Father Anton Perera ordained in Newcastle

Anton Perera has only missed one mass in his life.

As a boy, growing up in Sri Lanka, he remembered a stormy morning when he was due to take his first communion.

His father, a deeply religious man, had gone ahead of him and when he returned he found his son still in bed.

"He said 'what are you doing?'" Father Perera recalled in the sacristy of Sacred Heart Cathedral on Hunter Street at the weekend. "I said, 'Dad, there is lightning and heavy rain, I can't go to mass,' and he said, 'No.'"

His father made him kneel and recite the rosary with him on the spot. The boy never missed a mass again.

It was a fateful moment for the boy who would grow up to be ordained by Newcastle Catholic Bishop Michael Kennedy as the city's newest priest on Saturday, November 8.

Father Perera came to Newcast