French's Forest Catholic Parish Notices and News

Dear Parishioners, As we step into the New Year 2026, I extend to you and your families my heartfelt wishes for a happy, peaceful, and healthy year ahead. May this New Year be filled with God’s abundant blessings, renewed hope, and deep trust in His loving providence. Let us walk forward together with faith, kindness, and gratitude, supporting one another as a parish family and being signs of Christ’s love in our homes and in the wider community. I thank you sincerely for your prayers, faith, and generous support of our parish. May Mary, the Holy Mother of God, keep us under her loving care, and may the Lord grant us strength, good health, and joy throughout the year ahead. Happy and Blessed New Year 2026! With prayers and blessings, Fr. Satheesh Antony OSH, Parish Priest.

Holy Father, God of our yesterdays, our today, and tomorrows. We praise You for Your unequalled greatness. Thank You for the year behind us and for the year ahead. Help us in Your new year, Father, to fret less and laugh more. To teach others to love by loving them. Knowing, when Love came to the stable in Bethlehem, He came for us. So that Love could be with us, and we could know You. That we could share Love with others. Thank You for another new year and for new chances every day. We pray for peace, for light, and for hope, that we might spread them to others. Forgive us for falling short this past year. We leave the irreparable past in your hands,  and step out into the unknown new year knowing You will go with us. We accept Your gift of a new year and we rejoice in what’s ahead, depending on You to help us do exactly what You want. We ask this in Christ our Lord.   Amen

Dear Parish Family, As we step into this grace-filled Christmas Season, I extend to each of you my warm and prayerful greetings. Christmas is a reminder of the most beautiful truth we hold dear: God chose to come near. In Jesus, born in Bethlehem, God entered our world—not in power or grandeur, but in simplicity and love. He came to stay with us, guide us, and save us. This same Jesus continues to live in our hearts today, binding us together as one family and filling our lives with hope. As we celebrate the birth of our Saviour, my heart overflows with gratitude. First and foremost, I thank God for the gift of each one of you, your faith, your presence, your kindness, and the way you enrich our parish community. You are the living stones that make our parish a warm, vibrant, and loving home. I want to express my sincere appreciation to all our parish committees, and to all our wonderful volunteers across every ministry. Your dedication behind the scenes ensures that our parish continu...

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, Across many lands there is a venerable and beautiful custom: at the Christmas table, a place is set but left empty. It is a quiet sign of welcome for the unexpected guest, perhaps a stranger, perhaps someone in need. Such a simple gesture, yet it speaks profoundly of the goodness of an open heart and a willingness to receive and to share. In the busyness that so often accompanies Christmas, we can lose sight of these small but powerful symbols. The empty chair itself draws us back to the very first Christmas, when Mary and Joseph found no room at the inn. Into that humble setting, God chose to enter our world as a tiny child, carried by a young mother who dared to say “yes,” and protected by Joseph, who trusted the message of an angel. The place prepared for the Christ Child was nothing more than a manger, an open box where animals were fed, yet it became the cradle of our salvation. His birth in such unassuming surroundings was not only the fulf...

Please note that the Parish Office will be closed for the Christmas and New Year period  from Wednesday 24 December (12 noon) until Tuesday 6 January 2026. From Tuesday 6 January until the end of February 2026, the Parish Office will be open on Tuesdays to Fridays only. We thank you for your understanding and wish all our parishioners and families a blessed Christmas and a happy, safe New Year

Monday 15 December 2025 NO POLITICS - IGNORANT AND VIOLENT ANTISEMITISM MUST END I write today with a heavy heart, in profound sorrow at the loss of innocent human life in the shooting at Bondi during the Jewish Festival of Hanukkah. Families have been shattered, communities left grieving, and our Jewish brothers and sisters once again subjected to fear, trauma, and hatred. No words can undo such loss, yet silence is not an option. This is a moment of urgency for Australia. We must put down the ways of violence. We must reject hatred in all its forms. We must turn away from brutality and completely reject antisemitism. Violence corrodes the soul of a nation, and when it is directed at a people because of who they are, what they believe, or how they pray, it strikes at the very foundations of our common life. I wish to speak clearly and respectfully. There has been a call from government and sections of the media to speak of this primarily as “evil”. While the moral horror of such acts...

Dear Parish Family, Thank you so much for your incredible generosity and ongoing support! Because of you, our parish continues to thrive and serve the community. As you know, this vibrancy relies on your generosity for which there are now many different ways of giving using modern technology. In recent times we have introduced Tap’n’go machines in our churches. We have now added a new, easy, and secure way to make a contribution to support our parish—through a simple scan of a QR code. This small code allows you to give a single gift directly from your phone at any time, wherever you may be. All you need to do is open your camera, scan the code and you'll be taken directly to our secure giving page. It’s fast, easy, and helps the parish to continue the great work we’re doing together. Of course, like Tap’n’go, contributions by QR code are a once only gift. If you would like your donation to be regular and automatic, please join our Planned Giving program which is easily arranged ...