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 17th - 20th February, 2015
Tuesday: 9:30am
Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe, Penguin
12noon Devonport
7:00pm Ulverstone
Thursday: 10:30am
Karingal Nursing Home
Friday: 11:00am Mt St Vincents Nursing Home
Next
Weekend 21st & 22nd February, 2015
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell, 9am Ulverstone,
10:30am Devonport, 11am Sheffield
(LWC),
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) Commences Thursdays - 7:30pm
Christian Meditation - Devonport, Emmaus House - Wednesdays 7pm.
Ministry Rosters 21st & 22nd
February, 2015
Devonport:
Readers:
Vigil: P Douglas, T
10.30am: J Phillips, P Piccolo, K Pearce
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 20th Feb: F Sly, M Hansen, R McBain
27th Feb: P Shelverton, E
Petts
Piety Shop 21st Feb: R
McBain 22nd Feb: D French Flowers: M Breen, S Fletcher
Ulverstone:
Reader: B O'Rourke Ministers of Communion: E Standring , M Fennell, L Hay, T Leary
Cleaners: K Bourke Flowers: M Byrne Hospitality: K Foster
Penguin:
Greeters: G & N Pearce Commentator: E Nickols Readers: M Kenny, J Barker
Procession: Kiely Family Ministers of Communion: J Barker,
A Guest
Liturgy: Pine
Road
Port Sorell:
Readers: V Duff, G Duff Ministers of Communion: P Anderson
Clean /Prepare/Flowers: G
Bellchambers, M Gillard
Latrobe:
Reader: P Cotterell Ministers of Communion: I Campbell, M Mackey
Procession: J Hyde & Co Music: Hermie & Co
Your prayers are asked for the sick: Emma Newton, Valerie & Tom
Nicolson, Reg Hinkley, Margaret Hoult, Tony
Hyde, Peter Bolster, Ted Dolliver, Tim Hancock, Helen
Williams, Leonie Heron, Eva Zvatora, Peg Leary, Adrian Brennan, Candida Tenaglia, Yvonne
Harvey, Shirley White, Kath Smith & ...
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Doug Howard, Andrew
Cooper, Bob Lovell, Tony Wesley, Veronica Obiorah, Irena Vorlicek, Brillance
Denver Balido, John Mansfield, Noreen Sheehan, Peter Burton, Allan Conroy, Dorothy Bell, Barry
Lyons and Joan Blumenberg.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time:
Venus Martin, Audrey Cabalzar, Nancy
Kelly, Leo Castles, Geraldine Piper, Brian Maller,
Frederick Breen, Mervyn Burke, Joyce McConnon, Lyell Byrne and deceased relatives
and friends of Ravaillion & Robertson Family. Also Constancia Daguman-Daug,
Emeterio Daug (duh-ug), Apolinario & Jessie Daug.
May they rest in peace
First Reading : Leviticus 13:1-2. 44-46
RESPONSORIAL PSALM (R.) I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you feel me with the joy of salvation.
Second Reading
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
Alleluia, alleluia! A great Prophet has appeared among us God has visited his people. Alleluia
Gospel: Mark 1:40-45
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL
I settle to pray quietly and try to relax into God’s
presence. Slowly, I read this familiar Gospel several times, ready to let it
speak to me anew.
Perhaps I can visualise the scene and sense the leper’s
alienation, hear his pathetic pleading….
Maybe I remember my own hurt or rejection… or I recall the
rejection of someone I know.
Or maybe I’m aware of my need of healing from my isolation,
sense of low self esteem or my bitterness.…
I turn to the Lord and try to speak to him about anything
that rises in my heart. Or I remain still and wait for his healing love to
touch me.
I may also contemplate Jesus — his immediate compassion for
the man and his situation, ‘Of course I want to!’, his willingness to stretch
out to the leper and touch him.
What feelings does this evoke in me?
How does this Gospel speak to me?
How can I quietly reach out to others in my life, my
community?
