Funerals
Funerals for loved ones can be booked at one of our two churches, with the option of a simple funeral service (without the Eucharist) or a full Requiem Mass.
Our parish priest can be available to celebrate the funeral service or you can bring your own celebrant. If there is another priest or deacon coming to celebrate the service, we kindly request they do a courtesy call to the parish priest. Chasubles, thuribles & incense, and holy water are available at each church.
You can find further information below, including our 'Guide to a Funeral Service' booklet which can be downloaded below. We also have templates for funeral Mass and funeral service booklets which you are welcome to personalised, as well as a list of suggested readings, hymns and prayers of intercession which you may like to choose from for the service.
Your funeral director or celebrant can assist you with selecting these. Out of courtesy, please ensure the celebrant is happy with the funeral service booklet and any music that is to be used during the service to ensure it is appropriate in maintaining the sacred atmosphere of the Church.
OUR CHURCHES
St Catherine of Siena Church
Priest: $Funerals at St Catherine of Siena Church have a maximum capacity of 500 people, with an extension into the annex of 150 people, and, if required, the hall of 800 people. It has full AV for PowerPoint presentations and music (including CD and DVD facilities). There is also a digital piano and plug-ins available for other instruments in the choir area.
St Dominic's Church
Funerals at St Dominic's Church have a capacity of 60-80 people. There is no A/V support for overhead displays or music, except for a digital piano/organ. A portable sound system will need to be supplied by the family or funeral director for any music.
OUR COSTS
Priest: $400
St Catherine of Siena Church: $400
St Dominic's Church: $300
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"The Lord Jesus Christ will change our mortal bodies to be like his in glory,
for he is risen, the first‑born from the dead."
IN the face of death, the Church confidently proclaims that God has created each person for eternal life and that Jesus, the Son of God, by his death and resurrection, has broken the chains of sin and death that bound humanity. Christ ‘achieved his task of redeeming humanity and giving perfect glory to God, principally by the paschal mystery of his blessed passion, resurrection from the dead, and glorious ascension.
Christians celebrate the funeral rites to offer worship, praise, and thanksgiving to God for the gift of a life, which has now been returned to God, the author of life and the hope of the just. The Mass, the memorial of Christ's death and resurrection, is the principal celebration of the Christian funeral.
The Church through its funeral rites commends the dead to God's merciful love and pleads for the forgiveness of their sins. At the funeral rites, especially at the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice, the Christian community affirms and expresses the union of the Church on earth with the Church in heaven in the one great communion of saints. Though separated from the living, the dead are still at one with the community of believers on earth and benefit from their prayers and intercession. At the rite of final commendation and farewell, the community acknowledges the reality of separation and commends the deceased to God. In this way, it recognises the spiritual bond that still exists between the living and the dead and proclaims its belief that all the faithful will be raised up and reunited in the new heavens and a new earth, where death will be no more.
The celebration of the Christian funeral brings hope and consolation to the living. While proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and witnessing to Christian hope in the resurrection, the funeral rites also recall to all who take part in them God's mercy and judgment and meet the human need to turn always to God in times of crisis.
Excerpts from the Order of Christian Funeral
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