We have some very good news to share with you.  We have been waiting for government regulations to permit us to celebrate Holy Communion with you and your children in the best way possible.  Although the changes are not perfect, I think we have a reasonable balance between safety and celebration.  We thank you for your patience but as you can well appreciate, these have been times of uncertainty and apprehension.  It has always been our sincerest desire to celebrate Holy Communion this year, and this we are going to do.

We can now advise you that First Holy Communion for your children will be celebrated on Tuesday, 24^th November, Wednesday, 25^th November and Thursday, 26^th November at 7pm.  You will be able to book the day that most suits. 

Due to the increased mass schedule on the weekend, the change in format for confessions and the need to celebrate baptisms on both Saturdays and Sundays, it would not be possible to celebrate First Holy Communion on one weekend.  Given the current regulations, it would require almost 3 weekends to celebrate Holy Communion on a Sunday.  This of course would undermine a sense of community in the celebration of your child’s Holy Communion.  Please know that you are all warmly invited to participate this year. However, if any of you have any health concerns, please know that you are also able to wait for next year.  There is no penalty in waiting.

There will be 3 weeks of preparation and in the final (3^rd) week there will also be a practice session that you must attend with your child.   The Holy Communion children’s activity books will be available from your child’s teacher for our parish school or from the parish office if you are from a state school, as not all our catechists are back.  We ask that you please ensure that you have a book before the end of October to start your preparation.  There will also be a small online component to accompany the workbook which will guide you in preparation for your child’s First Holy Communion.  We will send you the online content each week.  These will be sent to you on the 2^nd November, 9^th November and the 16^th November.

As government regulations limit the numbers in our church for mass to 130, we know that you will have many family members who will not be able to participate on the night.  We have arranged to have the First Holy Communion live streamed for all of your family members.  We have also arranged to have a copy of the video for each of you to download.  This will incur a small fee for each family in order to cover the cost of the filming and the streaming.  As soon as we have our final numbers for each mass, we will let you know how much per family.  We imagine this cost will be less than $20 per family but we will confirm once we have final numbers.

We thank you all for your patience and we look forward to seeing you at First Holy Communion.