St Thomas More's Parish, Toowoomba in Toowoomba, Queensland | Catholic Church

St Thomas More's Parish, Toowoomba

Locality: Toowoomba, Queensland

Phone: +61 7 4635 9555

Address: 71A Ramsay Street 4350 Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

Website: http://www.stthomasmores.org.au

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25.01.2022 Another week has rolled by in these continuing uncertain times. May we always remain people of hope! Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter for this weekend, the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1192

25.01.2022 On Tuesday 15/9/20 evening, the Chrism Mass was celebrated at St Patrick's Cathedral after being cancelled due to the COVID lockdown. It was also an oportunity to combine with the jubilee celebrations for Frs Don Murry and Brian Sparksman, also cancelled due to the COVID lockdown.

24.01.2022 As we celebrate the Solemnity of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop today August 8, you are invited to follow the link below to our Parish Newsletter for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1181

24.01.2022 You may be interested in signing up to this reflection series for Advent https://www.commongrace.org.au/advent_for_the_weary

23.01.2022 Join us via live stream 15/9/20 @ 5:30pm for the Chrism Mass and to celebrate 60th Jubilee of Ordination of Fr Don Murray and 50th Jubilee of Ordination of Fr B...rian Sparksman. Due to COVID-19 lock down earlier in the year, these 2 Masses were postponed. Unfortunately due to restrictions on gathering size, in-person attendance by the general public at this Mass is not available. However, we hope you join us in spirit for the live stream here on FB or www.twb.catholic.org.au/live-stream-masses/ See more

23.01.2022 Mass with the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick will be celebrated at St Thomas More's at 9.30 am on Tuesday 15 December 2020. All welcome. Please think about anyone you may be able to assist with transport so that as many as possible may experience the blessings of this healing mass.

22.01.2022 We are celebrating Eucharist together this weekend after several months of our church being closed for weekend services. Here is a link to our newsletter for this Sunday, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1153

21.01.2022 Pope Francis on the pandemic and our response

21.01.2022 A Blessed and Safe and Peaceful Christmas time to all. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter for this special time: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1298

20.01.2022 This weekend, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A, we celebrate the generosity of God as we recall the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1215

20.01.2022 A Happy and Blessed New Year to all. This weekend we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. Here is a link to this week's Parish Newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1304

18.01.2022 Christmas is only a few days away as we celebrate the 4th Sunday of Advent this weekend. Christmas would not be without Mary's "Yes" to God's call to become the Mother of our Saviour. We celebrate Mary this weekend. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1291

16.01.2022 This weekend we celebrate the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A, the second last Sunday in the Church Year as we look back over a year that will long stay in our memories. Here is the Parish Newsletter for this weekend: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1258

16.01.2022 Frank Brennan draws together several threads to present a message for our time.

16.01.2022 The Second Rite of Reconciliation will be celebrated on Wednesday 2 December 2020 - at 9.30 am at St Thomas More's and at 5.30 pm at St Patrick's Cathedral.

14.01.2022 If you wish to attend Christmas Masses at St Thomas More's Parish, you will need to book in through TryBooking. Check it out via the following link: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1279

14.01.2022 It's good to be back! The latest Horizons is on the website now https://www.twb.catholic.org.au/horizons/

13.01.2022 Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time as well as an article about Earth Overshoot Day on 22 August: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1186

13.01.2022 Frank Brennan reflects on the Sunday readings.

12.01.2022 This Sunday, the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we celebrate National Aboriginal and Islander Sunday. This link takes you to our newsletter for this weekend as well as some other great resources: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1144 Information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday is available from the following site:https://www.natsicc.org.au/2020-atsi-sunday.html

