Third’s time a charm

It was quite a journey for us at this parish. We visited this parish 3 times before we could get our passport stamped.

1st visit

It was a Sunday afternoon, drizzly and quiet. There was no car parked outside of the parish. We came and was amazed by the beauty of this parish. It resides on a little hill and surrounded by senior residences.

The parish doors were open, we could get into the foyer and the church, we took our time and had a look around the foyer, there were parish announcements, events and papers, but there was no stamp to be found. They even had a piece of paper notifying the church people of their upcoming plan to do a pilgrimage to St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne City. At that desk, we thought we would have our chance of finding the stamp but to our disappointment, it was not there.

We decided to say our prayer and had a walk around the parish and went home.

2nd visit – we came with friends

On the 2nd visit, we had two friends who are members of St Francis’ Young Adults group joining us. We drove there, and was quite excited to come to Sacred Heart parish once again with the hope of getting a stamp for our passports. But unfortunately, this time, all the doors to the church were shut we could not tell exactly whether the stamp was inside or not because there was no access to inside the church at all. Once again, we took a stroll and rushed out the door because mother nature was urging us to have a little chat with her at a restroom in Eastland shopping centre 😊.

We then went to a church St Timothy’s Catholic Church. And we got some info from a father telling us to call them the church up before going so that if someone is available they will be there opening the doors for us.

3rd visit – we were determined and prepared

Unlike last two times, we said “third time’s a charm”, we were prepared by coming to the Saturday night Sunday Vigil mass, because there would definitely be people at the church after the mass. And there would be our chance to ask around for the information about the stamp.

And that preparation rewarded us. There were plenty of people in the foyer of the church when we were there this time, and we saw it, the stamp, on a desk as if it has always been there, and somehow it was not when we were there the first time – it was meant to be. We then took a browse in the foyer and found a lot of passports that can be picked up, only if we knew this from the beginning we would not have been so nervous about not getting one!

We attended the morning mass with some really lovely elders. Their singing was really amazing especially with the acoustic of the church and the warm hearted priest, it was an amazing mass.