Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
To be a vibrant Catholic Community
unified in its commitment
to growing disciples for Christ
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Jenny Garnsey
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Parents are asked to contact the Parish Office to make arrangements for attending a Baptismal Preparation Session and booking a Baptism date.
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)
Care and Concern: If you are aware of anyone who is sick or in need of assistance in the Parish please visit them. Then, if they are willing and give permission, could you please pass on their names to the Parish Office. We have a group of parishioners who are part of the Care and Concern Group who are willing and able to provide some backup and support to them. Unfortunately, because of privacy issues, the Parish Office is not able to give out details unless prior permission has been given.
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Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
We thank you for gathering us together
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission
of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.
Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will
for the spiritual renewal of our parish.
Give us strength, courage, and clear vision
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,
and ask for her intercession and guidance
as we strive to bear witness
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: - first Friday of each month.
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – beginning Monday 20th March meetings will be held in the Community Room, Ulverstone commencing at 7pm. PLEASE NOTE No meeting on 13th March.
Weekday Masses 14th - 17th March, 2017 Next Weekend 18th & 19th March, 2017
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe Devonport
Thursday: 10:30am Karingal Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
Friday 11:00am Mt St
Vincent … St Patrick’s Day 9:00am Ulverstone
12noon Latrobe Feast Day Mass 10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield 5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 18th & 19th March, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: A McIntyre, M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye 10:30am J Phillips, K Pearce, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil T Muir, M Davies, M Gerrand, M Kenney, D Peters, J Heatley
Vigil T Muir, M Davies, M Gerrand, M Kenney, D Peters, J Heatley
10.30am: B & N
Mulcahy, L Hollister, K Hull, S Samarakkody, R Batepola
Cleaners 17th
March: M Greenhill 24th March: K.S.C.
Piety Shop 18th
March: R McBain 19th March: P Piccolo No flowers during Lent
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: B
O’Rourke, J Pisarskis
Ministers of Communion: M Mott, M Fennell, T Leary
Ministers of Communion: M Mott, M Fennell, T Leary
Cleaners: M
McKenzie, M Singh, N Pearce Hospitality:
M McLaren
Penguin:
Greeters: Fefita Family Commentator: E Nickols Readers: Fefita Family
Ministers of Communion: J Barker, M Murray
Liturgy: Pine Road Setting Up: A Landers Care of Church: Y & R Downes
Reader: P Marlow Minister of Communion: I Campbell, Z Smith Procession of
gifts: Parishioner
Port Sorell:
Readers: L Post, T Jeffries Ministers of
Communion: P Anderson Clean/Flow/Prepare: V Youd
Readings this week Second Sunday of Lent
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 1:8-10
Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
I ask the Lord to come close as I still myself for prayer,
perhaps focusing gently on my breathing.
I rest here in God’s presence for a little while.
I may like to pray the Gospel scene with the help of my senses, imagining the steep climb up the mountain ... the hard rocks under my feet … the changing light ... the faces of the disciples ... Jesus himself.
I notice what I see, how I feel.
Today the disciples see their familiar friend and leader gloriously transfigured.
I consider these two aspects of Jesus – the Son of God, fully human, and fully divine.
Presently, I may want to ask: Who is Jesus for me?
How do I want to respond to him?
I spend as long as I like with this.
In time, Jesus and the disciples must descend the mountain and return to the world, with all its hard realities.
I may like to linger a little longer in the Lord’s company, reflecting on my own need for moments of solitude with him.
How does this help me as I go about my own daily life?
I talk to the Lord about this, and ask him for anything I need.
In time I take my leave, speaking out my gratitude. Glory be to the Father ...
I rest here in God’s presence for a little while.
I may like to pray the Gospel scene with the help of my senses, imagining the steep climb up the mountain ... the hard rocks under my feet … the changing light ... the faces of the disciples ... Jesus himself.
I notice what I see, how I feel.
Today the disciples see their familiar friend and leader gloriously transfigured.
I consider these two aspects of Jesus – the Son of God, fully human, and fully divine.
