The Benson is Melbourne’s most desirable place to retire, boasting 33 luxury retirement apartments, nestled in leafy Toorak. Apartments range from one, two or three bedrooms and are exceedingly spacious, light-filled and fitted with high-end European fixtures and appliances.

Please call The Benson Concierge on 0477 710 216 to register your interest in one of our apartments when available or visit our website for more information. 

• https://www.thebensontoorak.com.au/

Parish Priest
Rev. Fr Dean Mathieson

Parish Office
583 Toorak Rd, Toorak VIC 3142
T: (03) 9068 8600
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Parish Office Hours
Monday - Closed
Tuesday - Friday 10am to 4.30pm 

Public Transport to St Peter's Toorak: 
- Tram #58
- Stop #138 (Woorigoleen Road/Toorak Road)

Car Park (limited parking available):
- Under The Benson at 585 Toorak Road Toorak

 

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@armadale_toorakpartneredparish

For all Marriage/Wedding Enquiries please CLICK HERE

For all General Enquiries please complete our contact form below.

Parish Financial Governance

As Parish Priest, Father Brendan Hayes holds ultimate responsibility for the good financial governance and faithful stewardship of our assets. He is supported and guided in this responsibility through the following Committees:

• Parish Finance Committee
  
  
• Parish Investment Sub-Committee

These Parish Committees are advisory and consultative bodies and assist the partnered parishes to operate within a responsible and sustainable framework.

Parish Safeguarding Committee

At Armadale and Toorak parishes we hold the care, safety and well-being of children and young people as a central and fundamental responsibility of our parishes. 

To ensure that the safety of children and young people is embedded across our parishes, and that all compliance requirements are met, the following Committee has been established:

• Parish Safeguarding Committee
  

Parish Priest, Partnered Parishes of Armadale and Toorak:  Rev. Fr Brendan Hayes

In June 2004 Father Hayes came to Our Lady of Lourdes Armadale and St Peter’s Toorak as Parish Priest.

Ordained for the archdiocese of Melbourne in May 1976, he had already worked in various parishes as assistant priest and parish priest.

For ten years he had also worked in the Catholic Education Office Melbourne (long before it became Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools MACS) in the fields of Religious Education, Health and Human Relations Education and the ongoing education and in-service of teachers in Catholic schools in Melbourne and Hobart, together with the training of Parish Catechists.  During this period Father also acquired a Licence in Ecclesiastical History from the Pontifical Gregorian University Rome.

The busy work schedule for Father Hayes involves the usual tasks of the celebration of Sunday and weekday Masses, baptismal preparation for infants, children and parents, preparation of couples for Marriage, visiting and anointing the sick and housebound, working with the bereaved and celebrating Funerals, together with ministry at the Cabrini Intensive Palliative Care Unit Prahran, pastoral involvement with Our Lady of Lourdes Parish School and chaplaincy work at Loreto Mandeville Hall and St Kevin’s College in Toorak.

Father Hayes also works with the parish staff:  Secretary/Executive Assistant, Pastoral Associate, Assistant Secretary, Business Manager and Our Lady of Lourdes Parish School Principal.  Father is also grateful for the many dedicated parishioners, who volunteer their services and skills to help with and co-ordinate various tasks and duties.  He also works closely with St Peter’s Finance Committee and The Education Advisory Board of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Primary School.

Fr Hayes is a strong advocate for Ecumenism.  Since Pentecost Sunday 1980, St Peter’s Catholic Parish, together with the Toorak Uniting Parish, St John’s Anglican Parish and the Swedish Church have formed the Toorak Ecumenical Covenant. 

Executive Assistant/Secretary:  Madeline Dimasi

Partime Parish Secretary:  Carmel Negline

Pastoral Associate:  Delisa Gonsalves

Business Manager:  Frank Glynn

St Peter's Church
581 Toorak Road, Toorak, VIC, 3142

 
Our Lady of Lourdes Church
629-631 High Street, East Prahran, VIC, 3181

 
Sunday Mass Times

Saturday Vigil

6:00pm Mass at St Peter's

Reconciliation: From 5:15pm before the 6:00pm Mass. 

Sunday

  9:30am Mass at St Peter's

11:15am Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes

Weekday Mass Times

6:30pm Mass at St Peter's

Wednesday 
9:30am Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes

Thursday 
9:30am Mass at St Peter's

Friday 
10:45am Stations of the Cross at St Peter's

11.30am Mass at St Peter's

At St Peter’s ELC children are given the opportunity and time to discover and explore, to question and predict, to wonder and to dream. The wider world becomes the child’s world. St Peter’s ELC is a co-educational setting, offering children from three years of age the opportunity to learn through play.

The wonderful educators at St Peter’s ELC acknowledge the uniqueness and potential of each and every child. They enhance each child’s strengths, competencies and self-image by providing a warm, welcoming and supportive environment for both the children and their families.

[ pdf Click here to download our PDF flyer (1.92 MB) ]

We are so proud to be the parish primary school of Our Lady of Lourdes, Armadale and St Peters, Toorak. Since the very beginning of the parish in 1922, the school has held the most special of roles -  educating its children. 

For one hundred years Our Lady of Lourdes with its numbers ebbing and flowing has been a place of education, faith, love and happiness, so much so that we regularly receive visits and letters from past students happily recalling teachers, friends, and fun times.

Rev. Fr Dean Mathieson
Parish Priest
(03) 9068 8600
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Mrs Madeline Dimasi
Parish Secretary/Executive Assistant
(03) 9068 8600
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Tuesday - Friday - 10:00am - 4:30pm

Ms Delisa Gonsalves
Pastoral Associate
t: (03) 9068 8602
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Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday:  10:30am - 6:00pm
Thursday:  10:30am - 2:00pm

Mr Frank Glynn
Business Manager
t: (03) 9068 8603
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Monday-Friday - 9:00am-5:00pm

Mrs Gabrielle Yuen
Communications & Publications Administrator
t: (03) 9068 8600
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Tuesday & Friday 

Ms Annie Van Rensburg
Young Adult Minister
t: (03) 9068 8600
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Friday

Feast Day:  11 February

Our Lady of Lourdes was the title chosen for the parish of Armadale by Fr Michael O’Brien, the founding pastor who was appointed in 1922. He had been an Army Chaplain in France during the First World War.

According to the tradition he wanted to build his church to look like a French parish church and to call it Our Lady of Lourdes. It was the first parish church in the diocese to be dedicated to God under the title of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The first of the apparitions of Our Lady to St Bernadette on 11th February 1858 in the small village of Lourdes in the French Pyrenees introduced a genuinely popular reawakening of faith in God and warm devotion to Our Lady, as the Immaculate Conception. The messages to Bernadette, as she relayed them to her parish priest and to the local people, invited them to prayer, the practice of the faith, conversion as well as the experience of physical and spiritual healing in the waters of the spring which Bernadette herself had opened up at the direction of "The Lady".

Despite the initial misgivings of the church authorities and the clumsy interference of the civic officials, the consistency and simplicity of Bernadette’s words convinced them and others of her sincerity.

Well before St Bernadette’s death at the convent in Nevers in 1879, a church for pilgrims had been built at the grotto of the apparitions and the fame of the shrine had spread. During his service in France in the First World War Fr O’Brien may have heard more about Lourdes. One can only admire the faith that may have inspired his desire to establish this devotion in Armadale Melbourne.

Let us also resolve to be thankful for the care and love of our Mother, Our Lady.