Parish and School News

Celebrating 50 years of graced service

Thursday 25 October 2012

By Marie van der Weert
 
LATE in July in the partnered parishes of Sacred Heart Newport and St Margaret Mary’s Spotswood, we celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Fr Joe McMahon.

In the Year of Grace we have highlighted Fr Joe’s service to the Church community and the graces that he has brought to us through his life as a priest.

Fr Joe has been with us in Newport for over 20 years and in Spotswood for over 10 years. In that time he has been an inspiration to many of us. He has nurtured many things in our Partnership including Pastoral Associates, The Partnership Pastoral Council, the RCIA team, our Sacramental Program, encompassing both of our Catholic schools and our catechist program, to name but a few.

Celebrations began on a Thursday when our two schools combined for the day to learn some bush dances. The day culminated with an evening of bush dancing facilitated by the group Bushwazee. Children, parents, staff, parishioners and Fr Joe had a wonderful night and all returned home tired and happy.

The Saturday night parish Mass at St Margaret Mary’s was concelebrated by Monsignor Greg Bennet, Fr Joe Caddy, Fr Philip Le Van Son, Fr Toan Nguyen and Fr Brian Glasheen. The primary schools and, our regional secondary school students from Emmanuel College were all represented as were the prayer groups and pastoral groups of the parish. The Mass was followed by a supper and attended by many parishioners, family and friends of Fr Joe.

Our Sunday celebration began with the Eucharist concelebrated with Bishop Vincent Long, Fr Kevin Mogg, Fr Philip Le Van Son, Fr Toan Nguyen, Fr Steve Rigo, Fr Len Thomas and Fr Anh Nguyen. This was followed by a luncheon served by the parishioners and partnership staff and attended by Fr Joe’s family, friends as well as our parishioners.
 
Throughout our celebrations we focused on the graces that we have received and we renewed our Partnership commitment to outreach by donating to a Ugandan project that the school children had initiated.
 
Fr Joe’s life as a priest has touched the lives of a great many people from a wide variety of situations. He has served in several parishes of Melbourne. He worked in special ministry for about twenty years, ministering to those, particularly the young, in trouble with the law. It is a testament to the man that Fr Joe is, that some of those people still keep in contact with him today.
 
His next appointment was ministering to those preparing for the priesthood. Again, many of these men are still friends of his.
 
His appointment as parish priest of Newport and later of St Margaret Mary’s Spotswood, has been another chapter of his ministry of service. He has been a mentor to so many in our Partnership, each with a different story to tell. Fr Joe always lets people tell their story and often becomes a part of that story in the process.

Fr Joe has been graced by God in his calling as a Catholic Priest and we his parishioners, family and friends have been graced by being a part of his life. He is a true example of the Grace of God and we have been privileged to celebrate that with him in this the Year of Grace.
 
One of our children wrote of “Fr Joe is a humble man with a passionate heart and we will treasure you forever.”
 
Marie van der Weert works as a Pastoral Associate in the partnered parishes of Sacred Heart Newport and St Margaret Mary's Spotswood.

 Photo courtesy of  Marie van der Weert