Presently, I may want to ask: Who is Jesus for me?
How do I want to respond to him?
I spend as long as I like with this.
In time, Jesus and the disciples must descend the mountain and return to the world, with all its hard realities.
I may like to linger a little longer in the Lord’s company, reflecting on my own need for moments of solitude with him.
How does this help me as I go about my own daily life?
I talk to the Lord about this, and ask him for anything I need.
In time I take my leave, speaking out my gratitude. Glory be to the Father ...
Readings next week Third Sunday of
Lent
First reading: Exodus 17:3-7
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-2. 5-8
Gospel: John
4:5-42
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: John Munro, Sr Joy Hanrahan, David
Welch & …,
Let us pray for those who
have died recently: Bonifacia Claveria, Marie O'Halloran, Sr
Mary of the Trinity, Eduardo Tangan, Bill
Masterson, Keith
Harrison, Connie Fulton, Eileen Costello, Terri-Anne Horne, Anne Barnard.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 8th – 14th
March
Betty Waldon-Cruse, Graham Nicholson, Sybil Dobinson, David
Gibbens, Patrick O’Brien,
Betty Boskell, Bob McCormack, Leonie Heron, Kevin
Sheedy, Ken Bates, Max Fulton,
Betty Hocking, Ernest Collings, Amaya Stevens,
Edna Chatwin, Nancye Callinan, Terence Murphy,
Bernie & Frances
O’Sullivan and Henry Lizotte.
May
they rest in peace
Weekly Ramblings
This week we celebrate the Feast of St Patrick – a special
Feast Day in the life of the Australian Church. As usual there will be a midday
Mass in the local Centre (Latrobe) to celebrate the Feast with an invitation
from the children and staff of St Patrick’s Catholic School to join them in the
Hall for lunch following the Mass. All parishioners are welcome to come to
Latrobe for the Feast – if you intend to stay for the Luncheon could you please
let Fr Mike know by Wednesday morning, please.
This week our newsletter was printed on Wednesday so it is
before the Pastoral Council Meeting held that evening. Many of you have heard
me speak on numerous occasions about my Vision for the Parish and how I dream
of changes as to how some of our meetings might proceed in the future. At present we are still exploring what this
might look like but from all my reading and listening to different leaders from
various Church traditions and management I am now more firmly convinced of the
definition of insanity: doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results – Albert
Einstein. If we are to grow as a Faith Community we need to do things
differently, or at least with new purpose so, again, I am inviting you to come
with me on this journey to see new possibilities of being a vibrant Catholic
community.
A reminder that each week during Lent we have Stations of
the Cross on Friday evenings at Our Lady of Lourdes and Sacred Heart Churches
commencing at 7pm. This is a time of prayer and reflection on the Journey of
Jesus to Calvary and, in our busy week, a great way to reflect at the end of
the week about how we have been able to live our Lenten observance.
This weekend we welcome Archbishop Julian to the Parish as
he celebrates the Eucharist with the communities at Penguin and Port Sorell and
the Sunday morning community as Devonport. We hope that this will become a
regular event.
Please take care on the roads and in your homes,
Please donate to Project Compassion 2017
and help empower women in Timor-Leste to recover from domestic violence,
develop sustainable livelihoods, and lead a life of dignity.
OUR LENTEN LITURGY IN 2017:
Our words, actions and music in the liturgy lead us ever
deeper into the paschal mystery this Lent:
- After
the introduction, Mass begins with the priest greeting from the rear of
the church and then proceeds while Kyrie
Eleison or Lord have mercy is
sung. On the 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays of
Lent, the Rite of Sprinkling (Asperges) may take place during the singing
of the Kyrie. The name
‘Asperges’ comes from the first word in the 9th verse of Psalm 51 in
the Latin translation, the Vulgate.
- By
the use of violet/purple vestments. Violet recalls suffering, mourning,
simplicity and austerity.
- By
having moments of silence before and after the readings and after the
homily RGIRM (2007) 45.