I conclude my prayer slowly, praying for the church, our
world and giving thanks to God for his healing love and for those in my life
who reach out to me.
First Reading
WEEKLY
RAMBLINGS:
Many thanks to all those who were able to join us for,
firstly, the Mass and then the Counter Meal to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady
of Lourdes on Wednesday – it is my hope that this will be an annual event.
Please note this will also be the practice for all the Mass Centre Feast Days.
This weekend the Project Compassion Boxes are available –
please take one today and place it in a prominent place in your home. Envelopes
are also available for those who wish to make their Lenten Commitment weekly.
Parishioners at Ulverstone – please do not fear that
nothing is happening regarding the placement of the Bell Alexandra Road
The Sacramental Program commences shortly – if you know of
Catholic children in one of our State Schools who is in Grade 4 (or older) who
might like to be part of the program please pass on the information included in
today’s newsletter.
On the Noticeboards this weekend there is information
regarding Catholic Youth Ministry major events – including the Palm Sunday
Pilgrimage, the Australian Catholic Youth Festival and World Youth Day 2016.
These are Date Claimers – please note.
You will also note that there is an A3 Calendar for February on the
Board (or somewhere close by) – the March edition will go up next weekend so if
there is anything of note you wish added please contact the Parish Office this
week.
Until next
week take care in your homes and on the roads
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
ST PATRICKS CHURCH LATROBE: Organist required for 2nd & 3rd
Sundays of the month for 5pm Mass.
HEALING
MASS:
Catholic Charismatic Renewal, are sponsoring a HEALING
MASS at St Mary’s Catholic Church Penguin on Thursday 26th February commencing
at 7.30pm. All welcome to come and celebrate the liturgy in a vibrant
and dynamic way using charismatic praise and worship, with the gifts of
tongues, prophecy, and anointing for healing. After Mass, teams will be
available for individual prayer. Please bring a friend and a plate for supper.
If you wish to know more or require local transport, please contact Celestine
Whiteley 6424:2043, Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068, Zoe Smith 6426:3073 or Tom
Knaap 6425:2442.
MACKILLOP HILL SPIRITUALITY CENTRE - WILLIAM ST FORTH
“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.
SPIRITUALITY IN THE COFFEE SHOPPE:
Monday 23rd February 10.30am – 12 noon Come along…share your issues and
enjoy a lively discussion over morning tea! Phone: 6428 3095
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 Stewart Street
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
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 our parish Holy Week liturgies. A meeting will be held
at Emmaus House Sunday 8th March from 2.00 pm - 3.30 pm - For further
information contact: Peter Douglas on 0419 302 435
Thursday
Nights - OLOL Hall, Devonport.
Eyes down
7.30pm!
Callers
for Thursday 19th February are
Rod Clark & Tony Ryan
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
BURNIE/WYNYARD PARISH: warmly welcome Rev Dr Elio Capra
to their Parish for the weekend 13th - 15th March at the McAuley Centre, Marist
Regional College, Burnie entrance off Futuna Avenue. Everyone is invited to an
inspirational time with Fr Elio whose talks will be based on the Joy of the
Gospel of Pope Francis. Please contact Burnie Parish
if you would like to attend.
RACHELS VINEYARD:
If you or someone you know is hurting emotionally or
spiritually because of abortion, Rachel's Vineyard can help you. At a weekend
retreat your pain will be transformed into love and hope for the future.
Confidentiality is assured. Phone 6229:8739 or email:
rachelsvineyardtas@aapt.net.au If you would like to support this healing
ministry please send your donation to: Rachel's Vineyard Catholic Retreats, PO Box 478 , Kingston
Dear Friends,
Welcome to Project Compassion 2015. This year's theme is
"Food for Life". As we all know, food is essential to sustain life,
yet many of the world's poorest people do not have a reliable food source, or
enough money to buy food every day.
As Pope Francis says: "It is a well-known fact that
current levels of production are sufficient, yet millions of people are still
suffering and dying of starvation. This is truly scandalous."
