Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney mob: 0417 279 437;
email: mike.delaney@catholicpriest.org.au
Assistant Priests:
Fr Augustine Ezenwelu mob: 0470 576 857
Fr Alexander Obiorah Mob: 0447 478
297; alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
Office Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday 10am-3pm
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
FaceBook: Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: podomatic.com/mikedelaney
Parish Magazine: mlcathparishnewsletter.blogspot.com.au
Secretary: Annie Davies/Anne Fisher Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
OUR PARISH SACRAMENTAL LIFE:
Baptism: arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session on first Tuesday of February, April, June, August, October and December.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred,Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am)
Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)
Penguin - Saturday (5:15pm - 5:45pm)
SCRIPTURE READINGS:
FIRST READING
RESPONSORIAL PSALM: (R.) For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION: Alleluia, alleluia! I am the servant of the Lord: may his will for me be done. Alleluia!
GOSPEL: Luke 1:26-38
PREGO REFLECTION :
The story of the Annunciation, recalling how God announced
the birth of the Saviour, is a familiar one. I read this account, unique to St
Luke, slowly, savouring any words that touch me. It might help to place myself
in the scene. In my imagination, who do I see? What do I hear? How do these
words and sights make me feel? Perhaps, in my mind’s eye, I can see the angel
standing before me saying, ‘The Lord is with you’. What is my response? Do I
feel deeply disturbed, as Mary did initially? I spend some moments listening to
what the angel has to say to me. May be I am led to reflect on any occasions
when I have questioned God? Or when I didn’t really listen? Have there been
times when I have lived by fear? Perhaps, even now, I can sense, within me, a
niggling doubt in God’s loving presence? I spend the final few minutes of my
prayer in the company of Mary of Nazareth, Mother of the Lord and my mother. I
speak from the heart about whatever is concerning me at the moment. I might
like to end by thanking her for her example of complete obedience of faith, in
spite of her questions and fears, as she gave over her will to the Lord.
Weekday Masses 22nd - 26th December, 2014
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: As per Christmas Roster
Thursday: As per Christmas Roster
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Next Weekend 20th & 21st December, 2014
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield (LWC)
5:00pm Latrobe
Eucharistic Adoration:
Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Devonport: Benediction with Adoration - first Friday of each month.
Prayer Groups:
Charismatic Renewal - Devonport (Emmaus House) Recommencing Thursday 5th February 2015.
Christian Meditation - Devonport, Emmaus House - Wednesdays 7pm. Recommencing 4th February, 2015
Ministry Rosters 27th & 28th December, 2014
Devonport:
Readers:
Vigil: P Douglas, T Douglas ,
M Knight 10.30am: J Phillips, K Pearce, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion: Vigil M
Heazlewood,
B & J Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, T Muir
10.30am: G Taylor, M Sherriff, T & S Ryan,
M & B
Peters
Cleaners 27th Dec: S Riley, A Stegmann
2nd Jan: M.W.C.
Piety Shop 27th Dec: K Hull
28th Dec: D French Flowers: M Knight, V Mahoney
Ulverstone:
Reader: S Willoughby
Ministers of Communion: P Steyn, E Cox, C Singline, J
Landford
Cleaners: V Ferguson
Penguin:
Greeters: G & N Pearce Commentator: Readers: E Nickols , A Landers
Procession: S Ewing, J Barker
Ministers of Communion: M Kenney, E
Standring
Liturgy: Pine
Road
Port Sorell:
Readers: E Holloway, V Duff Ministers of Communion: G Duff, T Jeffries Clean /Prepare/Flowers: B Lee, A Holloway
Latrobe:
Reader: M Eden
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Max Anderson, Allan Conroy, Victor
Slavin, John Kirkpatrick, Shanon Breaden, Shirley White, Tom Knaap,
Kath Smith, Mely
Pybus &.....
Let us pray for those who
have died recently: Jack Way, Audrey Cassidy, Fr
Tom Garvey, Darryl Duggan, Errol
Northrop, Gwen Thorp and Laurie McGuire.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: Eileen Burrows, Winnie Casey, Kevin Robertson, Amy Batt, Laurence Kelcey, Austin Florian, Eileen McIver, Neil Hensby, Fr John Wall,
Gwenda Stones, Wallace Malone, Margaret Waddle, Mary Burrows, Jean Matthews and Jessie Parker.