- At
the breaking of the bread (the Fraction Rite) there will be a short
narrative before intoning the Lamb of God
- By
the absence of flowers due to the penitential nature of the season.
- There
is no recessional hymn (at the end of Mass). The congregation leaves the
church in silence after the celebrant.
- There
is no Gloria or Alleluia verse (replaced by a Gospel acclamation).
- Images
are veiled immediately before the 5th Sunday of Lent in
accordance with local custom.
- On
the 4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) flowers are permitted
as well as music (eg music – that is musical instruments – being played
during preparation of the gifts, or during the communion procession). Rose
vestments may be worn on this Sunday.
ST VINCENT DE PAUL COLLECTION:
This weekend in Devonport, Ulverstone, Port Sorell, Latrobe
and Penguin to assist the work of the St Vincent de Paul Society.
LENTEN PROGRAM 2017: Every Thursday for the next four weeks, Parish Hall
Devonport next to the Church, 10am until 11:30am. Contact Clare Kiely-Hoye
6428:2760
LEGION OF MARY: All Parishioners are invited to the Legion of Mary
annual Acias (Consecration to Our Lady) at Sacred Heart Church, Alexandra Road
Ulverstone Sunday 19th March at 2pm
with benediction, followed by afternoon tea in the Community Room.
OLOL READERS ROSTER:
Please collect a new roster from the sacristy, there is a
mistake on page 2 of your present roster.
GRAN’S VAN: The month of April has again been
allocated to our Parish to assist with Gran’s Van on the five Sundays in that
month. Help is required as follows, (a) cooking a stew, (meat will be
supplied), (b) assisting with the food distribution, (c) driving the van.
Helping with (b) and (c) would take about two hours of your time 6:30pm –
8:30pm. If you are able to assist with any of the above please contact Lyn
Otley 6424:4736 or Shirley Ryan 6424:1508.
FOOTY
TICKETS:
Its AFL footy season again and we are selling footy margin
tickets. Buy a ticket (or two!) $2.00 each – three prizes of $100.00 every
week!! The footy margin is from the Friday
night game each week. Tickets will be available next weekend. The first
game is Collingwood v Western Bulldogs on Friday 24th March. Season
tickets ($64.00 – including grand final $10 ticket) can be purchased from
Parish Office.
Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall,
Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 16th
March Rod Clark & Alan Luxton.
Mersey
Leven Catholic Parish Community congratulate a real 80 year old
as we
celebrate with Willie Bajzelj
who turned
80 on Thursday (not Fr Phil who has six years to go!)
Congratulations
Willie and best wishes from us all.
THE FLAVOR OF GOD’S ENERGY
This article is by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original web address is here
All things considered, I believe that I grew up with a relatively healthy concept of God. The God of my youth, the God that I was catechized into, was not unduly punishing, arbitrary, or judgmental. He was omnipresent, so that all of our sins were noticed and noted, but, at the end of the day, he was fair, loving, personally concerned for each of us, and wonderfully protective, to the point of providing each of us with a personal guardian angel. That God gave me permission to live without too much fear and without any particularly crippling religious neuroses.
But that only gets you so far in life. Not having an unhealthy notion of God doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a particularly healthy one. The God whom I was raised on was not overly stern and judgmental, but neither was he very joyous, playful, witty, or humorous. Especially, he wasn’t sexual, and had a particularly vigilant and uncompromising eye in that area. Essentially he was grey, a bit dour, and not very joyous to be around. Around him, you had to be solemn and reverent. I remember the Assistant Director at our Oblate novitiate telling us that there is no recorded incident, ever, of Jesus having laughed.
Under such a God you had permission to be essentially healthy, but, to the extent that you took him seriously, you still walked through life less than fully robust and your relationship with him could only be solemn and reverent.
Then, already a generation ago, there was a strong reaction in many churches and in the culture at large to this concept of God. Popular theology and spirituality set out to correct this, sometimes with an undue vigor. What they presented instead was a laughing Jesus and a dancing God and while this was not without its value it still left us begging for a deeper literature about the nature of God and what that might mean for us in terms of a health and relationships.
