St Mary's Catholic Parish, Maryborough

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UPCOMING EVENTS
- Sacramental Program - Confirmation: Preparation sessions started. The Sacrament will be on Sunday 18th June 2023.
- Debutante Ball - Friday 9th June.
- First Holy Communion: Information meeting Saturday 22nd July. 1st lesson 29th July 5pm St Mary’s. Date of Sacrament 10th September.
- Multicultural Mass - Sunday 15th October.
- Christmas Bazaar and Carols - Friday 24th November.

150 YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR ST MARY'S CHURCH
Our recent celebration for the 150th anniversary of the first Mass in St Mary's Church, Maryborough, was a great success and we were delighted with the number of people who attended. The principal Celebrant of the Mass was Auxiliary Bishop Ken Howell DD who was assisted by Dr Adrian Farrelly, Episcopal Vicar for the North Country Deanery and Fr Lucius Edomobi our Parish Priest. Other clergy participating included former Priests who spent time in the Parish in the late sixties/early seventies, Fr Leo Burke and Fr Denis Martin. Retired Bishop Brian Finnigan made the trip from Brisbane to share the occasion along with Nigerian Priests in the Archdiocese of Brisbane who are friends of Fr Lucius. Bishop Ken gave a lively homily which included a mix of the history of the parish from the 1850's through to the present, interwoven with the surety that all the Priests who have served here and the people who have passed away over this period of time remain seeped in the rich history of St Mary's just as we will be in the years to come.

Apologies were received from former PP's George Joseph, Paul Kelly and Anthony Mellor as well as Fr Mark Percival who was ordained in St Mary's.

A choir of 16 led by Mrs Rita Lynch seated at the pipe organ (a role she has enjoyed for 55 years) and 9 altar servers (both boys and girls) who participated with poise and reverence, added to the prayerful and gracious atmosphere in the Church which is the size of a cathedral ........ but that's another story!

A slideshow was presented before and after the Mass of the significant changes to the appearance of the Church over the 150 years together with photos of previous parishioners and family baptisms and weddings which was assembled by parishioner Mr Stephen McGinley. Stephen is a history buff himself and became thoroughly immersed in the project and will continue to add photos as parishioners send them in for display on this website.

Click on the images above to view a larger version of the photos and scroll through them.

Welcome....

A warm welcome to St Mary’s Catholic Parish Maryborough. We are a welcoming community guided by the Holy Spirit and drawn together as one family to celebrate God our Father through the Sacraments in Worship to Jesus Christ our Saviour. As a faith-filled parish family, blessed with a wonderful primary and secondary school, we work to build up a community that serves one another as Jesus showed and taught us to proclaim God's love in all we say and do. “You must love one another, just as I have loved you.” (John 13:34). At St Mary’s parish, everyone is welcome to the home of Mary the Mother of Christ and our mother also as we seek to live out the gospel of Christ in a manner that impacts the life of all in our community and beyond.

We are eagerly waiting to welcome you with open arms whether you are new to Maryborough and looking for a parish to call home, or you are just a visitor in search of a nearby church to join for worship, or whether you are returning home to your Catholic faith, or you are just wanting to discern and learn a bit more about the Catholic Church. We trust this, our parish website, along with our Facebook page, may contain some useful resources that may help to satisfy your need.

A message from our Parish Priest >>

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Community News

Please refer to our weekly Parish Bulletin for all the latest news in our parish community.

Following our City's second flood in the space of six weeks, we are pleased to report that no water made its way into the Presbytery garages this time as the levee which the Council had installed some years ago to protect the CBD worked as planned this time around after a problem with the pumps in January which saw many shops suffer water damage which prevented them from getting their businesses up and running before the Mary River flooded again after a deluge of rain in the Gympie area. While the damage was reduced for some businesses, others went under again and are currently cleaning up. The Council and SES workers have done a mighty job in clearing the mud from the streets and bridges which connect the suburbs of Tinana and Granville and life is getting back to normal. Many families have lost a lot of possessions and are finding the going tough especially as the time between floods has been so short. Our hearts go out to the many thousands of people who have lost all or much of their valuable possessions and in many cases their homes as the result of persistent heavy rain over a period of days.

As St Mary's Church is situated in the CBD, Fr Lucius was isolated in the Presbytery but the sheer size of it meant that he could move from one room to another and have a different view to keep him occupied. Unfortunately, there was no power for 5 days so this was hard to cope with especially after the flood in January. Originally from Nigeria, Fr Lucius had not experienced a flood before so to be surrounded by water two months in a row was a challenge and one that he prays will not happen again any time soon.