Also Reg & Margaret Watson, Ismael Minoza, Ruby & Charles Desire, Jean
& Cedric Davey and deceased relatives and friends of Robertson, Ravaillion,
Knight, Sheridan, Bourke, Febey, Coad and Watson families.
May they rest in peace
First Reading
PRAYER FOR PEACE
"Almighty God and Creator,
You are the Father of all peoples
on the earth.
We beseech You to guide all the
nations and their leaders in the ways of justice and peace.
Protect us from the evils of
injustice, prejudice, exploitation, conflict and war.
Help us to put away mistrust,
bitterness and hatred.
Teach us to cease the storing and
using of implements of war.
Lead us to find peace, respect and
freedom.
Unite us in the making and sharing
of tools of peace against
ignorance, poverty, disease and
oppression.
Grant that we may grow in harmony and friendship
as brothers and sisters created in Your image,
to Your
honour and praise.
"Amen"
FR MIKE
After last week’s little reflection about how ‘busy’ I was,
I was a little bit embarrassed by all the people who commented – this week has
been as interesting and I’m still no where as busy as a mum!
Thanks to all those who made such a wonderful contribution
in so many ways to the Parish Gathering for Fr Augustine last weekend. People
from all areas of the Parish gathered at OLOL for the Mass and celebration
afterwards and Fr Augustine spoke about his time amongst us and thanked people
for their generosity and support.
At the time of writing I am confident that I will have
collected Fr Alexander and delivered him to Devonport – collecting him from Perth
Throughout Tasmania
There will be a modified version of the Newsletter each
week during January (that has basically been prepared already with additions
made as they become available). Hopefully it will allow people to know whatever
is happening in the Parish as well as throughout the Diocese.
Last weekend there was an announcement from the Archbishop
with three changes of Parish appointments to take effect from 1st January. As
mentioned in the Catholic Standard Fr Greg Barker is leaving the Diocese to
work in the Diocese of Newcastle-Maitland for the next few years. As a
consequence Fr Michael Tate will move from Sandy Bay-Taroona to the Huon Valley
Parish, Fr Brian Nichols will move from the Cathedral to Sandy Bay-Taroona and
Fr Shammi Perera will be the Administrator of the Cathedral for the immediate
future.
As many people will be heading off on holidays I would like
to take this opportunity to say a personal Thankyou to everyone for their
support of me in my ministry amongst you. The new year will be different with
Fr Augustine returning to Nigeria
Until next week take care in your homes and on the roads
Parishioners are welcome to place gifts or non-perishable
food in the crib for distribution by St Vincent de Paul Society with their
Christmas Hampers to those less fortunate in the community. The Society is
appreciative of the kindness of parishioners throughout the year and generosity
to families needing a helping hand.
READERS CHRISTMAS MASSES - OLOL DEVONPORT:
8pm Vigil - Readings taken from the Midnight Mass: P Piccolo, C
Kiely-Hoye, E Petts
Christmas Day - Readings
M Gaffney M Gerrand, C Morriss please phone Kath
CHRISTMAS EVE CHILDREN'S MASS - SACRED HEART ULVERSTONE & OUR LADY OF LOURDES
All children are invited to dress up (nativity theme) for the
6pm Christmas Eve Children's Mass at Sacred Heart Ulverstone and Our Lady of
Lourdes Devonport. After Christmas Eve Mass at Ulverstone, supper will be held
in the Community Room. Could parents please bring a plate of food to share!
ANNUAL
PILGRIMAGE OF THE CHURCHES:
Is being held in Latrobe on New Year's Eve. 5:30pm
start at Baptist Church
BAPTISMAL PREPARATION SESSION:
Tuesday 3rd
February, 2015 - 7:30pm at Parish House, 90 Stewart Street
SACRAMENTAL
PROGRAM:
Families with children in Grade 3 or above are invited to
participate in our family-centred, parish-based and school-supported
Sacramental Program to prepare to celebrate the sacraments of RECONCILIATION,
CONFIRMATION AND EUCHARIST in March and August 2015. Information Sessions to
explain the preparation program will be held on: Monday 23rd February 7.00pm at
Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Stewart
Street Sacred Heart Church Alexandra Road
For further information, please contact the Parish Office
(6424 2783) or email: sacra@eftel.net.au
CATHOLICS COME HOME:
Have you been away from the practice of your Catholic faith
and feel a tug to return? Come to an enquiry session on Wednesday 7th January,
7.30 pm, Parish House, 90 Stewart
Street
During the year many people have been
involved in serving others in ministries too numerous to name. Thank you all
for living out your Baptismal commitment in a way that inspires us all.