That literature won’t be easy to write, not just because God is ineffable, but because God’s energy is also ineffable. What, indeed, is energy? We rarely ask this question because we take energy as something so primal that it cannot be defined but only taken as a given, as self-evident. We see energy as the primal force that lies at the heart of everything that exists, animate and inanimate. Moreover, we feel energy, powerfully, within ourselves. We know energy, we feel energy, but what we rarely recognize its origins, its prodigiousness, its joy, its goodness, its effervescence, and its exuberance. We rarely recognize what it tells us about God. What does it tell us?
The first quality of energy is its prodigiousness. It is prodigal beyond our imagination and this speaks something about God. What kind of creator makes billions of throwaway universes? What kind of creator makes trillions upon trillions of species of life, millions of them never to be seen by the human eye? What kind of father or mother has billions of children?
And what does the exuberance in the energy of young children say about our creator? What does their playfulness suggest about what must also lie inside of sacred energy? What does the energy of a young puppy tell us about what’s sacred? What do laughter, wit, and irony tell us about the God?
No doubt the energy we see around us and feel irrepressibly within us tells us that, underneath, before and below everything else, there flows a sacred force, both physical and spiritual, which is at its root, joyous, happy, playful, exuberant, effervescent, and deeply personal and loving. That energy is God. That energy speaks of God and that energy tells us why God made us and what kind of permissions God is giving us for living out our lives.
When we try to imagine the heart of reality, we might picture things this way: At the very center of everything there sit two thrones, on one sits a King and on the other sits a Queen, and from these two thrones issues forth all energy, all creativity, all power, all love, all nourishment, all joy, all playfulness, all humor, and all beauty. All images of God are inadequate, but this image hopefully can help us understand that God is perfect masculinity and perfect femininity making perfect love all the time and that from this union issues forth all energy and all creation. Moreover that energy, at its sacred root, is not just creative, intelligent, personal, and loving, it’s also joyous, colorful, witty, playful, humorous, erotic, and exuberant at it very core. To feel it is an invitation to gratitude.
The challenge of our lives is to live inside that energy in a way that honors it and its origins. That means keeping our shoes off before the burning bush as we respect its sacredness, even as we take from it permission to be more robust, free, joyous, humorous, and playful – and especially more grateful.
5 THINGS YOUR CHURCH SHOULD “GIVE UP” FOR LENT
From the weekly blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church ofthe Nativity, Baltimore MA. The original blog can be found here
In scripture, every significant season of activity or growth was preceded by a sustained period of prayer and fasting. Our faith picks up that tradition for Lent. But Lent isn’t just a time to pray and reflect as individuals, but as an entire church community.
Depending on the authenticity of that discernment of “giving up” something for Lent, the effect can range from a frivolous exercise to serious spiritual transformation. Even though we’re now a week into it, here are a few ideas your church can consider giving up together.
Criticizing Others
There’s a proper time and way for constructive criticism, but we often fool ourselves that we follow it. We are often quite generous in how we distribute judgments against the Pope, the Bishops, the “Church,” the “Culture,” or other people. At the end of the day, healthy churches are not defined by who and what they are against. What does your church stand for? Ultimately, the unhealthy habit of criticizing our brothers and sisters makes it more difficult to convincingly stand for Christ. If you spend a lot of time criticizing others, try this penance- make a list of what you respect and affirm about the person you are tempted to bring down.
Gossip
The biggest killer of a healthy church culture is gossip. (Of course pastors never fall into this one about each other). It accomplishes nothing and slowly saps the life and trust of your community. Cut it out and experience immediate results, guaranteed. If it’s something you wouldn’t say to that person’s face, don’t say it to another. Go a step further- If someone is gossiping to you, reclaim the conversation saying something positive about the person.
Doing Too Much
We think of deserts as dead places, but there is actually a lot of life in the desert – it just learns to thrive efficiently and effectively on what is essential. Lenten reflection is meant to expose what is essential and nonessential to our spiritual lives, and the same things go for parishes. Usually we find it’s crowded with a lot of junk and activities. Over the course of Lent at your church, discuss with each other, “How can we do less to be more?”
