Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney mob: 0417 279 437
email: mike.delaney@catholicpriest.org.au
Assistant Priest:
Fr Alexander Obiorah Mob: 0447 478 297
email: alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk
email: 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 Mass Times: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
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.
Weekday Masses 10th - 13th February, 2015
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe, 12noon Devonport (Feast Day of OLOL)
Thursday: 10:30am Eliza Purton, 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Next Weekend 14th & 15th February, 2015
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell (LWC) 9am Ulverstone,
10:30am Devonport, 11am Sheffield
5pm 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) Thursdays - 7:30pm Recommences 5th February 2015
Christian Meditation - Devonport, Emmaus House - Wednesdays 7pm. Recommences 4th February 2015
Ministry Rosters 14th &
15th February, 2015
Devonport:
Readers:
Vigil: M Kelly, B Paul, R Baker
10.30am: F
Sly, J Tuxworth, K Pearce
Ministers of Communion: Vigil T Muir, M
Davies, J Cox,
M Gerrand, T Bird, S Innes
10.30am: C
Schrader, R Beaton, B & N Mulcahy, L Hollister
Cleaners 13th Feb: P & T Douglas
20th Feb: F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain
Piety Shop 14th Feb: R Baker 15th Feb: K Hull
Flowers: A O'Connor
Ulverstone:
Reader: M McLaren Ministers of Communion: B Deacon, J Allen, G Douglas, K Reilly
Cleaners: K Bourke Flowers: E Beard Hospitality: Filipino Community
Penguin:
Greeters: J Garnsey, S
Ewing Commentator: .......... Readers:
E Nickols , A Landers
Procession: M & D Hiscutt Ministers of Communion: J Garnsey,
S Ewing
Liturgy: Sulphur Creek C Setting Up: M Murray
Port Sorell:
Readers: D Leaman, T Jeffries Ministers of Communion: E Holloway
Clean /Prepare/Flowers: G
Bellchambers, M Gillard
Latrobe:
Reader: S Ritchie Ministers of Communion: M Kavic, P Marlow
Procession: Kavic Family Music: Jenny & May
Procession: Kavic Family Music: Jenny & May
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Reg Hinkley, Margaret Hoult, Tony Hyde, Peter
Bolster, Ted Dolliver, Tim Hancock, Helen
Williams, Eva Zvatora, Adrian Brennan, Candida Tenaglia, Peg Leary, Yvonne Harvey, Shirley White, Tom Knaap, Kath
Smith & ...
Let us pray for those who
have died recently: Veronica Obiorah, Tony Wesley, Irena Vorlicek, Brillance Denver Balido, John Mansfield, Noreen Sheehan, Peter Burton, Allan
Conroy, Barry Lyons and Dorothy Bell.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: Thomas Kelly, Cesar S Cortes Snr, Frank Meagher, Joan Nolan, Basil Cassidy, Darrell Smith, Betty Hodgson, Sylvia
Strange, David Rutherford, Verna Crabtree, Lawrence McGuire, Harold Hawkes,
Sheryl Allen, Sharon Fellows-Glover, Ethel Kelcey, Colleen Cameron, Christopher
Cabalzar, Rita Wescombe, Mary Hunniford, Jacqueline Chisholm and Michael
Ravaillion.
May they rest in peace
First Reading : Job 7:1-4. 6-7
RESPONSORIAL PSALM (R.) Praise
the Lord who heals the broken-hearted.
Second Reading
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
Alleluia, alleluia! He bore our sickness, and endured our suffering. Alleluia
Gospel: Mark 1:29-39
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL
I enter the above scene on the day when Jesus was seen
carrying out an exorcism in the synagogue and later healing Peter’s
mother-in-law, in her home.
I take time to become familiar with what took place later
that evening and early the following morning. I notice the sharp contrast
between the two occasions. I imagine I am there with Jesus...
I see Jesus surrounded by crowds of people, all desperately
needing something from him. I see him jostled by the crowds, hear people
calling for his attention. I see him selflessly minister to them.