Our
prayer as we celebrate Christ’s birth is that we may all continue to grow in
faith, hope and love.
Merry Christmas everyone from Fathers Mike, Augustine & Alexander, Mary, Annie, Anne, Belinda &
Digna.
Evangelii
Gaudium
“Any Church
community, if it thinks it can comfortably go its own way without creative
concern and effective cooperation in helping the poor to live with dignity and
reaching out to everyone, will also risk breaking down, however much it may
talk about social issues or criticize governments. It will easily drift into a
spiritual worldliness camouflaged by religious practices, unproductive meetings
and empty talk.”
Par 207
from Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis,
Nov. 24, 2013
Countdown to Christmas
To help you and those
you love, and all members of your community, prepare for Christmas, Bulletin Notes is proud to share with
you some of the resources designed to help with the Christmas countdown. Each
week, during Advent, we will provide you with a chosen image from the pages of
Pinterest. We hope they help you prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ.
This week’s image comes
from Pinterest, through a user called Our
Sunday Visitor (http://www.pinterest.com/osv/). It seeks to bring the
Catholic faith to life, with a range of boards focusing on news, prayer and
Rosary, saints and books.
Feast Day of the Week – St Stephen
(December 26)
Acts says that Stephen
was a man filled with grace and power, who worked great wonders among the
people. Certain Jews, members of the Synagogue of Roman Freedmen, debated with
Stephen but proved no match for the wisdom and spirit with which he spoke. They
persuaded others to make the charge of blasphemy against him. He was seized and
carried before the Sanhedrin.
In his speech, Stephen recalled God’s guidance
through Israel ’s history, as
well as Israel
http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1241
Words
of Wisdom – Matthew Kelly, in The Rhythm
of Life
“It constantly amazes me that men and women wander
the earth marvelling at the highest mountains, the deepest ocean, the whitest
sands, the most exotic islands, the most intriguing birds of the air and fish
of the sea – and all the time never stop to marvel at themselves and realize
their infinite potential as human beings.”
Meme of the week
As someone that
struggles to remember my Twitter password, I thought this was quite amusing.
(True, but amusing! LOL)
THE VISITATION – REVISITED
An article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original can be found at http://ronrolheiser.com/the-visitation-revisited/#.VJNYlF4ABA
We are all familiar with the biblical story of the Visitation. It happens at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel. Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth, both pregnant, meet. One is carrying Jesus and the other is carrying John the Baptist. The Gospels want us to recognize that both these pregnancies are biologically impossible; one is a virginal conception and the other is a conception that occurs far beyond someone’s childbearing years. So there is clearly something of the divine in each. In simple language, each woman is carrying a special gift from heaven and each is carrying a part of the divine promise that will one day establish God’s peace on this earth.
But neither Mary nor Elizabeth, much less anyone around them, consciously recognizes the divine connection between the two children they are carrying. The Gospels present them to us as “cousins”, both the children and their mothers; but the Gospels want us to think deeper than biology. They are cousins in the same way that Christ, and those things that are also of the divine, are cousins. This, among other things, is what is contained in the concept of the Visitation.
Mary and Elizabeth meet, both are pregnant with the divine. Each is carrying a child from heaven, one is carrying Christ and the other is carrying a unique prophet, the “cousin” of the Christ. And a curious thing happens when they meet. Christ’s cousin, inside his mother, without explicit consciousness, leaps for joy in the presence of Christ and that reaction releases the Magnificat inside of the one carrying Christ.
There’s a lot in that image: Christ’s cousin unconsciously leaps for joy in the presence of Christ and that reaction draws the Magnificat out of the one who is carrying the Christ. Christian de Cherge, the Trappist Abbott who was martyred in Algeria in 1996, suggests that, among other things, this image is the key to how we, as Christians, are meant to meet other religions in the world. He sees the image as illustrating this paradigm:
Christianity is carrying Christ and other religions are also carrying something divine, a divine “”cousin”, one who points to Christ. But all of this is unconscious; we do not really grasp the bond, the connection, between what we are carrying and what the other is carrying. But we will recognize their kinship, however unconsciously, when we stand before another who does not share our Christian faith but is sincere and true to his or her own faith. In that encounter we will sense the connection: What we are carrying will make something leap for joy inside the other and that reaction will help draw the Magnificat out of us and, like Mary, we will want to stay with that other for mutual support.