Indifference
For Lent a couple years ago, Pope Francis told us we “fast from indifference.” Who are we indifferent towards in our own congregation and zip code? The church exists to make a difference in the lives of the unchurched and lost in your community. Pastor Bill Hybels calls this cultivating a “holy discontent.” Let your Lenten fast fan the flame for your church’s mission.
Giving Up
Church work is hard work. Your church might feel like its been in a desert for a long time and you just want to give up. Remember during Lent you are on a journey unlike any other person’s. Don’t give up on God, your church, your staff or volunteers, or yourself. You and I are not there yet, but we are where God wants us right now. Name the thing you’re tempted to give up, and then give up thinking about giving up.
Conversations with
Nature
This reflection is taken from the Daily email series by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Although creation may be “wordless,” we can still dialogue
with it as St. Francis did. Bill Plotkin suggests a practice of “talking across
the species boundaries” in his book Soulcraft that expands upon last week's
contemplative practice of presence to Presence within an ordinary object:
Go wandering [in nature]. Bring your journal. . . . Wander
aimlessly until you feel called by something that draws your attention, by way
of an attraction, a curiosity, an allurement, a repulsion, a fear. . . .
Whatever it is, sit and observe it closely for a good length of time. Interact
with your senses, offer your full visual and aural attention to the Other.
Record in your journal what you observe.
Then introduce yourself, out loud—yes, out loud. . . . Tell
this being about yourself. . . . Tell the truth, your deepest, most intimate
truth. In addition to ordinary human language, you might choose to speak with
song, poetry . . . movement, gesture, dance. Then, using the same speech
options, tell that being everything about it you have noticed. . . . Keep
communicating no matter what . . . until it interrupts you.
Then stop and listen. Listen with your ears, eyes, nose,
skin, intuition, feeling, and imagination. . . . In your journal, record and/or
draw what happens. Offer the Other your gratitude and a gift . . . a song, a
dance, a lock of hair, praise . . . some water. . . .
Enter your conversations with the Others with the intention
of learning about them and developing a relationship, but don’t be surprised if
you thereby discover more about yourself. [1]
And, I would add, more about God who created them.
Reference:
[1] Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of
Nature and Psyche (New World Library: 2003), 168-169.
A Short History of Lent
As we each find our own ways to mark the season of Lent, we follow in the footsteps of centuries of Christians who have spent time preparing to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. How did the Church's understanding of the forty days of Lent change between the Council of Nicaea in the 4th century and the Second Vatican Council? Church historian Norman Tanner SJ gives a short history of this time of joy and preparation. The original of this article can be found here.
The earliest mention of Lent in the history of the Church comes from the council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The council of Nicaea is best known for the profession of faith – the ‘Nicene Creed’ – which is still recited in most parishes every Sunday immediately after the sermon. However, the council also issued twenty canons of a practical nature, dealing with various aspects of church life, and the fifth of these canons speaks of Lent.
The word used for Lent in this fifth canon is tessarakonta (in the original Greek), which means ‘forty’. For the first time in recorded history, we have mention of this period of preparation for Easter as lasting forty days. Much earlier, Christians had introduced Easter Sunday to celebrate Christ’s resurrection. Soon afterwards, a period of two or three days preparation, specially commemorating Christ’s passion and death – the ‘Holy Week’ part of Lent today – had been adopted by various Christian communities. But the first mention of a preparatory period lasting the forty days comes from this fifth canon of Nicaea.
The length of time was adopted in imitation of the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert at the beginning of his public ministry:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights and afterwards he was famished. (Matthew 4:1-2)
In many languages the word for Lent implies ‘forty’: Quaresima deriving from quaranta (forty) in Italian; Cuaresma coming from cuarenta in Spanish; Carême deriving from ‘quarante’ in French. The English word ‘Lent’ has another, very beautiful derivation. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon (early English) word meaning to ‘lengthen’. Lent comes at a time when the hours or daytime are ‘lengthening’, as spring approaches, and so it is a time when we too can ‘lengthen’ spiritually, when we can stretch out and grow in the Spirit.