As Eucharistic people, we believe that no-one's bowl should
be empty. We share our bread with the hungry, imitating Jesus who gave himself
so that we would be full. This year Project Compassion focuses on the ways in
which Caritas Australia is working with partners around the world to empower
vulnerable people to establish sustainable food sources and develop income
streams for life.
Our theme aligns us closely with the Caritas
Internationalis global initiative "One human family, food for all",
aimed at ending hunger by 2025. It is inspiring to know we are part of a global
movement focussed on equality, dignity and justice for all people.
Thank you for supporting Caritas Australia
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Evangelii
Gaudium
“Our commitment
[to the poor] does not consist exclusively in activities or programmes of
promotion and assistance; what the Holy Spirit mobilises is not an unruly
activism, but above all an attentiveness which considers the other ‘in a
certain sense as one with ourselves.”
Par 199 from Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis, Nov.
24, 2013
Feast Day of the
Week – The Seven Holy Founders
of the Servite Order (Feb. 17)
“In
the cultured and prosperous city of
“Their
aim was to lead a life of penance and prayer, but they soon found themselves
disturbed by constant visitors from Florence
“In
1244, under the direction of St Peter of Verona
Words of Wisdom –St Clare of Assisi
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 will share some
prayers from those who have helped shape communities of people living a
consecrated life. This week, it is a prayer to St Clare of Assisi
“God of mercy, You inspired
St Clare with the love of poverty. By the help of her prayers, may we follow
Christ in poverty of spirit and come to the joyful vision of Your glory in the Kingdom of Heaven
Meme of the week
This meme was Tweeted by
someone with the user handle of Catholic Memes. If you recall that song by Redfoo
(he was the guy with the crazy hair on The
X Factor ), you might find this cute.
Don’t forget, we also
make our regular selection of imagery and graphics available on Pinterest.
Please subscribe or check out this week’s images here
OUR DAYDREAMS
An article by Fr Ron Rolheiser. The original can be found at http://ronrolheiser.com/our-daydreams/#.VN503_mUeNE
A good part of our lives are taken up with daydreams, though few of us admit that and even fewer of us would own-up to the contents of those fantasies. We’re ashamed to admit how much we escape into fantasy and we’re even more ashamed to reveal the content of those fantasies. But, whether we admit it or not, we’re all pathological daydreamers; except this isn’t necessarily a pathology. Our hearts and minds, chronically frustrated by the limits of our lives, naturally seek solace in daydreaming. It’s an almost irresistible temptation. Indeed the more sensitive you are, perhaps the stronger will be the propensity to escape into daydreams. Sensitivity triggers restlessness and restlessness doesn’t easily find quiet inside ordinary life. Hence, the escape into daydreams.
And what about the contents of those daydreams?
We tend to have two kinds of daydreams: The first kind are triggered more by the immediate hurts and temptations within our lives; for example, a lingering hurt or anger has you fantasizing about revenge and you play out various scenes of retaliation over and over again in your mind. Or an emotional or sexual obsession has you fantasying about various kinds of consummation.
The other kind of daydream we escape into is not so much triggered by the hurts and obsessions of the present moment but takes its root in something deeper, something classically expressed by St. Augustine in the opening lines of his Confessions (a hermeneutical key for his life and our own): You have made us for yourself Lord and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Simply put, we are over-charged for our lives, given infinite spirits and infinite appetites and put into this world wherein everything is finite. That’s a formula for chronic dissatisfaction. What’s our escape? Daydreams.
However these second kind of daydreams are somewhat different from the first. They aren’t so much focused on the immediate angers and temptations in our lives but rather are the habitual imaginary lives that we have interiorly fashioned for ourselves, fantasy lives that we play over and over again in our minds the way we might play and replay a favorite movie. But there’s something interesting and important to note here. In these daydreams we are never petty or small, rather we are always noble and grand, the hero or the heroine, generous, big-hearted, immune from faults, drawing perfect respect, and making perfect love. In these daydreams we, in fact, intuit the vision of Isaiah where he foresees a perfect world, the lamb the lion lying down together, the sick being healed, the hungry being fed, all restlessness being brought to calm, and God, himself, drying away every tear. Isaiah too fantasied about perfect consummation. His fantasy was a prophecy. In our earthy fantasies we might not prophesize but we do intuit the Kingdom of God.