Even if only on a much smaller scale, can I identify with
this scene; do people sometimes make demands of me, seeing me as the one who
can solve their problems? I consider how I react at these times.
I then see Jesus quietly leaving the house in the early
hours of the morning to be alone with his Father in prayer. I see him taking
much needed time for rest and renewal, guidance and strength.
I ponder... Do I go into each day under my own steam, or do
I imitate Jesus, acting only in co-operation with God?
I speak to Jesus, the one who shows me how to find the
‘balance’ I need to minister to others in God’s name.
May I be able, like Jesus, to say,
‘This is why I came.’
First Reading
We
welcome and congratulate
Alex Nasiukiewicz and Xaviar
Woodland
who are being baptised this
weekend.
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
As mentioned last week there are copies of the follow-up
Document from the Synod on the Family available from the Parish Office for
anyone who wishes to participate in the Diocesan Response – details as follows https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AOHSynod2015
- please note that the survey is only available until Tuesday, February 10th so
this is your last chance to make a contribution.
At Masses at Devonport this weekend we will acknowledge the
many parishioners who assist regularly to keep the community ticking and
support the life of the Church and our worship. Then on Wednesday we will
celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes (Patron of the Devonport Church
Parishioners at
Devonport will also notice that gates have been built between the School and
Parish Hall. This was done in consultation with me as PP and as a member of the
School Board of Management in order to allow the school to comply with
regulations ensuring the safety of children within the school grounds. The
gates will be open on weekends to allow parishioners to continue to park in the
school grounds. There will however, at some stage in the future, be a
restricted area close to the school – an area which has become dangerous during
the winter and which will need to be prepared in a manner to ensure the safety
of children and which will be incompatible with cars parking in that area.
Last weekend there was a Public Notice concerning land at Cuprona
being auctioned for non-payment of rates. The block is a land locked block
which is too small for any use and is, with a number of similar small land
locked blocks, surrounded by land owned by a single owner who has agreed to pay
the outstanding rates to acquire these blocks of land but the Council needed to
advertise the auction as part of due process. Also, no notice of rates had been
presented for a number of years and no demands made on the Parish. Hopefully
this will allay any fears that the Finance Committee were not doing their duty
and causing embarrassment to the Parish or Archdiocese.
Until next week take care in your homes and on the roads
A MESSAGE FROM FATHER JIM:
First and foremost I would like to thank everyone who has
sent me cards, wishes and gifts. It has been uplifting to think that you all
have kept in touch with me via all the cards.
I am at present hanging around St. Josephs Aged Care
facility. Sr. Pauline Richards is in charge here. The aim is to get my
medication sorted and get back to the Monastery. I am now taking two types of
medication, Aropax and Avanza. This is to keep me on an even keel and sort out
my unreal thinking. My thinking was fragile and easily slipped into
fantasy. I am hoping my Sanity will prevail as reality seems a better option.
So all of the above medication combined, seems to be working.
Anyway that all seems to be behind me now and I’ve been
going out for coffee and cake regularly with Denise (my niece) at Macca’s the
coffee is not too bad the cakes are even better. Denise also takes me for a
drives around the beaches and Centennial
Park
I have been enjoying watching the cricket also.
Barbara and Denise visit me so as to keep me up with all the family gossip. So
once again a big thank you to all my Tasmanian family.
LITURGY PREPARATION GROUP:
You are very warmly invited to join interested
parishioners and members of local liturgical and musical groups to assist in
the preparation of all of our parish Lenten/Holy Week liturgies. Meetings
will be held at Emmaus House as set out below:
For Lent: This Sunday 8 February from 2.00 pm -
3.30 pm
For Holy Week: Sunday 8 March from 2.00 pm - 3.30 pm
For further information contact: Peter Douglas on 0419 302 435
MACKILLOP FOUNDATION COMMITTEE MEETING: Next Thursday 12th February 10am at MacKillop
Hill, Forth. New members welcome.