And we need that support, as does the other. As Christian de Cherge puts it: “We know that those whom we have come to meet are like Elizabeth: they are bearers of a message that comes from God. Our church does not tell us and does not know what the exact bond is between the Good News we bear and the message that gives life to the other. … We may never know exactly what that bond is, but we do know that the other is also a bearer of a message that comes from God. So what should we do? What does witness consist in? What about mission? … See, when Mary arrives, it is Elizabeth who speaks first. Or did she? … For most certainly Mary would have said: ‘Peace, Peace be with you’. And this simple greeting made something vibrate, someone, inside of Elizabeth. And in this vibration, something was said. … Which is the Good News, not the whole of the Good News, but what can be glimpsed of it in the moment.”
Christian de Cherge then adds this comment: “In the end, if we are attentive, if we situate our encounter with the other in the attention and the desire to meet the other, and in our need for the other and what he has to say to us, it is likely that the other is going to say something to us that will connect with what we are carrying, something that will reveal complicity with us … allowing us to broaden our Eucharist.”
We need each other, everyone on this planet, Christians and non-Christians, Jews and Muslims, Protestants and Roman Catholics, Evangelicals and Unitarians, sincere agnostics and atheists; we need each other to understand God’s revelation. Nobody understands fully without the other. Thus our interrelations with each other should not be born only out of enthusiasm for the truth we have been given, but it should issue forth too from our lack of the other. Without the other, without recognizing that the other too is carrying the divine, we will, as Christian de Cherge asserts, be unable to truly release our own Magnificat. Without each other, none of us will ever be able to pray the Eucharist “for the many”.
Incarnation
An email reflection by Fr Richard Rohr from his daily email posted on 18th December 2014
Jesus said, “You must lose yourself to find yourself” (Matthew 16:25). For some sad reason most people have presumed that the self that had to die, the self we had to lose, was the physical self, when actually Jesus meant the ego self, the separate self, the self-created by our own mind and adventures. This is what passes away.
There seems to be some deep bias against embodiment, materiality, and physicality. That is where we harbor our inferiority feelings. You’d think if there would be any religion in the world that would not think that way, it would be Christianity, because Christianity is the only religion that believes that God became a body, became a human being: Jesus. That’s why we get so excited about Christmas! We call it the Feast of the Incarnation or “enfleshment.” But I find most mainline Christians to be quite “excarnational” and moving opposite to the path of Jesus and trying to be “spiritual,” whatever that means.
The eternal Christ Mystery began with the Big Bang where God decided to materialize as the universe. Henceforth, the material and the spiritual have always co-existed, just as Genesis 1:1-2 seems to be saying. Although this Christ existed long before Jesus, and is coterminous with creation itself, Christians seem to think Christ is Jesus’ last name. What Jesus allows us to imagine—because we see it in him—is that the divine and the human are forever one. God did not just take on one human nature, although that is where we could first risk imagining it in the body of Jesus. God took on all human nature and said “yes” to it forever! In varying degrees and with infinite qualities, God took on everything physical, material, and natural as himself. That is the full meaning of the Incarnation. To allow such a momentous truth, to fully believe it, to enjoy it in practical ways, to suffer it with and for others—this is what it means to be a Christian! Nothing less will do now. Nothing less will save the world.
For most Christians, though, Jesus is totally divine, but not totally human. We deny his humanity and overly assert his divinity—instead of the very synthesis that he came to exemplify, announce, and share! We’ve paid a big price for such dualistic thinking because when we can’t put it together in him, we can’t put it together in ourselves either. And that’s the whole point! You and I are simultaneously children of heaven and children of earth, divine and human coexisting in a well hidden disguise. We are a living paradox, just as Jesus was. We also are a seeming contradiction that is not a contradiction at all. Most Christians were simply never told the real good news that flesh and spirit, divine and human, coexist. That was not made clear in Jesus and surely not in ourselves. The consequences have been disastrous at all levels. Matter always reveals Spirit, and Spirit lies hidden in all that is physical, material, earthly, human, flawed, and failing. Everything is a sacrament! Nothing else could be called utter and final good news except this message. It is indeed a benevolent universe.
