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St
John the Apostle ~ Kippax
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CANBERRA,
AUSTRALIA |
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Parish Priest's Desk ArchiveJan-June06 Dear friends, Jim and I had a wonderfully quiet and peaceful two weeks holidaying at Rosedale. Father Harold Baker (Daramalan) was our host, and Brother James Maher (Chevalier Institute) shared the time with us. We walked, swam (twice), fished (twice), read novels, prayed and slept. That’s about it. Very refreshed, so you can work us hard! Our thanks to Mark for ‘holding the fort’ so that we could have a break. We’ll be in Sydney with our brother, Brian, for his 81st birthday over the weekend, and be back on deck on Monday. In case you missed the Christmas Compact, let me bring you up to date on the finances. Since the appeal I made in December, 60 people have increased their pledge and a further 23 people have joined the planned giving program. The net result is an extra promised amount of just under $600.00 per week (= $30,000.00 for the year 2006). Thank you for your response. This covers the $21.000.00 extra needed for the Archdiocesan levy, the Canberra Catholic School Building Fund levy, and the Archdiocesan Property, Voluntary Workers and Public Liability Insurance. I outlined the details of these in my talk, copies of which are still available (a copy is appended to this document). It also leaves an extra $9,000.00 added to our Parish Finances for the current year. This is still insufficient to cover the normal rise in costs and the maintenance needed on our buildings. So if anyone is still thinking of joining the planned giving program, or increasing your pledged amount, we will be pleased to hear from you. I feel I can now leave the matter of finances till you hear from Anthony Jayawardena, Chairman of our Finance Committee, when he gives his annual report half way through the year. Finally, this year I will be offering a series of lectures on the basics of our Catholic Faith. The long title of the series is ‘New Bottle Old Wine. 'God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing'(Ephesians 1:3): Seeking an adult understanding and an enlivening renewal of our Christian faith by way of a journey through the Catechism’. The course will be offered on Tuesdays throughout the year beginning February 7th. If you prefer to come in the daytime, this will be held at the Centre, Weston Street Yarralumla (only 15 minutes from here) from 10:00am to 12:00. The evening session will be offered here in the Kippax Parish Centre from 7:30 to 9:30pm. Each session will begin with a presentation. There will then by time for small group sharing, followed by open forum questions. Following the structure of the Catholic Catechism we will begin with the Creed, and the opening session is on our Longing for God. The full program is on my website, and copies are available in the foyer for those interested. Statement to parish on the weekend of 10-11 December 2005 In a week’s time I will have had the privilege of being your parish priest for 1 year. I haven’t had to speak about parish finances yet, but I do need to do so today. Please bear with me. On 1st July this year, we received a letter from Herbie O’Flynn, the Archdiocesan Financial Administrator informing us on three matters that affect our finances:
2. The second matter concerns the Canberra Catholic School Building Fund levy. The Archdiocese is committed to provide Catholic Education, and each parish contributes to a central fund, which is used for the building of new schools (Gungahlin has no Catholic secondary school as yet), the maintenance of existing schools, loan debt servicing and insurance. The fund comes mainly from the schools themselves, but costs are mounting and fees would have to be increased even more if the Catholic community, which means us, did not continue its support. This has been the story of Catholic education from the beginning. We recognise that there is a complex issue here, since many of our Catholic families who have children in education are not regularly part of the Church community, as is the case, of course, with non-Catholics who go to our schools. They pay the bulk of the cost through school fees, but our contribution is essential. Our schools today are missionary bodies and we would be so much the poorer without the dedication of our teachers. We are, therefore, committed to supporting them as part of the Church’s life and mission. We could not have continued without government support, but schools in the ACT have a special problem, because in spite of representation by the Catholic Education Office and other non-government School Bodies, the ACT government contribution is not keeping up with costs. You can read more on this in the current Catholic Voice. As a result the quota for Kippax parish which last year was $20,000,00 will be $26,000.00 next year. This is another $6,000.00 that we need to find. 3. The third and most expensive matter concerns Insurance. As you know from your own budgeting, there has been a huge increase in the cost of Insurance. In 2004 the contribution of Kippax parish to Archdiocesan Property, Voluntary Workers and Public Liability Insurances was $7,000.00. Next year Insurance will cost us $16,000.00 – an extra $9,000.00 that we have to generate. These three increases, over which we have no control, have put a significant strain on our budget. Together they add up to $21,000.00 more that we have to find. The expenses of maintaining and running the parish are all within budget. The Finance Committee could not find any area where we could make any substantial savings. You will all appreciate the need to continue to maintain our plant. Failure to do so would cost us a lot more in the long run. You have seen some changes demanded of us by Fire Protection and Safety. The final step is the replacement of the front doors of the Church which is already in process. We cannot compromise in safety issues. Safety also requires that we build a hand railing on the outside stairs leading down to the parish centre. Thanks to the generous work of volunteers from the parish we have replaced many of the rotting wooden battens, but more is to be done. We need better lighting in parts of the car park, and no doubt, you can see other areas that need maintenance. The bottom line is that to maintain our plant and the services provided to the community, and to find the extra $21,000.00 mentioned above, we have to increase our contributions to the second collection. The Finance Committee at our meeting last Monday, decided as a matter of urgency that I inform you of the state of our parish finances and make the following suggestion. • Some of you are already giving in excess of $30.00 a week. We are not asking you to give more. • Some of you cannot afford more than the $5.00 a week that is your present offering. We are not asking you to give more. • However, if the bulk of parishioners could each give $5.00 extra each week, and if we could persuade more families to join the Planned Giving Program, we would be able