GETTING READY FOR LENT:
An invitation to reflect and prepare for Lent.
Presented by Richard and Belinda Chapman. Don’t miss the Lent boat! Now is the chance to take time and prepare
to put all good intentions into action.
See what Lent will give up for you in 2015!
Thursday 12th February
7.30pm – 9.00pm Cost: Donation
Bookings: Phone 6428:3095 Email: mackillophill.forth@sosj.org.au
“LIFE TO THE FULL” Creation and New Creation in
John’s Gospel.
Presented by Associate Professor Mary Coloe pbvm, a
Presentation Sister who teaches Scripture at the University
of Divinity in Melbourne
Friday 27th February 6.00pm – 9.00pm Cost:
$30.00 or donation Bookings essential.
Bookings: Phone 6428:3095 Email: mackillophill.forth@sosj.org.au
CWL ULVERSTONE MEETING: Friday 13th February, 2pm Community Room Sacred Heart Church
LENTEN PROGRAM 2015:
Would you like to attend a Lenten Program? When: 6
Thursday mornings
beginning 19th February
Time: 10am -
11:30am
Where: Emmaus
House Stewart Street
How: You
are invited to add your name to the list in the foyer at OLOL Church
SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM:
Families with children in Grade 3 or above are warmly
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 this year.
Information sessions to explain the preparation program
will be held on:
Monday 23rd February, 7.00pm
at Our Lady of Lourdes
Church
or
Tuesday 24th February 7.00pm
at Sacred Heart Church Alexandra Road
For further information please contact the Parish Office
6424:2783 or email: sacra@eftel.net.au
TRANSPORT REQUIRED:
Is anyone from the Penguin Community
able to assist Terry McKenna by driving him to and from Mass at Penguin on
Saturday evenings? Terry is a resident at Coroneagh Park
URGENT HELP REQUIRED WITH FLOWER ROSTER
OLOL CHURCH
If you are able to assist with this roster please phone the
Parish Office 6424:2783 as soon as possible.
TECHNICS ELECTRONIC ORGAN NEEDS NEW HOME!!
A Technics Electronic Organ in immaculate Condition (with
stool) is wanting to move to a new home - please feel free to ring 0428 372 377
if you are able to assist.
Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall,
Devonport.
Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 12th February are
Tony
Ryan & Alan Luxton
Evangelii
Gaudium
“We may not
always be able to reflect adequately the beauty of the Gospel, but there is one
sign which we should never lack: the option for those who are least, those whom
society discards.”
Par 195 from Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis, Nov.
24, 2013
Feast Day of the
Week – St Scholastica, virgin (February 10)
“Born
on July 11, 480 of wealthy parents, twin siblings Scholastica and Benedict were
brought up together until he left central Italy
for Rome
“Little
is known of Scholastica’s early life. She founded a religious community for
women near Monte Cassino at Plombariola, five miles from where her brother
governed a monastery.
“The
twins visited each other once a year in a farmhouse because Scholastica was not
permitted inside the monastery. They spent these times discussing spiritual
matters.
“According
to the Dialogues of St Gregory the Great, the brother and sister spent
their last day together in prayer and conversation. Scholastica sensed her
death was close at hand and she begged Benedict to stay with her until the next
day.
“He
refused her request because he did not want to spend a night outside the
monastery, thus breaking his own Rule. Scholastica asked God to let her brother
remain and a severe thunderstorm broke out, preventing Benedict and his monks
from returning to the abbey.
“Benedict
cried out, ‘God forgive you, Sister. What have you done?’ Scholastica replied, ‘I
asked a favour of you and you refused. I asked it of God and he granted it.’
“Brother
and sister parted the next morning after their long discussion. Three days
later, Benedict was praying in his monastery and saw the soul of his sister
rising heavenward in the form of a white dove. Benedict then announced the
death of his sister to the monks and later buried her in the tomb he had
prepared for himself.”