Adapted from The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis, disc 3 (CD)
#illridewithyou shows the kind of world that is possible
John Falzon | 18 December 2014 - An Article printed in Eureka Street, an online magazine (http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/)
While the horrible tragedy was underway in Martin Place this week a remarkable thing happened. We saw, and continue to see, a powerful sense of compassion for the people who were being held hostage.
Sadly, we also saw a rush of racist hatred towards innocent people. But we saw an even greater outpouring of solidarity by ordinary people with the ordinary people who were being threatened with this violence and abuse, crystallised in what can only be described as a love poem written by the people to the people, namely 'I’ll ride with you'.
It looked like a simple offer of human support and protection to people of the Muslim faith who were in danger as they rode on the buses, trams and trains across Australia the next morning. But it was always more than this. In its concreteness it was also a deeply profound declaration of a vision for a just and inclusive Australia. It was particularly beautiful because it came from ordinary people and it so strongly struck a chord with ordinary people.
Good policy always comes from below. Without the organised analysis and agitation of the people we would never have seen gains in the fields of industrial rights, women’s rights, tenants’ rights, environmental justice, workers compensation, Aboriginal citizenship rights and so the list, and the struggle, continues. People were radicalised by reality, by their concrete analysis of the concrete conditions. Good policy was born from such struggles.
Ordinary people thought critically and acted decisively in the face of a dominant ideology that continues to tell us that justice is impossible or, worst still, that inequality and humiliation are the manifestations of justice because the people who bear the brunt of this oppression must obviously deserve it due to a moral failing. Rather than accepting that justice is impossible, they proclaimed with their lives that, in the words of the great Aboriginal poet Bobbi Sykes: 'Justice is inevitable, like birth.'
Against the grain, ordinary people struggled, and continue to struggle for a society in which people are not blamed because economic structures lock them out or, in some cases, lock them up; one in which people are not told that they would not be poor if only they chose to be a little more productive; a society that does not humiliate people; a society that delivers the rights to: appropriate housing, adequate income, education, health care, jobs and working conditions that are dignified, safe and never demeaning; a society that ensures that the resources and opportunities available to all include the right to engage in sports and recreation and the arts; a society in which it feels normal to care about people; a society that is profoundly, rather than just formally, democratic; created by, and constantly changed by, the collective participation of the people.
Frantz Fanon wrote eloquently of the 'systematic negation of the other person and the furious determination to deny the other person all attributes of humanity.' How accurate a description this is of the people in our midst who are left out, from members of the First Peoples right through to the most recent seekers of refuge and everyone in between who is denied the rights to a place to live, a place to work, a place to learn, a place to heal. And yet these are the people from whom we have the most to learn, the people from whom we take our orders, we who wield the peaceful but irresistible weapon of solidarity. In biblical language these are thepeople of God, not an ethnic or religious group, but the crushed and the cursed, the despised and demonised, the excluded and exploited. And in simple birth of the child in Bethlehem we see a story of complete identification between this God and the crushed of the world, a human manifesto: 'I’ll ride with you.'
Pope Francis is unafraid to give voice to this revolutionary message, making it the core of his first exhortation, even though, as he reminds us often, he knows he will be called a communist:
As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems…
He also addressed in some detail the need for solidarity and the power of popular movements in October this year:
Solidarity is a word that is not always welcomed…. However, it is a word that means much more than some acts of sporadic generosity. It is to think and to act in terms of community, of the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few. It is also to fight against the structural causes of poverty, inequality, lack of work, land and housing, the denial of social and labour rights. It is to confront the destructive effects of the empire of money: forced displacements, painful emigrations, the traffic of persons, drugs, war, violence and all those realities that many of you suffer and that we are all called to transform. Solidarity, understood in its deepest sense, is a way of making history, and this is what the Popular Movements do.
The rights of workers, including all who have been residualised and discarded, people who are unemployed or underemployed, must take priority over the maximisation of profits. Our twin objectives are a redistribution of wealth and a redistribution of hope. This is the history we are called by our common humanity to make. This is our beautiful struggle, we who are many, we who make up the massive movement for progressive social change.
And the Christmas story is a whisper from the edge that another kind of world is possible.
John Falzon is CEO of the St Vincent de Paul Society National Council. 
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