ST SIMON THE APOSTLE, ROWVILLE

Weekday Masses are available livestream and Sunday Mass will be available online from 6pm on the Saturday.

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Fr Kevin Dillon - St Simons - Friday, 5 March 2021 - Anointing Mass

livestream  Tue-Fri at 9:15am - replay available via YouTube or Parish website from 10am

livestream Mon & Public Holidays at 10:00am 

- replay available via YouTube or Parish website from 11am

Fr Kevin Dillon - St Simons - Sunday, March 7 2021

live from Saturday 6pm

MY JESUS,
I believe that You are present in this most holy sacrament, I love you above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and I unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.        Amen

Third Week of Lent 2020

Elderly Australians are starving, dying in pain and suffering assaults in neglectful nursing homes, a royal commission has revealed in a harrowing report that suggests a levy on taxpayers to boost aged-care funding.

In a distressing 2733-page report in eight volumes, royal commissioners Tony Pagone
QC, and Lynelle Briggs concluded “substandard care and abuse pervades the Australian
aged-care system”. The commissioners warned at least one in three aged-care residents have suffered sub-standard care”, which had become “normalised” in some nursing homes.

As many as one in five residents had been assaulted in a nursing home. The royal commission’s report reveals many nursing home residents are malnourished and have
to wait an unreasonable time for staff to take them to the toilet.

The two-year inquiry exposed “numerous instances” of residents given the wrong medicine or left to suffer in pain with untreated pressure sores and skin wounds.

The report says the “core business” of aged care should be to care for people with dementia - half of all residents - and those needing palliative care before they die.
‘We have found that Australia’s aged-care system is under staffed and the workforce
underpaid and undertrained”, the report says.

“Herald Sun”, Tues. Mar. 2

“Self-interest” may nor represent the finest components of human nature, but it can still bea worthwhile and practical stepping-stone towards improving the life in our society - in many, many ways.

For Australians to achieve and then maintain a highquality of care
for senior people is not only a necessity for us as a responsible nation, but it is also
a fundamental element of self-care. And before we can maintain a high level of care, we first have to achieve it. Sadly, the 8-volume Royal Commission report released this week
is quite clear: there is much to be done for this to happen.

We don’t need to read all 2,733 pages of the report to absorb and acknowledge
its critical and shocking message: “At least one in three aged care residents have
suffered sub-standard care”.

One in three!! If that was only half-true, and the care given to one in six frail, sick
and elderly Australians was “substandard”, it would be appalling. But one in three is both breath-taking and frightening.

So what does “sub-standard” mean? To find an accurate answer, we probably would need to read the report, at least in some detail. But among the “substandard” items could be: poor quality food, rooms too hot in summer and too cold in winter, slack medical and pharmaceutical management, tardiness in attending to hygiene and toilet needs,
inadequate and inaccurate record keeping.

Is it just a case of more money being poured into a broken system? If only it were that simple. But then again it’s not really very complicated. In fact it’s very basic . It’s the Gospel text we used for the Opening Liturgy for St. Simon’s School this week: “Love God,
and love your neighbour as yourself”. As yourself. Self-interest is not necessarily selfish,
or even self-centred. It can be a measuring stick by which we can determine, in many cases, what our proper course of action should be - and here the issue is how we treat
the sick, frail and elderly.

One day that phrase, “the frail, the sick and the elderly“ may well include us. And we
will desperately want to avoid being in what is now that one-third of Australians whose
so-called “care” is sub-standard.

We shouldn’t have to revert to “self-interest” to get this right, but the Royal Commission
is telling Australia that this hasn’t been “right” for decades, if ever. We need reforms, major reforms, and quickly.

And if they’re not quick enough, we have a fair idea of what may well be awaiting us!
That might not be the best motivation, but it might be the one that makes all the difference.

 Fr. Kevin Dillon 

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Victoria COVID-19 Restrictions 

# 29 UPDATED 26 February 2021 COVID Guidelines

Christ in the Garden
of Gethsemane 

Painted by parishioner Denise Do

Bulletin

Previous "Bulletins"

Homily

Host Country is Vanuatu

Join together with the Combined Churches of Rowville 

Friday,
5 March 2021
at 7:30pm

Cnr Fulham Rd
& Bridgewater Way

Topic: The Serpent

 4th Week in Lent

Stations
of the Cross

Click on image within
St Simon the Apostle Church 

 Fridays at 7.30pm

During Lent

Project Compassion

MARGRET’S STORY Week 2