Words of Wisdom – St Teresa of Avila
On November 29,
2013, Pope Francis announced that this year (2015) would be dedicated to
consecrated life, specifically its mission and identity. For several editions
of Bulletin Notes, we are sharing
some prayers from those who have helped shape communities of people living a
consecrated life. This week, it is a prayer of St Teresa of Avila
“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing
away:
“God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks
nothing;
God alone suffices.”
Meme of the week
This meme was found on
Pinterest. We also make our regular selection of imagery and graphics available
on Pinterest. Please subscribe or check it out at the link below: http://www.pinterest.com/brodie306/bulletin-notes-for-5th-sunday-in-ordinary-time/
OUR EYES AS WINDOWS TO OUR SOULS
The original article by Fr Ron Rolheiser can be found at http://ronrolheiser.com/our-eyes-as-windows-to-our-souls/#.VNWUUJ2UfAY
Most all of us worry about aging, especially in how it affects our bodies. We worry about wrinkles, bags under our eyes, middle-age fat, and losing hair where we want it only to find it on places where we don’t want it. So every now and then, when we look in a mirror or see a recent photograph of ourselves, we are shocked at our own faces and bodies, almost not recognizing ourselves as we see an old face and old body where we are used to seeing a young one.
But examining ourselves for signs of aging isn’t a bad practice, except that we should be looking for things other than wrinkles, loose skin, hair loss, and weight gain. With these bodily things, nature eventually has its way. Where we should be looking for signs of aging is in our eyes. It’s there where the real signs of aging and senility reveal themselves.
If we were to set up a mirror and stare straight into our own eyes, what would we see? Are our eyes tired, unenthusiastic, cynical, lifeless, dead? Do they radiate mostly anger and jealousy? Is there any fire there? Are they so deadened so as to be incapable of being surprised? Have they lost their innocence? Is there still a child buried somewhere behind them?
The real signs of senility are betrayed by the eyes, not the body. Loose skin merely reveals that we are aging physically, nothing more. Bodies age and die in a process as inevitable and natural as the changing of the seasons, but dead eyes signify a more deadly senility, something less natural, a fatigued spirit. Spirits are meant to be forever young, forever childlike, forever innocent. They are not meant to deaden and die. But they can die through a lack of passion, through the illusion of familiarity, through a loss of innocence and wonder, through a fatigue of the spirit, and through practical despair.
Despair is a curious thing. Mostly we despair not because we grow weary of the shortcomings and sufferings in life and, at last, find life too much to take. Rather we despair for the opposite reason, namely, we grow cynical of joy. Joy lies in experiencing life as fresh, as novel, as primal, as a child does, with a certain purity of spirit. This type of joy is not pleasure, though there’s pleasure in it. Pleasure of course can be had without joy but that kind of pleasure is the product of a lack of wonder and reverence in experiencing. That kind of pleasure is initially experienced as a victory, as a throwing off of naiveté, as liberation; but it soon turns into defeat, into dullness, boredom, and a deadened eros. Our palate loses its itch for tasting. Our enthusiasm dies and a certain fatigue of the soul sets in. There is nothing left in us that’s fresh and young, and our eyes begin to show this. They lose their sparkle, their childlikeness.
In her poignant novel, Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence describes her heroine, a despairing lady named Hagar, looking into a mirror and saying to herself: “I stood for a long time, looking, wondering how a person could change so much…So gradually it happens. The face – a brown and leathery face that wasn’t mine. Only the eyes were mine, staring as though to pierce the lying glass and get beneath to some true image, infinitely distant.”
A good look in the mirror for most of us, sadly, reveals much the same, a lifeless face that’s not really ours and dull eyes, our own, but hidden beneath a lying glass. Somewhere the fire has gone out; our eyes and face are devoid of wonder and innocence.
