St Gabriel's Catholic Parish Reservoir

Welcome

Welcome to our parish! Thanks for hitting our website!!

In 2012 we celebrate the Ordination of one of or parishioners Deacon Andrew McCarter, and since July we have been partnered with St Stephen of Hungary Parish, East Reservoir. I am parish priest of both parishes. St Stephen's was formerly part of this parish but was established as a separate parish in 1957. With the diminishing number of clergy the parishes have again joined together. While we rejoice in Deacon Andrew's ordination we are reminded to pray and work for vocations. We are celebrating too the Year of Grace, along with the Church in Australia, and we look forward to the activities which will flow from the Year of Faith, which commemorates the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

Since our parish was founded in 1936 we have grown from a rural setting to an easily accessible suburb to the centre of the city of Melbourne (25 minutes by direct train). Our first settlers, Australian born newly married couples, have been joined by Italian post war settlers, then they in their turn by others from elsewhere in Europe, the Vietnamese, by people from the Philippines, from the subcontinent of India, and most recently from the Congo and Sudan in Africa.

We witness, as do many of our parishes in Melbourne and elsewhere, to the universality of the Church. And this we celebrate.

Please enjoy this website and we welcome your contact.

Fr Shane Hoctor, Parish Priest