nearly 10 years as a ace achieving PCYC in New South Wales.

Speaker: Respecting the dignity of each person.

Validating the culture of others.

Emphasising our commonalities rather than our differences.

Actively identifying our individual strengths.