What’s to be done? We need to take a good long look at ourselves in a mirror and study our eyes, long and hard, and let what we see shock us enough to move us towards the road of unlearning, of post-sophistication, of wonder, or renewed innocence. Here’s the counsel: Go to mirror and stare into your eyes long enough until you see there again the boy or girl who once inhabited that space. In that, wonder will be born, a sparkle will return and, with it, a freshness that can make you young again.
Our eyes don’t grow tired, rather they get buried. That’s what causes the blank, passionless stare. Bodies tire, but eyes are windows to the soul and they are forever eager to see. One of the contrasts between Christianity and Buddhism has to do with the eyes. The Buddhist saint is always depicted with his or her eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek, harmonious body, but his or her eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The Christian saint’s body is wasted to the bone, but his or her eyes are alive, hungry, staring. The Buddhist’s eyes are focused inwardness. The Christian’s eyes are staring outwards, hungry, full of wonder.
All of Nature Has Soul
This reflection is from an email by Fr Richard Rohr posted on 6th February 2015
Love is a deep empathy with the
other's "Beingness." You recognize yourself, your essence, in the
other. And so you can no longer inflict suffering on the other. - Eckhart Tolle
Eco-spirituality allows you to
start seeing your own soul imaged and given back to you in the soul of
everything else, because people who have allowed their own soul to be awakened
will recognize that soul in other places too! Soulless people will not see that.
Once you are reconnected, it's no longer a disenchanted universe, but in fact,
quite the opposite.
If we realized we were
connected, we could never have poured chemicals and pollutants into the rivers
of the world. We could never have filled the earth with trash and garbage and
eternal plastic and Styrofoam if we had experienced the soul of the world or if
we had suffered, as the Latin poet Virgil wrote, "the tears of
things." But the material world was of no consequence to most of us. The
world was just here as a backdrop while we humans tried to "get to
heaven." Please notice that the Bible ends with a promise of "a new
heavens and a new earth" (Revelation 21:1). The whole Earth and all of
creation is participating in God's loving redemption, liberation, and
salvation. Stingy people manufactured quite a stingy God, whose love was
anything but infinite, eternal, or perfect. As a result most people just lost
interest. (If you doubt me, look at the dismal European and American statistics
around religion.)
Our lovely theory of redemption
increasingly applied to only humans, and then fewer and fewer of them. Once the
scarcity model takes over, it just keeps moving! Later Christian history did
not envision God saving humanity/history as a whole, but just individuals. The
genius of the Hebrew Scriptures, which formed Jesus, was that God was saving
Israel, history, humanity! It was very different from our much later notion of
God saving isolated people here and there--because they were "nice,"
and even that niceness was largely determined by the cultural and ethnic
standards of each era. This was not necessarily a love of Jesus or a
participation in God's "salvation history"; it was getting Jesus to
participate in our little project. We could not believe in God's infinite
victory, so we created a small victory where we could determine the outcome. We
ended up with a simplistic reward/punishment contest at which very few would
consider themselves even candidates for the contest.
Try reversing this oft used statement:
"Jesus came to fulfill us" to "We have come to fulfill
Christ." We are each invited to offer our unique and little selves
"to create a unity in the work of service and thus build up the Body"
(Ephesians 4:12). We are part of a movement of the ever-growing Cosmic Christ
that is coming to be in "one great big act of giving birth" (Romans
8: 22-23). In Christ, "everything is reconciled, in heaven and on
Earth" (Colossians 1:17). The eternal Christ saves us all by including us
all. And we are all saved, largely in spite of ourselves, by grace and
mercy--no exceptions! That is the perfection of the divine victory.
So it's not about being correct:
it's about being connected. When you are connected to the whole chain, held in
the nest of being, you can easily live out of a worldview of infinite and
divine abundance rather than a "not enough love to go around" model
that only creates fearful, fighting, and stingy people, pushing themselves to
the front of the line because they are afraid there is not enough of God to
fill and free everything.
Adapted from A New Cosmology:
Nature as the First Bible, disc 1 (CD, MP3 download);
Christ, Cosmology and
Consciousness (MP3 download);
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