to meet our expenses. If those who are now making a contribution of $5.00 a week could contribute $10.00, if those now offering $10.00 a week could increase their giving to $15.00, if those who are offering $15.00 could increase their offering to $20.00, and those offering $20.00 could increase their offering to $25.00, and if we could attract 50 more families to join the Planned Giving Program and offer $10.00 a week, or more if you can afford, we will be able to meet out commitments. We think that for most this is not too much to ask, and that it spreads the burden fairly. There is a rumour going around in the general society that the Catholic Church is a rich institution. People add up all the assets of local communities like ours and think that all this money belongs to the abstract reality that they call the ‘Church’, and that if a local community is having trouble we can call upon a huge central fund. That is a myth. The Church is a communion of communities. Our money is ours. We support our Archbishop, and we help parishes that are getting started, just as we were once helped. However, this is our church, our home, our community. If we want our community to continue providing the services we desire, we have to find the money to do so. I would like to stress that we are not asking you to contribute more to the first collection, which provides for the material needs (food, clothes, books, travel etc) of Father Jim, Father Mark and myself. From the first collection we receive as a community close to $600.00 a week (that is, $200.00 each a week), after we have made our contribution to the MSC Provincial and the Archbishop. If you want Peter Hendricks to be parish priest here one day, the MSC need money for his training and upkeep in the meantime. This has to come from somewhere, so each MSC community throughout the Province makes its contribution for this and the other works of our Society. All priests in the Archdiocese, including us, also contribute to the support of our bishops. The $600.00 dollars that you give us in the first collection, plus the money we generate through our ministry (baptisms, weddings, funerals, helping out in other parishes, lectures and seminars etc) mean that the three of us live simply but well. If we ever have to support a married clergy, it would cost a lot more, but in the meantime we are not asking you to increase the money that you offer for our support. In fact, in view of the state of the parish finances, we decided at a meeting the other day that we would like to make our contribution back to the parish and will be offering $20,00 each (that is $60.00 a week from our community) to the Planned Giving Program. There are pledge cards on your seats. You can fill them out today if you wish, but you will probably want to take them home. Think about what this church community means to you and if you are already contributing to the Parish Panned Giving Program, see if you can each manage an extra $5.00 a week. If you are at present contributing only to the loose collection, please consider joining our Planned Giving, by committing yourself to $10.00 or more dollars a week. We want to keep up the level of service, but we need each other to make it possible. Please fill out the pledge cards and put them on the plate today or next Sunday. Copies of this talk are available at the Information desk. Next Wednesday (February 1st) the staff of Saint John’s Primary School will spend the day at John XXIII College ANU drawing up a statement of their vision and mission. Please pray for them that the wonderful contribution that they make to the life and mission of our parish will be enhanced as they open their minds and hearts to the grace that God will surely be offering them on this day of prayer and reflection. St Thomas Aquinas Primary School, Charnwood, are having their spiritual day on Friday. They, too, would appreciate your prayers. I will be present at both days. Last Tuesday (January 24th) was the Feast of Saint Francis de Sales, bishop of Geneva at the beginning of the 17th century. Switzerland had suffered from the religious divisions that followed on the protestant reformation. Through his pastoral wisdom and especially his gentleness, he attracted many back to the Catholic Church. He was one of the men who inspired our Founder, Jules Chevalier. I thought I might include here for your edification some quotations from his book Introduction to the Devout Life. ‘Charity is spiritual fire and when it bursts into flames it is called devotion. Hence devotion adds nothing to the fire of charity except the flame that makes charity prompt, active, and diligent not only to observe God’s commandments, but also to fulfil his heavenly counsels and aspirations.’ ‘When you are unjustly accused excuse yourself meekly and deny your guilt, for you owe respect to truth and to the edification of your neighbour. If they continue to accuse you after you have made your true and legitimate explanation, don’t be disturbed and don’t try to make them accept your explanation. When you have discharged your duty to the truth, you must also do the same to humility. In this way you offend against neither the care you must have for your own good name nor the concern you must have for peace, meekness of heart and humility.’ Francis warns us of a certain complacency that is ‘so secret and imperceptible that unless we have very good sight we cannot discover it. The very ones who are tainted with this are the ones who do not know it unless it is pointed out to them.’ In another place he advises us to have a spiritual director to whom we confide the condition of our soul: ‘Why should we want to be masters of ourselves in that which concerns the spirit, since we are not so in what concerns the body? Do we not know that doctors, when they are sick, call other doctors to judge as to the remedies that are right for them.’ Leonie Keoghan from the CEO (Catholic Education Office) led the Primary staff through an inspiring day at John XXIII College ANU on Wednesday, as part of a whole week which the staff spends preparing to receive the children back to school. We are privileged to have such a committed, competent, and caring group of people to assist parents to nurture and educate our children. It is becoming increasingly difficult to start Mass on time. There is a lot of organising for the Acolytes/Senior Servers. They are asked to be here 30 minutes prior to the beginning of Mass. This gives them time to get the altar and the gifts ready, but the problem is that those who are rostered as Readers and Special Ministers are often not present sufficiently early, which means that there is a last minute flurry to find substitutes. The new rosters begin on April 2nd and shortly Time and Talent sheets will be distributed. If you are considering volunteering for either of these important ministries, please accept that part of volunteering means accepting to find a substitute when you can’t make it, and also accepting to be here 15 minutes prior to the Mass on which you are rostered. It would be appreciated if those on the current (February-March) roster could