11.01.2022 Homily for Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Kings 3:5,7-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52 Here in Victoria, we’ve had a tough week with 3 to 4 hundred n...ew COVID-19 cases each day. Our health professionals are doing an heroic job, but the stress is showing. Old people in our hospitals and nursing homes are dying almost alone, with no prospect of their loved ones being allowed to gather at their bedside. The Treasurer’s announcement this week of ‘eye-watering’ economic statistics shows that all Australians will be doing it tough for a long time to come. We are probably stepping from recession to depression territory unknown to most of us, and unimaginable when we celebrated the new year with the usual round of Aussie fireworks and parties just seven months ago. In the midst of these woes and challenges, we hear a couple of brief punchy parables in today’s gospel about the kingdom of heaven. The field labourer discovers a treasure in the field. He knows what he wants. He sets about achieving his goal. He sells everything he owns. Then, and only then, is he able to buy the field on which he had set his sights. The jewellery merchant discovers the pearl of great price. She knows she wants it. She sets about achieving her goal. She sells everything she owns. Then, and only then, is she able to buy the pearl on which she had set her sights. This week, we celebrate the feast of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Ignatius was like that field labourer and that jewellery merchant. He knew what he wanted. He gave up everything to get it. And he went for it. In hindsight his path looks clear and straight. It was anything but. Ignatius had his own COVID and economic crises rolled into one when he was wounded in battle on 23 May 1521. Over the next month, his life was in the balance. He was bed bound for 10 months undergoing various surgeries without anaesthetic. Over those months, he daydreamed and fantasised about all manner of things. Exploits which previously gave him pleasure lost their appeal. He found himself inspired by Jesus and some of the saints he read about. Once he was able to walk again, he went on pilgrimage to the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat, intending then to make his way as a pilgrim to Jerusalem. After an all night vigil, he set out on his pilgrimage. He arrived at Manresa a short distance away, suspended his pilgrimage, and stayed there for another 11 months. For some of that time he lived in a cave. At one stage he was suicidal. He had some profound spiritual experiences, including a vision by the River Cardoner. He said, ‘This left me with my understanding so greatly enlightened that it seemed to me that I was a different person, and I had another mind different than that which I had before’. Over these 21 months of ‘COVID-recession type’ hibernation, Ignatius learnt the art of discernment, coming to a deep interior freedom, sensitive to the influences (good and bad) which were at work in him. He then focused single mindedly on finding God in all things, and on choosing and doing that which was more productive in the praise, reverence and service of God. This required that he forego dreams like working in Jerusalem and that he do years of study culminating in an MA at the University of Paris and that he place himself and his companions at the service of the Pope. With his deep interior freedom, his passion for service, and his vision of God’s action in the world, he was able to sell everything he owned, responding with great discipline, investing all in that pearl of great price. After the disciples told Jesus that they understood these parables, Jesus told them: ‘every scribe who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out from his storeroom things both new and old.’ For us, it’s not simply a matter of replicating what Jesus said and did two thousand years ago, nor of replicating what Ignatius Loyola said and did 500 years ago. We have to make sense of our own situation. We have to shape our own world. This past week, an Australian court has ruled on a long running controversy between James Cook University and Professor Peter Ridd, an outspoken professor of physics who doubts much of the present orthodox thinking on damage being caused to the Great Barrier Reef. The judges said: ‘There is little to be gained in resorting to historical concepts and definitions of academic freedom. Whatever the concept once meant, it has evolved to take into account contemporary circumstances which present a challenge to it, including the internet, social media and trolling, none of which informed the view of persons such as J S Mill, John Locke, Isaiah Berlin and others who have written on the topic.’ They quoted with approval an American academic who has written: ‘[A] host of new challenges have arisen in recent years in response to the changing norms and expectations of the university. With the increasing role of the Internet in research, the rise of social media in both professional and extramural exchanges, and student demands for accommodations such as content warnings and safe spaces, the parameters of, and challenges to, academic freedom often leave us in unchartered territory.’ We’re always finding ourselves in a whole new world, and not just on issues like academic freedom. But then again, we are always being called back to discern and articulate what is good, true and beautiful. There must be some aspects of academic freedom which are perennial and which trump novel developments. This past week, the Jesuit provincial announced that one of our Jesuit schools would sell a beachside campus, while investing $35 million on developing the school’s remaining two campuses and providing additional scholarships. The unanimous decision was made by the school board after a year of deliberation. The provincial wrote: ‘At this time of significant change, we acknowledge there will be sadness and loss associated with aspects of this announcement. However, we hope that there will also be openness to new ways of lifting up our hearts and minds as the Xavier Community gives expression to the living tradition of Jesuit education in Melbourne.’ A friend texted me, ‘This is an appalling decision Frank!’ I replied, ‘I wouldn’t know. I trust the school board is rightly informed, committed to due process and animated by the Ignatian ethos. For me to second guess the decision would be a return to old time clericalism, methinks.’ Our world and our church are ever changing. But in the changing context, we are called back to the quest for the deep interior freedom, to the passion for the treasure in the field and for the pearl of great price. We need the wisdom of Solomon who in today’s First Reading from the First Book of Kings asks for ‘a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil’. Solomon had the wisdom in the first place to ask for the gift of wisdom. He did not ask for long life, or riches, or for the lives of his enemies. Yahweh gave him a heart wise and shrewd. One with such a heart was the late Fr Ted Stormon who was the dean here at Newman College from 1954 to 1962. Ted came from the west. He was a very learned man. When preaching at a community mass once, he told us the story of driving across the Nullarbor Plain. He rolled the car. As he slid along upside down, he wondered, ‘Am I ready to meet my Lord and Saviour?’ He said, Yes. Then he wondered, ‘Am I ready to meet Ignatius?’ He thought, No. He lived many more years to share his urbane wisdom and humane insights with generations of young Australians. He had the wisdom of Solomon. While in hibernation, let’s pray for that deep interior freedom, being prepared to sell up all we have and are, being focused on the big prize that treasured field, that pearl of great price, that kingdom to come which promises us life to the full. Meanwhile, let’s spare a thought and a prayer for those dying alone and for those caring for them fully vested in PPE wondering when this lockdown might end. Fr Frank Brennan SJ Rector Newman College University of Melbourne