With that being said, we still need to ask ourselves: How good or bad is it to escape into daydreams?
At one level, daydreams are not just harmless but can be a positive form of relaxation and a way to steady us inside the frustrations of our lives. Sitting back in an easy chair and sinking into a daydream can be little different than sitting back and turning on your favorite piece of music. It can be an escape that takes the edge off of the frustrations within your life.
But there’s a potential downside to this: Since in our daydreams we are always the hero or the heroine and the center of attention and admiration, our daydreams can easily stoke our natural narcissism. Since we are the center of everything in our daydreams we can easily become over-frustrated with a world within which we are not much the center of anything. And there’s more: Etty Hillesum, reflecting on her own experience, suggests another negative consequence from habitually escaping into daydreams. She affirms that because we make ourselves the center of the universe inside our daydreams we often end up not being able to give anything or anybody the simple gaze of admiration. Rather, in her strong words, in our daydreams we take in what we should be admiring and, instead, masturbate with it. For this reason, among others, daydreams help block us from mindfulness, from being in the present moment. When we are all wrapped-up in fantasy it’s hard to see what’s in front of us.
So where should we go with all of this? Given both the good and bad within our daydreams and given our near-incurable propensity to escape into fantasy, we need to be patient with ourselves. Henri Nouwen suggests that the struggle to turn our fantasies into prayer is one of the great congenital struggles within our spiritual lives. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin shares in his journals that when he was young he struggled a lot with fantasy but, as he grew older, he was able more and more to stand in the present moment without the need to escape into daydreams. That’s the task we need to set before ourselves.
God Is in All Things
The whole universe together participates in the divine
goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature could
by itself.
-Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologica, I, 47, 1
The "Catholic
synthesis" of the early Middle Ages was exactly that--a synthesis that
held together for its adherents one coherent world, a positive intellectual
vision that was not defined by "against-ness" or enemies, but by
"the clarity and beauty of form." You see it architecturally in the art
forms of the European cathedrals like Salisbury, Cologne, Orvieto, and Vezelay.
It was a cosmic egg of meaning, a vision of Creator and a multitude of
creatures that excluded nothing. The Great Chain of Being was the first
holistic metaphor for the new seeing offered us by the Incarnation: Jesus as
the living icon of integration, "the coincidence of opposites" who
"holds all things in unity" within himself (Colossians 1:15-20). God
is One. God is whole, and everything else in creation can now be seen as a
holon (a part that mimics, replicates, and somehow includes the whole).
Sadly, we seldom saw
the Catholic synthesis move beyond philosophers' books and mystics' prayers and
some architecture. The rest of us often remained in a fragmented and dualistic
world, usually looking for the contaminating element to punish or the unworthy
member to expel. While still daring to worship the cosmic Scapegoat--Jesus--we
scapegoated the other links in the Great Chain of Being. We have been unwilling
to see the Divine Image in those we judged to be inferior or unworthy: sinners,
heretics, animals, the poor, the bounty of the Earth, the Earth itself, and
often we must admit half of the human species called women. Once the Great
Chain of Being was broken or disbelieved, we were soon unable to see the Divine
Image in our own species, except for "men" just like us. This was the
dominant view called patriarchy that formed most cultures, and in some cultures
lasting until today. Of course the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries
and modern secularism denied the whole heavenly and divine links altogether--an
attitude unknown in all of human history until the recent West and the cultures
that we colonized.
As the medieval
teachers predicted, once the Great Chain of Being was broken, and any one link
not honored and included, the whole vision collapsed. It seems that either we
acknowledge that God is in all things or we have lost the basis for seeing God
in anything, including ourselves.
Adapted from Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision
of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety, p. 136
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