do the same. This gives the Special Ministers time to collect your stole, and the Readers time to put the mind of the Acolytes/Senior Servers at peace, knowing that you have arrived. They can then get on with organising collectors and people for the Offertory Procession as well as the many other things they do in preparation for the Mass. It means that we can start on time – which I am sure everyone wants. There will be times when with the best of intentions things don’t work out, but at least the Acolytes/Senior Servers can make other arrangements 15 minutes before Mass and not at the last minute. Rosters (with phone numbers) are pinned up in the sacristy. A copy is also on display on the left hand notice board in the foyer. Since August last year three adults have been journeying with us with a view to joining the Catholic Church this Easter. Kimcherrie Summers (her sponsor is Jenni Packard), Alison Ware (her sponsor is Susannah Salojarvi) and Susan Wilson-Friend (her sponsor is Benjamin Miller). They have been under the guidance of Joe and Pat Barr and Pauline Grieg. On the First Sunday of Lent (5th March) at 2:00pm Archbishop Carroll will be welcoming them at the Rite of Enrolment at St Christopher’s Cathedral, Manuka. They will attend the 10:00am Mass here that day and we will send them to the Cathedral as a parish. Please pray for them. They will enrich our community with their life-experience, and with the grace that has drawn them to journey with us, Let us pray also that we will welcome them with all the love of the Heart of Jesus. The lectures on the Catechism (A summary of our Catholic Faith) began well. About 60 people came to Yarralumla (10 of whom were from Kippax), and about 80 came here to the parish centre (half from Kippax and half from elsewhere). The opening night was on our capacity to experience communion with God (Catechism up to n.49). A copy of the lecture can be found on my website (michaelfallonmsc.com). Click on the link ‘Catechism’. The program can be found there also. You are welcome to come to any topic that interests you. The topic next Tuesday is ‘Revelation’(Catechism n.50-73). We had the pleasure of the company of Father Chris McPhee during the week. He came to collect his belongings and to share with us his experiences over the past year. He is in fine form. We invited him to share with you at Masses this weekend, but he has commitments in Sydney. He will be back. His residence now is Saint Mary’s Towers, 415 Douglas Park Drive, Douglas Park NSW 2569. I am sorry that it is taking so long for the front doors and tiling to be completed. Part of the problem has been a January slowing down. Bert Broekhuyse continues to beautify the area, but we are waiting on some final bits and pieces from the installer before we can complete the tiling. It surely won’t be much longer before the operation is complete. We have purchased a new edger to go with the lawn mower as a necessary tool for those of the community who have kindly volunteered to look after the grounds. It is in the room with the lawnmower inside the garage. It seems to me that you might need a mechanical engineering degree to use it, but others assure me that it is quite straightforward. Petrol and protective glasses are also there with the edger. A short note about a Church feast that is coming up this week. On Wednesday we celebrate the ‘Chair of Saint Peter’. The oldest Roman Calendar (394AD) mentions this as a feast celebrated on February 22nd. It is a way of celebrating our communion with the See of Rome. The word ‘See’ derives from the Latin sedes, meaning ‘chair’. It refers to the official teaching authority of a bishop, who would teach from his chair (we speak of a professor holding the ‘chair’ of philosophy at the University). Another Latin word for a professor’s chair is cathedra, whence our word ‘cathedral’. We speak of the Pope speaking ex cathedra when, as bishop of Rome in communion with the bishops of the world, he makes an authoritative pronouncement on matters of revelation concerning what we are to believe or do, obliging us not only from obedience but as a matter of faith. Such pronouncements are infallible, based as they are on Jesus’ guarantee of the gift of his Spirit to guide us to all truth. They are also rare (no such pronouncements have been made for over 50 years). Rome was the first community to suffer State-organised persecution (under Nero), and Peter and Paul were both martyred there. The heroism of the Christian community caught the imagination of the Christian world, and Christians everywhere looked to this community as a symbol of unity and as a support for their common faith. As Christians in communion with Rome Wednesday’s feast is a day for us to celebrate the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church to which we are privileged to belong, and to open our hearts, as the community of Rome did, to welcome all who would want to share our life and mission. On Wednesday we enter the season of Lent. The word ‘Lent’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘lenchten’(‘lengthen’), the ancient word for ‘Spring’. In the northern hemisphere the days are beginning to lengthen. As the winter ice melts, the Church prays for the warmth of the Holy Spirit to enter our cold hearts in preparation for Easter. In the southern hemisphere, the seasons are reversed and we have to adapt the symbolism. After the heat of summer, perhaps we can pray for the grace of God’s Spirit to come with the gentle autumn rains to purify and refresh our hearts. The ashes remind us of our fragility. The divine Spirit dwells in a body that one day will be but ‘dust and ashes’. As we begin our preparation for Holy Week and Easter, we focus on the fragile, sinful, broken part of our being, and our need for God’s Spirit. Ashes also come from fire. Jesus said that he came to ‘cast fire upon the earth’(Luke 12:49). We are fragile, we do sin, we fail in so many ways, but God is giving us his Spirit, and it is like a fire. We pray in lent that God will fire us with his Spirit and reduce to ashes whatever in us is not of love. Our hearts need to be purified. In accepting the ashes we are indicating our willingness to undergo whatever God’s knows is needed to set our hearts on fire. Fasting has been a traditional way of reminding ourselves to go without certain external pleasures so that we can create some space in which to feel our hunger and thirst for God. Lent is a season, too, to turn our attention in a special way to the needs of our neighbour and to spend special time in prayer. The question we might ask ourselves as Lent begins is: What is God gracing me to change? Where is God’s love calling me to grow? We are not the ones who are going to do the purifying. We are branches of the vine that is Jesus and it is God who does the pruning. God loves us with an everlasting love and he will certainly be offering us the grace to find the courage to let him purify our hearts. Lent is a time to look gently into our heart, praying that we may pick up the slightest movement of grace - and when grace is calling us to alter our behaviour, that is the area of Lenten resolution. Each day God himself calls each one of us closer to himself. Let us resolve to listen to his call and to follow him, however painful the journey may feel. Then, when Holy Week comes, we will be ready to walk the way of the cross with Jesus and experience once again and more profoundly the grace of new life in Christ - the grace of Easter. A few weeks ago I included the names of three women who are currently in our RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) program, and who are moving towards being received into full communion with the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. They have been joined by Kylie-anne Swan, a new teacher at St John’s Primary School, who has studied at the Catholic University. We will be introducing these four women to the parish at the 10:00 Mass today, and Archbishop Carroll will be welcoming them in a Rite of Enrolment at 2:00pm at St Christopher’s Cathedral, Manuka. Let us journey with them through our prayers and welcome them with love. If you look to the upper level of the Church on the Chave Street side, you will see that the old wooden battens have been replaced, thanks to the volunteer labour of our Joseph the Worker group of ‘retired’ men. They plan to complete the replacement of the battens on the West Belconnen Club side later this year. We are all deeply in their debt for their generous contribution of time and talent. We now have an edger to add to the whippersnipper and lawn mover in the garage – tools needed by our generous Grounds Maintenance workers. Thanks to you all for keeping the place presentable. Finally, a note for those who are attending the morning session lectures on the Catechism. Yarralumla is unavailable for the next few months because of unexpected building requirements. We have been offered the hall at Pearce and will be there as of this Tuesday morning. If you drive along Hodgson Crescent Pearce, you come to a small circuit (Murphy Circuit, just before you reach Beasley Street). There is room for some parking on the street in Murphy Circuit, or you can continue past Murphy Circuit and turn left off Hodgson Circuit into the Church. There are a dozen parking spots there. The presbytery is in Murphy Circuit (not Street) and the hall is between the presbytery and the Church. There is a path from the right side of the church to the hall and presbytery. This path overlooks the School, which is down the hill off Murphy Street. Last Sunday at the 10:00am Mass we presented to the parish the four adults who are entering the final phase of their preparation for reception into full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter: Kimcherrie Summers, Alison Ware, Susan Wilson-Friend and Kylie-anne Swan. We promised to pray for them at each communion in Lent as they prepare to join us at the Lord’s Table and share their lives and journeys with us. Pauline Grieg, Joe & Pat Barr and I accompanied them and their sponsors and families to the Cathedral, where Archbishop Carroll met them and welcomed them with a Rite of Enrolment. It was a beautiful and moving afternoon. There were 30 adults from Canberra and Braidwood preparing for reception into full communion, and 12 from Canberra, Queanbeyan and Braidwood preparing for Baptism. I hope you have noticed a marked improvement in the sound in the Church. When the system was installed 4 years ago we incorporated an old feedback unit. This has been the key problem ever since. We had to purchase a new one, and now we can increase the volume without suffering feedback. The tinting of the small windows that let light in above the sanctuary is the last step in eliminating most of the direct sunlight that made it difficult to sit in certain seats during the morning Masses. Some shafts of direct sun still enter, but we judge that between the blinds and the tinting the main problem is now solved. Those of us of Irish heritage look forward to next Friday, the Feast of Saint Patrick (385-461), the first missionary to take Christianity outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire. And what a fine job he did, to be sure, to be sure! I would like to share with you some ideas that came out of the Parish Pastoral Council concerning our Hospitality/Welcoming Ministry here in the parish. Firstly, a word of gratitude to those who diligently clean the Church each Monday. You play a big part in making the Church a welcoming and respectful environment. In a similar vein we thank the ‘retired’ men in the Saint Joseph the Worker group who keep the building maintained, and those who diligently look after the grounds each Saturday. All this adds to the welcome feeling of the place. Thanks, too, to those who beautify the Church with flowers, and with music, those who keep the linen fresh and clean, those who set up the altar, those who minister at Mass as Acolytes, Senior Servers, Junior Servers, Special Ministers and Readers. Each of you contributes to providing a prayerful welcome to those who choose to share their faith-journey with us at the Eucharist. Secondly, a word of gratitude to those who volunteer their time to be at the Information Desk, to welcome new parishioners and offer them a Census Form and an information pamphlet as to what goes on in the parish, and to those who welcome people as they come into the Church, with a smile, a greeting, a Compact and a Hymn book. Thirdly, thanks go to each and every parishioner. It is us who make the community and whatever welcome it provides. Finally, a word about name tags. The members of the Parish Pastoral Council will be wearing theirs at Mass. This will help parishioners recognise them and make it easier to approach them with any ideas that you might want to be brought to the attention of the Council at our meetings on the second Thursday each month. We think it would be a good idea if you, the parishioners, would make your own name tags (any style you like!) and wear it at Mass. Or you might like to have Clare Kell make one for you in the style of the parish school fete ($2.00 – profits to the school). She will have the machine ready after each Mass on the weekend of April 1-2, in time for Easter. Some of you will prefer not to do this, of course, but some of you may be happy to do so. It would make it easier for some of us to become familiar with each other’s names. I must say I would find it really helpful. In spite of my efforts I still have trouble remembering names. I learn one and it seems to push another one out the other side of my memory bank! If you are at all inclined to do this, please don’t be shy. The more of us do it the easier it will be. The passage from Saint Paul selected as our Second Reading today ends with the words: ‘We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it’ (Ephesians 2:10). If we want to see who we are meant to be, and who we would be were it not for sin, we look at Jesus. He remained pure. He showed us that we are ‘God’s work of art’. He showed us what a good life looks like. We needed to see it. We needed to know that it is possible. And it is not just a matter of admiring Jesus from a distance while being unable to imitate him. As Paul says in today’s Second Reading: ‘God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved. God raised us up with him and brought us home with him’ (Ephesians 2:4-5). Home! He brought us home to our own hearts where God our Father dwells with his Son and the Spirit of love. We are indeed temples of God. We are ‘works of art’ – each one of us is a unique spark of the divine fire, a unique and very beautiful – yes, very beautiful, expression of God. Sure, we need purifying. We need the expert touch of grace to cut the rough diamond so that it can refract the light. But there is no denying that we are God’s work of art and that God is calling us home to the heart. Jesus is calling us to let the divine artist work on us so that we can ‘live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it’. Listen to Saint John of the Cross – he is speaking to each one of us, addressing our ‘true self’: ‘O most beautiful of creatures, transcendent spirit, who long to know where your beloved is and where you may find him so as to be united with him. He dwells within you. You are yourself the tabernacle, his secret hiding place. Rejoice, exult, for all you could possibly desire, all your heart's longing is so close, so intimate as to be within you; you cannot be without him’(Spiritual Canticle 1,7). All rosters begin this weekend. If you have not yet collected your roster from the Information desk, please do so. We would prefer not to have the expense of posting it to you. If the roster you have previously been following was not due to end till later, the present roster replaces it. All rosters are now on the parish website. If you click on ‘Pastoral’ you will find a link to the Bookstore Roster. If you click on ‘Ministries’ you will find a link to Acolytes/Senior Servers. Ministers of the Word, and Ministers of the Eucharist. The Altar Server Roster has not yet been updated. If you click on ‘Maintenance’, you will find a link to Altar Society, Church Cleaning, Flowers, Grounds, Money Counting, and Presbytery Cleaning. Your generosity in contributing to these many ministries is a significant part of the welcoming nature of our parish community. If you missed out on the Meeting for Special Ministers and Readers last Sunday, you will find instructions on the Information desk. Please take one of these as well as your own personal envelope. I stressed the need for those in these ministries to be at Church 10 minutes before the start of Mass. This is to save the Acolytes/Senior Servers having to find substitutes at the last minute, thus delaying the punctual start of Mass. Two weeks ago in this column, I floated the idea of parishioners wearing name tags at Mass as a way of helping us know names as well as faces. I also mentioned that Clare Kell will be here after each Mass this weekend with the machine from the school that makes personalised name tags ($2.00 each – profits to go to the school, as on fete day). So, if you want to take this opportunity of having a name tag made for you, Clare is ready and waiting. This ‘Holy Week’ hundreds of millions of people remember the death of Jesus of Nazareth. As a politically motivated murder of an innocent and loving man, it runs to a pattern with which our world is, unfortunately, all too familiar. Yet there is something about the crucifixion of Jesus that continues to haunt our minds and hearts. Why? It witnesses to the folly of people attempting to define the divine, the folly of an established group thinking that they alone possess the truth and have a mission to impose it on others. Those responsible for the death of Jesus were convinced that they knew God. They knew where to find God and they knew how God was to be worshipped. They failed to recognise God at the heart of the love of this Galilean carpenter. Their laws, their traditions and their theology contained much that was inspired and that could reveal the divine and draw people into communion with God. But they seem to have lost the sense of wonder, and they failed to share their traditions humbly and with joy, open to the new wine of God’s continual self-revelation. Religion was being used to prop up authority and power, when it should have been a way of keeping people in touch with their own hearts and with God. Religion continues to be used and abused in this way today. For all our religious posturing, Jesus’ way of dying reminds us that the ultimate experience of the divine is found in love. This is all symbolised in the terrible act of the man who thrust a lance into Jesus’ heart. In that act we see the awful reality of our personal sins, and the sins of which we tend to wash our hands, but for which we are responsible. Whenever we sin against the truth, whenever we betray or abuse love, we thrust the lance again into the heart of Jesus. If our hearts are moved the week by what Jesus offers us, let us commit ourselves to carry on his mission of love. That we might be able to do this, let us re-commit ourselves to the community of faith that comes together to hear his word and to receive him in communion. I am not sure that this is the best content for Easter Sunday, but a practical problem has arisen and we do need help. Grounds Maintenance is an essential element in keeping the Church looking good and welcoming. The numbers on the roster are now below critical level. We have only 12 people on the current roster, which works out at 3 in each team, and they need to take turns once a month. The groups are too small to manage what needs to be done and the task too frequent for each group. We really need to double the number involved so that we have four in each group and they only work once in six (not four) weeks. So this is a request for anyone (especially someone young and fit) who is willing to help keep the grounds in good shape. In season, mowing is a large part of the work Some prefer to use their own mowers, though we have a mower here in the garage – we also have a whippersnipper and an edger. At times weeding needs to be done. At other times autumn leaves need to be cleared away. Sometimes rubbish accumulates, and if it is in the drains this causes problems when there is a downpour. Shrubs need trimming at times. Basically the work is the same as at home, except that the grounds (the front, car parks areas, and round the back) are much larger, obviously. Please let me know if you are willing to help. We’ll start by creating new groups of 3 so that each group is rostered every six weeks (not once a month), and then work at building the groups up from 3 to 4). At the moment the task is falling too heavily on a generous few. From the presbytery, Maureen, Marian, Jim, Mark and I pray that you all have a restful and spiritually nourishing Easter with your families and friends. In his Letter to the Roman churches Paul writes of his longing to see them ‘so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith’(Romans 1:12). This mutual encouragement happens each Sunday when somewhere in the vicinity of 800 of us gather as a community to listen to God’s word and to welcome Jesus into our hearts. It is especially evident at Easter when the number more than doubles. How good it would be for our community if we could be enriched by the faith of the Easter assembly every Sunday! I would like to use this column to thank on your behalf the many generous parishioners who made the Holy Week ceremonies so prayerful. We thank the Acolytes, Senior Servers and the young altar servers, as well as those who broke open God’s Word for us so beautifully, and those who ministered holy communion to us. We thank those who beautified the church with flowers, ending the starkness of Lent, as well as those who spent hours preparing the music, and those who adorned the Church with hangings. We thank the cast of thousands who waved branches, carried torches, acted as ushers, and carried chairs up and down the stairs. We thank those who kept the outside and the inside of the church clean for us. We all owe a special debt of gratitude to our parish co-ordinator, Marian England, and our parish secretary, Maureen Craddock, and to our parish liturgy committee ably ‘managed’ by Mike Blyth: Di Bruce, Helen Currie, Joy McInerney, Mary Moran, Xavier Munoz, Sharon and Sarah Sams (and to many of their spouses who worked tirelessly in the background). We welcome Margaret Curry and Carmel Martin onto the committee. Please give a specially warm welcome to our new Catholics: Nadezhda Greenwood, Kimcherrie Summers, Kylie-anne Swan, Alison Ware and Susan Wilson-Friend. Joe and Pat Barr, along with Pauline Grieg, have been journeying with them since the 17th August last year. Out thanks to them as well. We are about to enjoy offering hospitality to members of our MSC parishes throughout Australia. Thanks, too, to those who have been preparing tirelessly to make their stay a pleasant and profitable one. On the night the Conference ends we have the information night for the first of the sacraments (Confirmation) in our parish-based sacramental program. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of the parents over the past weeks. Please pray that these sacraments will be truly meaningful in the development of the children’s faith and in the grace and joy that this brings to their families and to our community. By the time you read this, the tiles at the front door of the church will be in place. There are a couple of other details yet to be attended to, but it won’t be long till the entrance is completed. We are especially grateful to Bert Broekhuyse for keeping a close eye on things and for the woodwork and other features that make the entrance look so inviting. May I recommend a visit to the library. The old brown curtains have been replaced by shutters and the room looks so much more inviting. Mary and Lyn continue to work on the library’s main purpose, which is to invite you to some good scriptural, theological and spiritual reading. Please don’t be shy to read in the room or to borrow books. The process is simple and there is always someone here to explain it to you. The parish centre is looking great. A number of the St Joseph the Worker’s group who helped but they would all want me to mention Nick Hulskamp who put in many days and hours painting. The old blue curtains have also been replaced by shutters. This place has been a hive of activity over the past month (what’s new!), as we prepare to host the MSC Parish Conference (Monday to Thursday, May 1-4). Marian and Maureen have been helped by teachers from St John’s parish school and a team of women from the parish. Thanks, too, to those who are billeting visitors from our other 16 MSC parishes, and to those who have been providing food, drink and transport etc etc. It promises to be a fruitful time for us as we encourage each other in our parish work and seek inspiration to make ‘the Heart of Jesus everywhere loved’, as our motto proclaims. You know that there will not be a 9:30 Mass on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday this coming week. You are welcome to join in the 12:15 Mass on Tuesday and/or the 5:00 Mass on Wednesday. Jodie O’Brien is very grateful for the $926.70 that you contributed last week-end. She will keep us posted. The Project Compassion money has not yet been finalised. As you know the MSC Parish Conference was held here this past week. It was judged an exceptionally good experience. It is often recognised that no generation has seen more dramatic changes in the world in which we live than has the present generation of adults (us!). The question addressed by the conference was: How do we connect with today’s world as Catholics and as MSC? On Monday evening John Rate opened the conference by describing five elements in the dramatic changes that we have experienced from the 1950’s to today. I won’t attempt to summarise his points here, but the paper will be published. I followed on Tuesday morning with two papers: the first on Catholicism in today’s world; the second on being MSC in today’s world (Both papers are on my website: go to the link ‘Articles’ and click on ‘Catholicism in the post-modern world’, and ‘Being MSC in the post-modern world’). On Wednesday we heard from James Maher and Julie Taylor on ‘Spirituality of the Heart’, from Bob Irwin on the key significance of lay MSC in Father Chevalier’s dream, and from Adrian Meaney on Mission. The success of the Conference had a lot to do with the careful preparation and the marvellous welcome offered to the participants by our parish community. I had the privilege of officially thanking members of the parish who played a significant role in this. At the risk of omitting names I highlighted the following. The Committee from the parish that organised the weekend consisted of Marian England, Maureen Craddock, Helen Currie, Sharon and Sarah Sams, Jenny Fisher and Lyn Ray. There were sub-committees looking after catering for the needs of the participants. These sub-committees were led by Narelle Aquilina, Mary Cruickshank, Maureen Donoghoe, Fiona Glasgow, Libby Kain. Sharon Loiterton, John&Della O’Heir, Vicki Pini and Mariana Rollgejser, Each of these had a team of helpers – too many to mention by name. Helen Currie, Sharon Sams and Kylie-anne Swan from our local primary school staff spent many hours, especially in the recent weeks of what could have been their holiday time, seeing to the fine details of preparation – another example of the close relationship between the school and parish. Di Bruce looked after the simple but very effective liturgies. Catherine Braybon sang the Conference song and Joan Breen and the choir sang for us. Antioch did a splendid job serving food and drinks in the foyer, and many parishioners helped prepare and serve the main meals in the newly painted parish centre. Special thanks also to those who opened their homes to welcome inter-state visitors so warmly. I am sure you would all appreciate, as did the members of the conference, the very special debt of gratitude owed to Marian England who did us all proud in the thorough and thoughtful way in which co-ordinated the whole exercise. It will take some time to reflect on what happened these last few days, but those of us who were able to participate in the conference are confident you will all experience the fruit of what was a graced encounter. Things have settled down in the Office after the Conference. Last Thursday evening we had an information night for parents of children preparing for confirmation. Bishop Pat Power will be confirming the children on the evenings of June 6&7. Family groups were formed and the church and presbytery are already busy in the evenings finding space for the various groups who chose to come here for the preparation evenings with their children. Those of you who were at the 6:00pm Mass last Saturday or the 10:00am Mass last Sunday would have shared in welcoming the children and blessing them. The Catholics Returning Home Group had their first evening last Monday. Please continue to pray for those who are seeking to re-connect with the Church. We had a lovely evening on Wednesday. The six people who were confirmed as Catholics at the Easter Vigil had a meeting and Eucharist in the library, welcomed by Joe & Pat Barr and Pauline Greig. They spoke very warmly of their experience over the months of preparing, and of the welcome offered them at the Easter Vigil and since by the community. Five people responded to my appeal for more volunteers to work on Grounds Maintenance. Thanks to them people have a turn every six weeks, instead of four as at present. A new roster has been drawn up. Father Jim has gone to Sydney for a family baptism and a regular check up with the doctor. He’ll be away for the rest of the month. If you visit the parish centre, you will notice that, thanks to the ever-generous work of members of the Saint Joseph the Worker group, there is now a safety railing on the outside steps leading down to the centre. As well as that, the globes have been replaced, though there is still some work to be done on the sensor. Those attending the Catechism talk on Tuesday night commented on the improvement. The Feast of the Ascension was traditionally celebrated 40 days after Easter, and so on the Thursday of the 6th week of Easter. In the modern secular world that does not have a holiday (‘holy day’) on Christian Feasts a number of central feasts have been transferred to the nearest Sunday to make it possible for people to celebrate as a community the special meaning of the feast. We will be celebrating the Ascension next Sunday. Since Easter we have been thinking about all the different ways in which we experience Jesus being present among us. We have been thinking of the various ways in which his love is radiating out from the Church to the world. As we continue to preach the Gospel, Jesus is with us, in the words of the Gospel of the feast, ‘confirming the word by the signs which accompany it’(Mark 16:20). The forty days is itself symbolic of our life’s journey. We know that he will be with us at every stage. As we prepare this week to celebrate the Ascension let us forget ourselves and just look at Jesus, and express our joy that at the end of his life’s journey, God raised him to life and took him to himself, into the eternal embrace of love that we call heaven. Like us, Jesus spent his life dreaming of this day, his whole being longing to see God face to face and to enjoy, without distraction, the communion of love for which we are all created and for which we all yearn. As we love him, so our hearts are happy for him. His time of waiting, his time of suffering is over. Nothing can ever come between the longing of his heart and the joy of experiencing his heart’s desire. Being in communion with his Father, his heart is able now to reach out, beyond all the limits of space and time, to be wherever God’s love is. And so he is able to be with us. He promised: ‘When I am lifted up from the earth I shall draw everyone to myself’(John 12:32). In the Creed we speak of him being seated at God’s right hand – which is our way of saying that he is at the heart of God’s acting in the world, powerfully bringing about the reign of God’s loving will in this our broken world. We can still resist God’s loving advances – hence the continual corruption of sin in our personal and communal lives. But nothing can stop God’s love, and millions are welcoming this love and responding to it heroically in their lives. For all the hate which we witness, there is much more love in our world. We know the way Jesus relates to us now, because we saw the way he related to us before death took him from our sight and our touch. He whom God lifted up to himself is he whom we lifted up on a cross. If we want to see what it means for Jesus to ascend, we should contemplate the glorified Christ reigning from the cross. The words that he spoke from the cross teach us the way in which he will always relate to us. He longs to forgive our sins. He longs to take us with him to be with him forever in God’s embrace. He is thirsty for our hearts, and from his pierced side he pours out upon us the water of baptism and the blood of the Eucharist to cleanse and nourish us. He is constantly giving us the very Spirit of love that binds him to the Father, so that we can love with his love. The feast of the Ascension reminds us that the goal of our life is the same as his. We, and all those whom we love, are called like Jesus to enjoy undistracted communion with God for ever. You are all aware that we have in our parish a wonderful group of people – the Sacred Heart Prayer Group – who meet for charismatic prayer each Thursday evening at 7:30 in the parish centre. They used to lead our music at the 10:00am Mass on the Second Sunday of the month. They will be no longer doing this. The music ministry on the Second Sunday will now be lead by members of the ‘Decantors’ choir. The Sacred Heart Prayer Group will be leading the music ministry at the 10:00am Mass on the Fifth Sunday instead, and after Mass will be offering prayer and anointing with blessed oil. As you know this is not the Sacrament of Anointing, as this is offered only by a priest with specially consecrated oil. The sacrament will continue to be offered at the 11:00 Mass on the First Saturday of the Month. Anointing with blessed oil is an ancient and beautiful way of Christians ministering to each other. The Charismatic Prayer Group agreed to offer their ministry to the parish at the request of the Parish Pastoral Council. The Fifth Sunday was chosen because the Mass is not followed by Baptisms or Coffee Club. The next Fifth Sunday is August 27th (there are 4 each year). We thank them, and look forward to the special gift of prayer that they mediate to us, inviting the Spirit of Jesus to flow from his Heart over the whole parish. As some do not have missals, I thought to reproduce here the sequence offered us by the Chur4ch for today’s feast. It is attributed to Stephen Langdon (died 1228), Archbishop of Canterbury of Magna Carta fame. Holy Spirit, Lord of light, Come, Father of the poor, You, of all consolers best, You in toil are comfort sweet; Light immortal, light divine, If you take your grace away, Heal our wounds, our strength renew; Bend the stubborn heart and will; We pray you, we who evermore Give us comfort when we die; Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity. According to the Catholic Catechism this is ‘the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith’ (n. 234). This is so because it expresses the essence of our understanding of God as revealed by Jesus. Of course, our teaching on the Blessed Trinity does not contradict monotheism. There is only one God. It is best to approach this teaching in two steps. The first step is to reflect on how God communicates with us. God is revealed in the outer world of nature, events, prophetic oracles and sacred writings, all of which are referred to as God’s ‘Word’. God is also revealed in the inner world where we experience what we speak of as God’s ‘Spirit’. This is Old Testament language. It is used also in the New Testament. Reflecting on how God has chosen to communicate with us through Word and Spirit, Christians look to Jesus as the purest expression of both. Again and again the New Testament highlights the special, intimate relationship between Jesus and God, and the special way in which Jesus reveals God. In the language of the New Testament Jesus of Nazareth is described as God’s perfect human ‘Word’ to us, God’s ‘Word-made-flesh’ (Catechism n.241). He is also portrayed as the one who receives and gives God’s ‘Spirit’ without reserve (Catechism n.243). Some thirty or so years ago I was chaplain at the University of NSW. One day the gardener popped in to my office and asked me to explain the Trinity to him. Fortunately I had enough sense to pause and to ask him first how he saw it. In a way that nicely avoided abstraction, he went straight to the heart of the mystery by speaking of the Trinity in terms of Dance. He saw the Father as the Dance, the Son as the Dancer and the Spirit as the Dancing. We come to know and see the Dance when we come to know and watch the Dancer. We experience the Dance when we are drawn by the Dancer into the Dancing. One could speak of God as Life, of Jesus as the one who lived this life and of the Spirit as the experience of living. Perhaps best of all one can speak of God as Love, of Jesus as the Lover who incarnates this love, and of the Spirit as the experience of Loving that we enjoy when we are in communion with Jesus and with each other. We must take a second step, for there is more to the teaching on the Trinity than this. It points to the very being of God as being one, not as in an isolated individual, but as complete communion of Father-Word-Spirit. Our poor minds cannot be expected to comprehend this, but we are invited to contemplate in awe this wonderful communion of Divine ‘Persons’. We would do best to do so with our eyes on Jesus, for it is he who caused us to dare to think in this way of the God of love whom he revealed. On this very special feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, it may interest you to know that, while the central understanding of what happens at Mass has remained the same, there have been changes in the primary image that Christians have had of the Mass over the centuries. Each image holds an aspect of the truth. It is good to realise that our primary image of the Eucharist today brings us closer to that of the early Christians, but is in fact quite recent. The primary image in the early Church was that of sharing a sacred meal at a table. Mass was celebrated in a home. While organisational leadership of the local community was exercised by a male (cultural considerations made this inevitable), women would have played a significant role in a communal gathering that took place in the familiar setting of a home. Those who gathered for the Eucharist were very conscious of themselves forming the ‘Body of Christ’. The consecrated bread and wine were thought of as the ‘mystical/sacramental’ Body and Blood of the risen Christ, truly present among his assembled people. With the end of state persecution (early fourth century) growing congregations were able to gather in a public building – a male domain. People began to think of the clergy as celebrating the Mass while they ‘attended’. The focus was largely on honouring Jesus (rather than on doing what Jesus did), and the mystery was thought of as taking place in the sanctuary (rather than in the assembled community). With a strict regime governing reception of the Sacrament of Penance (allowed only once after Baptism), people tended to put off baptism (and so communion) for as long as possible. From the 800’s through to the early 1900’s, the key image was the ‘altar of sacrifice’. Old Testament images of priesthood and sacrifice prevailed. Receiving communion was rare, so rare that the church enacted a law that people were obliged to receive communion once a year. This was to ensure that there would be communion of the faithful at least once. The Host became an object of veneration, and reliquaries were used now as monstrances. The elevation of the host at Mass became law in 1215AD. The host was treated like a relic of Jesus. The Mass was an act of power by which the priest brought to the altar the body of Jesus, which the community could now have and worship. This, and not communion, was the key to ‘attending’ Mass. The words of consecration were the climax of the Mass, not communion. The ‘real’ Body of Christ was thought of as the consecrated host; the assembly was thought of as Christ’s ‘Mystical Body’. The introduction of frequent communion under Pius X (Pope from 1903 to 1914) was revolutionary in its implications. This practice enabled a huge change in people's way of looking at Eucharist. Once again we see Communion as the purpose and climax of the Mass, which is offered by us all as the ‘Body of Christ’, formed and nourished by the ‘Body and Blood of Christ’ received in communion. The presbytery staff wishes you all a day of special grace on this our Feast Day. The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus reminds us that the world is a sacred place, made holy by the presence of God. To be in communion with God (in communion with the sacred) we go to the Heart of Jesus who takes us to the heart of the world and to our own heart. The great Saint Augustine challenges us to ‘return to the heart! Why are you running away from yourselves? Why are you getting lost, outside yourselves, entering on deserted ways? You are wandering aimlessly. Come back! To where? To the Lord! It can be done without delay! Return immediately to your heart! Exiled from your own self you wander outside. You fail to know yourself, you who want to know the source of your existence. Come back! Return to the heart … See there what you can learn about God, for the image of God is there. In your inner self dwells Christ. In your inner self you are being renewed after God’s image.’ To the degree that we cooperate with grace we will be able to say with Saint Paul: ‘I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loves me and gives himself for me.’ A word of special thanks to the members of the Joseph the Worker team who installed and completed the railings leading down to the Parish Centre, and who spread a huge amount of mulch over our gardens. |
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