10.01.2022 This weekend we celebrate the last Sunday of the Church's year, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Here is the link to our Parish Newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1263

10.01.2022 As we celebrate the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A, we are gathering for Mass for the second weekend since we have been able to open our Church for up to 100 people. Here is a link to our latest Parish Newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1167

10.01.2022 This weekend we celebrate Social Justice Sunday. This year's statement is entitled: To Live LIfe to the Full - Mental Health in Australia Today. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter. On Page 2 are links to material for Social Justice Sunday, including the statement: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1200

09.01.2022 We continue with our Advent Journey this weekend as the liturgy for the Second Sunday of Advent invites us to prepare the Way of the Lord. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1274

09.01.2022 We continue with the Season of Ordinary Time as we celebrate the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time this weekend. Don't forget that our weekend Masses are continuing at 6 pm Saturday and 8.30 am Sunday with a maximum of 100 people at each. Details of our Masses are on the first page of our Newsletter which can be accessed via the following link: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1171

08.01.2022 Take a moment to hope

07.01.2022 As we begin the month of August we are celebrating the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A. Here is a link to this weekend's newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1178

06.01.2022 Calling all interested members of our St Thomas More's Parish Community. We need three new members to join our Parish Pastoral Council this year. Term is for 2 years with a possible one- year extension. This is a great opportunity to be part of the leadership of our parish. We are celebrating 60 years as a Parish this year and look forward to a vibrant future as a great faith community in South Toowoomba. Please get in touch with one of the current Council members or our Parish Leader if you want to know more.

05.01.2022 The US politics don't affect us directly but the reflection on ageing and disability may be helpful as our parliament considers legislation about end of life.

04.01.2022 This weekend we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent, sometimes referred to as Gaudete Sunday with the theme of rejoicing in hope and confidence as we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Saviour. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1284 Please note that bookings for Christmas Masses will be open until 2pm on Christmas Eve.

03.01.2022 Challenging thoughts about the reality of social sin at a time when we need to attend to the 'common good'.

02.01.2022 On this weekend of the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A we renew our commitment to the care and protection of children and vulnerable adults on this Child Protection Sunday. Here is a link to our Parish Newsletter and a Statement from the Queensland Bishops regarding the forthcoming State Election: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1209

01.01.2022 Season of Creation 2020 Prayer Creator of Life, At Your word, the Earth brought forth plants yielding seed and trees of every kind bearing fruit. The rivers, mountains, minerals, seas and forests sustained life. The eyes of all looked to You to satisfy the needs of every living thing. And throughout time the Earth has sustained life. Through the planetary cycles of days and seasons, renewal and growth, you open your hand to give creatures our food in the proper time. In yo...ur Wisdom, you granted a Sabbath; a blessed time to rest in gratitude for all that you have given; a time to liberate ourselves from vicious consumption; a time to allow the land and all creatures to rest from the burden of production. But these days our living pushes the planet beyond its limits. Our demands for growth, and our never-ending cycle of production and consumption are exhausting our world. The forests are leached, the topsoil erodes, the fields fail, the deserts advance, the seas acidify, the storms intensify. We have not allowed the land to observe her Sabbath, and the Earth is struggling to be renewed. During this Season of Creation, we ask you to grant us courage to observe a Sabbath for our planet. Strengthen us with the faith to trust in your providence. Inspire us with the creativity to share what we have been given. Teach us to be satisfied with enough. And as we proclaim a Jubilee for the Earth, send Your Holy Spirit to renew the face of creation. In the name of the One who came to proclaim good news to all creation, Jesus Christ. Amen. See more

01.01.2022 We celebrate 60 years of St Thomas More's Parish at our Masses this weekend. Here is a link to the Parish Newsletter for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A: http://stthomasmores.org.au/?p=1204

01.01.2022 Great to see activities restarted at Sychar House of Prayer and Spirituality!