JPC celebrates 40 years as a ‘home away from home’

On Sunday 5 December, the John Pierce Centre (JPC) celebrated its 40th anniversary with a Mass of Thanksgiving and luncheon at St John’s Catholic Church in East Melbourne. Archbishop Peter A Comensoli was the main celebrant for the Mass and was joined by current JPC chaplain Fr Wayne Edwards (parish priest of St Pius X Church Heidelberg West), and former chaplains Fr Greg Bourke and Fr John Hill CSsR.

Sunday’s anniversary celebrations had been postponed by a year due to the pandemic and Victoria’s lockdowns. But with the state slowly reopening, JPC has been working hard to resume activities where possible.

The JPC officially opened in August 1980 and is named after Fr John Pierce, who in the 1930s became Victoria’s first full time chaplain to the Deaf community. At the time, Masses for the Deaf community were celebrated in the Armadale Parish and át St Francis’ Church in the city.

To this day, JPC remains the only Catholic Deaf Centre in Victoria and, for the last four decades, has been a “home away from home” for members of the Deaf community and a place for social interaction, personal growth, sacramental preparation and spiritual development. A range of activities are available at JPC for all ages – from a “Signee Tots” playgroup, a young mothers’ group, a Deaf men’s group, Deaf arts & crafts activities for families and social activities for seniors. The JPC also hosts a Mass (in Auslan) on each third Sunday of the month. Staff also visit the homebound and sick in hospitals and nursing homes.

And even before the pandemic, the centre was already using technology to keep in touch with those in regional and remote areas and continued to do so throughout 2020 and 2021. When Melbourne went into its first lockdown in March 2020, the Archdiocese of Melbourne partnered with JPC to ensure the provision of Auslan as part of the live broadcast of the weekly 11am Sunday Mass from St Patrick’s Cathedral.

In his homily, Archbishop Comensoli congratulated the JPC on reaching their 40th anniversary and acknowledged its role as a place where the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community could come together in faith.

The JPC has been, for 40 years now, a place where people of hearing impairment have been brought – of their own steam, or by the caring aid of a family member – to a place where they might meet Jesus and how their lives opened. It is where the Deaf, the Hard of Hearing, and their own families may come to speak a language of love and listen to a voice of hope, in ways that transcend physiological constraints.

‘The JPC is not a facility that provides deaf services (though it does these things), but an abode – a household, a home – where a community comes to be formed and renewed in the life of Christ. May this 40th anniversary of the JPC – somewhat delayed! – be a moment of joy and blessing, and a remembrance of all that has been and all who have gone before.

‘Happy anniversary and thanks be to God!’