Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home People

Keeping rural parishes alive

byStaff writers
16 February 2016 - Updated on 16 March 2021
Reading Time: 4 mins read
AA
Fr Jason Middleton

Fr Jason Middleton: “The Clergy Sustentation Trust Fund helps to ensure that this parish can maintain a fulltime priest and have other services that city parishioners are used to”.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Fr Jason Middleton
Fr Jason Middleton: “The Clergy Sustentation Trust Fund helps to ensure that this parish can maintain a fulltime priest and have other services that city parishioners are used to”.

FATHER Jason Middleton was driving on a dirt road with a mobile phone that teased: “No service”.

He was heading to a cattle property on the remotest stretch of the Brisbane archdiocese. Roads of dirt, cattle grids and not one bar of mobile phone reception.

From the property, Fr Jason would see the unremarkable point where the Brisbane, Rockhampton and Toowoomba dioceses met.

What was a city boy doing here?

“I was invited by this lovely Catholic family to visit their property – I had only just started as the parish priest (of Gayndah) and it was quite a trip for someone like me,” Fr Jason said.

“I must admit – I’ve never even changed a tyre. And they’re not the roads you want to drive when you’ve never changed a tyre. But, luckily, everything held together that day.

“I went somewhere I had never expected to visit. But that’s life out here. That trip revealed to me the size of this parish and its unique nature.”

Gayndah is one of Queensland’s oldest Catholic communities. 

It was well established by the time Archbishop James Duhig dedicated St Joseph’s Church three days after the Anzacs landed in Gallipoli.

The parish now takes in Eidsvold, Mundubbera and surrounds.

Related Stories

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

And Fr Jason says the community owes a lot to the Clergy Sustentation Trust Fund.

Without the fund, Fr Jason knows that his life in the parish would be different.

“We’re a relatively small parish but we’re so large in area. In the 2011 census, our parish included 873 registered Catholics,” Fr Jason said.

“Add to that statistic the reality that many of the families of our parish are farmers, orchardists and graziers. Such work is unpredictable at best and in the previous years we have suffered through two floods.

“Yet, the people of this parish deserve a priest and a living parish like any parish that has more resources and more people.

“So the Clergy Sustentation Trust Fund helps to ensure that this parish can maintain a fulltime priest and have other services that city parishioners are used to.”

The Trust Fund is supported by parishioners across the Archdiocese – its only source of income is a levy of three per cent of all Mass collections.

The Fund’s chair, Fr Mark Franklin from Noosa District, said: “Parishes that demonstrate they are not able to totally fund the sustentation needs of their priests are able to seek financial support from the Fund”.

The Fund, which operates on behalf of Archbishop Mark Coleridge, also supports chaplains in ethnic communities, tertiary institutions, hospitals and prisons.

“I wish to express my sincere appreciation to all who make it possible to continue these ministries through Mass contributions,” Fr Mark said.

The Gayndah parish is a lively example of the benefits of the Trust Fund.

As Fr Jason sits outside the 100-year-old church on a warm afternoon, locals wave as they walk along Meson St past the well-presented St Joseph’s primary school.

They stop for a chat beneath the trees that shade the entrance to the loved church.

The conversations are diverse – comings and goings in the community, who went where for summer holidays, hopes for 2016 – but they all have one important link: the ability to engage with a fulltime priest.

“It is a great community here, people really do rally around one another, support one another and actually get to know one another,” Fr Jason said.

“It’s a unique feeling and it’s the same across the parish.”

Fr Jason sees plenty of the parish. Like other priests, his weekend is planned around Masses in different towns.

The weekend begins in St Patrick’s, Eidsvold, with a 4.30pm Mass on Saturday. 

Fr Jason ends the liturgy in time to return to Mundubbera for a 6.30pm Mass.

Sunday morning Mass is at Gayndah followed by baptisms. Then it’s off to the nursing home for visitations and to bring the Catholic residents Holy Communion.

“I also travel to Mundubbera regularly on a Wednesday for an evening mass before which I do visitations there also,” he said.

Archbishop Coleridge accompanied Fr Jason on the weekend journey last year as Gayndah celebrated the 100th anniversary of its church.

“We fluctuate with the numbers of people at different times of year. We get a lot of fruit pickers through the towns, both in Mundubbera and Gayndah and some in Eidsvold,” Fr Jason said.

“This is a living example of a rural parish in a modern age.”

Gayndah was to be anything but rural – the town was established in 1849 and its post office set up the following year.

There was talk of Gayndah becoming the state’s capital, with the promise of the Burnett River and its agricultural and grazing benefits luring European settlers away from the Brisbane convict colony.

Brisbane won out but Gayndah remains rich in heritage-listed sites that underline the town’s important historical role.

Fr Jason is approaching his third anniversary in the parish and says the experience has meant much to a priest raised in Brisbane.

“There are different expectations on the priest in a parish like this,” Fr Jason said.

“They are much closer to the people because there aren’t the support staff that are often found in city parishes.

“So you do find yourself doing a lot of things around the parish. It’s a great time because you get to understand all of the things that go into making pastoral ministry viable and fruitful.

“And it’s a wonderful experience to encounter people in different lifestyles.

“Those people whose weekly donations go into the Clergy Sustentation Trust Fund should know that their generosity helps to keep parishes like Gayndah alive and vibrant”.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Brisbane missionary helps PNG Catholics head to Poland

Next Post

Multi-faith vigil set to storm Heaven with prayers for Baby Asha

Staff writers

Related Posts

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

20 May 2022
Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says
World

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday
QLD

Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

17 May 2022
Next Post
Baby Asha

Multi-faith vigil set to storm Heaven with prayers for Baby Asha

Soldier on guard

Ex-service chaplain: Australian veterans suicide rate are “tragic”

A decade as an addict (continued)

Popular News

  • From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Fr Liam receives bravery medal after shark attack rescue

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

News

From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

by Mark Bowling
23 May 2022
0

ANTHONY Albanese, a self-described cultural Catholic, has been sworn in as Australia’s 31st prime minister today, after...

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

20 May 2022
Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

19 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping