|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
Events, news letter, activities and other information on what's going on in the parish is reported in this section.
August
2005
Easter 2005 Palm Sunday
Passover meal
Maundy Thursday Father Pat's homily And so the Triduum has begun. The three feasts that go to make up the Paschal or Easter Mystery. We cannot separate what happens this night from what happens Good Friday and Easter Sunday. They are all bound up together. I invite you now to think of that person in your life who you have loved most and who has gone. Your feelings when they died, at the funeral, and since then. All joy gone. That knot of grief in your stomach. That emptiness in your breast.
But it was not to be. When he died, something in them died too. A light went out. And they were left in the dark. You have to realise this to understand how devastating the crucifixion was for them. You have to understand it too to know the significance of Jesus’ resurrection in their lives. Can we even begin to imagine the excitement they felt when they heard he was alive. And when they saw him for themselves! The jubilation! Just think again about that loved
one in your life that we have just been talking Now the only problem when someone is with you always is, you can take their presence for granted. We do it all the time with the people we love most. So to keep your appreciation of them alive and strong, it is important you celebrate their presence with you. We do it all the time. Birthdays - Anniversaries - Valentine’s Day. These are celebrating the fact that we are together – our friendship. our love. And of course, the effect of a good celebration is that it unites you even closer to that person. That’s what Christians were doing when we celebrate the Mass. We call it the Eucharist, the Last Supper, the Breaking of Bread. Yes, we are celebrating Jesus present with us. Not in the sense that he wasn’t there beforehand. Since he rose from the dead and gave us the gift of his Spirit at Pentecost he is always with us! But when we celebrate the Mass we celebrate that fact and in the course of the celebration he makes himself present to us in a new way – in the bread and wine that is his Body and Blood. The celebration literally feeds us with his Real Presence in yet another way. What a gift! Pope John Paul II has been talking a lot in recent years about the amnesia that is beginning to afflict the people of Europe as we become moer secular and worldly. Europe, he says is losing its memory in relation to who it is and where it has come from spiritually. Indeed there are those within our countries whose main task is, it would seem, to make sure that is what happens. Forget God, they say, and build a society that has nothing to do with him! How then do we make sure we remember? And put Jesus and all he has done for us at the centre of our lives?. Today’s feast of the Eucharist, the First Mass is the answer. Do this in memory of me, says Jesus to his followers. The Eucharist reminds us of the price Jesus paid. There is no Jesus in Holy Communion without Jesus on the Cross, without Jesus risen from the tomb. Such is the price he paid to be with us in this way. The same Jesus who died on Good Friday and rose on Easter Sunday is the same one who gives himself to us in the Eucharist every Sunday in the Mass as a Real living Presence now and not just as a memory of what happened in the past. And that is why we are here tonight. To do this in memory of Him. Good Friday Father Pat's homily
They thought they had explained everything to him clearly. They hadn’t. He thought they were asking him to give his life to his sister - and he was now waiting to die. What love the little fellow had for his sister. In obedience to his father’s and mother’s will and because he loved her, he agreed to do this for his sister. In his case he didn’t have to die though there was a great risk.
The disease is called Sin. It ends in death and the total destruction of the human person and of the community of mankind. What Jesus did was contract the disease himself, take it into his body and carry it out of the city of mankind and nail it to a cross. What he then donated to his people was not bone marrow but his very Spirit, the Holy Spirit who survived that horrible operation on the Cross and would be his Gift to all of us. This is difficult and I was trying to explain it to the children as we did the Stations of the Cross over the last three weeks of Lent. Think of it like this. Imagine they had taken Jesus once he had been condemned to death by Pilate. And they could open up his body without it killing him then. And they poured into his body all the sins of the world. All the ugliness and evil that mankind was capable of, both up to that time and after that, until the end of time.
This was what St Paul meant when he said; For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So when someone stops me in the street and says; ‘Have you been saved?’ The answer is yes. Not through anything I have done but through the graciousness of God himself. All that is asked of me is to accept this fact and not go back to that diseased way of life he has freed me from. But even if I do fall back into it, even then all is not lost. All I have to do is come back to Jesus and ask him to take that sin away. It is, if you like, like getting a booster inoculation to ensure that the disease never gets a hold on me again. I look at the Cross on this day and ask: Is my soul worth this much to you? The answer I get, is a resounding ‘Yes’. Easter Vigil Father Pat's homily
But many of us have never gone there. We are afraid of that place. We feel that if we open the door and enter it we won’t like what we see. Because as well as meeting God there, we face ourselves, at the deepest level. It can often be more convenient to forget that place and live life without reference to it. But to do this is to run away – as the apostles did from the Garden of Gethsemane – from what was most important in their lives. When Jesus died, we say in the apostles creed; he descended into hell – not the hell of the damned, but maybe that place within ourselves that we fear so much.
Christ, risen from the dead, has visited that place in us, where we experience most, our fears, our deepest aloneness, our failures. He has broken these bonds, liberated us from captivity and taken up his abode in that same place in the depth of our being. He lives in us. Why should we fear any more to visit that place? Rather, should we not rush there , and often, to meet him, as the women and the apostles rushed to the tomb in the garden. The tomb though was empty. He was not there. But this place in us is not empty now. It is God-filled. Here we can sit with the one who gives us life and converse.
The One, who of all who love us, is the One who loves us most. He has freed us. Having been to that place in ourselves and met with him, we too are energised to burst out from that place and in glory to embrace Life and live it to the full. No, it doesn’t mean something magical will have happened to us protecting us from the pain or suffering of the world – but now free to love, we will life’s pain as well as life’s joys – mindfully, hopefully. As a budding song writer puts it so eloquently:
There are 2 people here tonight who are seeking that life through Baptism. I welcome Brett Feng and Christine Taravinga and invite them to come forward with their sponsors.
Lectio Divina & Evening
Prayer Vigil Together with the
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
The
sense of loss – of anger – of unfairness – the disappointment that the
Beloved did not get well or recover. Impossible to imagine what life is
going to be like in the future without her or him! You look across at the
chair where they always sat. You look at the phone waiting for it to ring.
You still expect the front door to open and see them walk in. Even still
for a moment you want to get home to tell them something that happened at
work or another bit of news. The whole experience paralyses you. Part of
you has died with them. That was what the Apostles felt like on Good Friday
afternoon when Jesus died. All the joy, the excitement, hope for the future
that they had, has died with him. They were devastated. He was not just
their great Teacher, their Master, their Guru – He was their friend. They
shared so much and had looked forward to sharing more. 
about! If you were told to come back here on Saturday night, that they
would be here to meet you. The mixture of excitement, joy and indeed fear,
that would be in you! If Jesus’ Crucifixion transported the disciples into
hell – such was the sorrow they felt - then his Resurrection lifted up their
spirits to such an excitement they thought their hearts would burst. It was
so much – how can it be true? – they were afraid of it. And this is why he
always greeted them: Fear not! But he said more to them. Yes I am
alive. And I’ll never leave you again. I will be with you always. 
Anthony
De Mello tells the story of the little boy aged 8. He had a rare disease
and it looked as if it was hopeless, that he was going to die. His family,
neighbours and friends stormed heaven for a miracle. The little boy
recovered. There was immense relief and joy all round. But it was to be
short-lived. About a year later his little sister was diagnosed with the
same disease. The only hope for her was a transplant. The only possible
donor was her brother. His parents spoke to him and explained the
situation. For a while he was silent and then very quietly he agreed. The
operation went ahead and was successful. After the operation the little boy
still in hospital said to his mum and dad when no one else was around. ‘So,
when do I die?’ 
Like
the little boy there are many people, who at great risk to themselves who
offer hope to others by donating bone marrow or the like and others, maybe
with not as much risk to themselves, who do the same by being blood
donors.These are wonderful acts of love in the true spirit of Christ. When
the donor seeks to save the life of another. Indeed to give them life. When
I heard this story about the little boy I could not but think of today’s
feast – Good Friday. This is what it is all about. Today Good Friday we
try to get inside the mind of God, inside the heart of God and we find there
this same sort of love but much deeper. Jesus in fact did die in order that
we might live. The human race had an incurable disease. It was slowly
eating away at us and would eventually destroy us. What Jesus did was to
take that disease upon himself. 
What
does he do with it? He carries it away out of the city to the top of the
hill of Calvary. When the body of Jesus got nailed to the Cross, was
murdered and was then laid in a tomb, what was in fact nailed to the Cross,
killed and got buried was the sins of the world. When he rose in his body he
had left in that tomb, in that grave those same sins. They were now dead,
their sting was now impotent, and they no longer had the power to eternally
kill us that they had had before. They were dead. 
There
is a parable in the Uphanishads, the sacred writings of the Hindus which
tells us: In the body there is a shrine. In that shrine there is a little
space. And in that space, there is the whole universe, because the Creator,
the source of all, is in the heart of each one of us. Jesus was telling us
the same thing when he told us how to pray. Go to your room…not primarily
your bedroom or sitting room or even chapel but to that place deep within
you where you will meet God. 
That
place within ourselves where we are confronted most truly with the wounds,
the faults, the sins, the ugliness that has been inflicted on us but which
we in our turn have inflicted on others. Artists have relished painting the
risen Christ going from the tomb to the place of the damned and breaking
open the door, smashing the chains that bind the people waiting there , and
leading them to freedom. 
As
I gaze on the beauty of all I believe, I’m just happy, happy to breathe.
This is the mindset of the man or woman who lives in hope embracing life –
not the short-lived life as understood by the atheist, but that eternal life
won for us this night by Jesus risen from the dead – who lives within us
urging us forward.