We should not, therefore, place too much emphasis upon our own efforts. Just as the sun was thought to do the work of ‘lengthening’ the days during early Springtime, so it is the sun – in the sense of God’s warmth and light – that does this work in our ‘lengthening’ and growing in Christ. In the English language, indeed, we have a beautiful play on the words ‘sun’ and ‘son’, which are pronounced identically. Just as the sun was seen to do the work of ‘lengthening’ the days in spring, so it is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who does the work of ‘lengthening’ in our spiritual growth. This image provides a comfort for us in our busy modern world, where hyperactivity can become the norm. Our role during Lent is to cooperate with God’s grace and initiatives, in a sense to relax in the presence of God, rather than to force the pace with our own efforts.
Scripture and the early Church suggested a variety of ways in which this ‘lengthening’ might come about, a variety of ways in which we can cooperate with God’s grace. The passage from chapter 4 in Matthew’s Gospel, just mentioned, emphasised the role of fasting. Canon 5 of the council of Nicaea emphasised rather the importance of forgiveness and harmony within the Christian community. Thus a synod (local church council) was to be held ‘before Lent so that, all pettiness being set aside, the gift offered to God may be unblemished’. Various other features of Lent came to be drawn in, as we shall see.
Lent is very ecumenical. At the time of the council of Nicaea, the Church was still united, East and West. We are long before the sad division of the Church into Catholics and Orthodox, which came about in the eleventh century. Indeed the council of Nicaea belongs principally to the Eastern Church: the city lies in modern Turkey. Most Protestant churches recognise the authority of the early councils and therefore, at least tacitly, the canons of Nicaea. Article 21 of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, in the form first promulgated in 1563, states explicitly that respect should be given to the council of Nicaea. In keeping Lent, therefore, Christians can celebrate the Eastern roots of their faith. They can rejoice, too, that despite the sad divisions which still remain, unity among them is fundamental. Christians are much more united than divided.
It is important to remember that Lent is a joyful season. The first Preface for the Mass in Lent makes the point very elegantly:
Each year you give us this joyful season
when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery
with mind and heart renewed.
You give us a spirit of loving reverence for you, our Father,
and of willing service to our neighbor.
As we recall the great events that gave us a new life in Christ,
you bring to perfection within us the image of your Son.
Perhaps it is unnecessary to emphasise this joyful aspect of Lent, but the older among us may remember a more negative emphasis. As boys at school we were urged to give up sweets during Lent, and the months of February and March were quite a bleak time anyway. Various pleasures, such as watching films, were cancelled. Some asceticism is important, of course, but it is essential to place the discipline within its proper and positive context: purification so that we can receive God’s gifts more fully.
This twofold dimension of Lent – joy and preparation – is elaborated in the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium, 109-10). The passage is worth quoting in full:
109. The season of Lent has a twofold character: primarily by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, it disposes the faithful, who more diligently hear the word of God and devote themselves to prayer, to celebrate the paschal mystery. This twofold character is to be brought into greater prominence both in the liturgy and by liturgical catechesis. Hence:
a) More use is to be made of the baptismal features proper to the Lenten liturgy; some of them, which used to flourish in bygone days, are to be restored as may seem good.
b) The same is to apply to the penitential elements. As regards instruction it is important to impress on the minds of the faithful not only a social consequences of sin but also that essence of the virtue of penance which leads to the detestation of sin as an offence against God; the role of the Church in penitential practices is not to be passed over, and the people must be exhorted to pray for sinners.
110. During Lent penance should not be only internal and individual, but also external and social. The practice of penance should be fostered in ways that are possible in our own times and in different regions, and according to the circumstances of the faithful; it should be encouraged by the authorities mentioned in Art. 22 [the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop].
Nevertheless, let the paschal fast be kept sacred. Let it be celebrated everywhere on Good Friday and, where possible, prolonged throughout Holy Saturday, so that the joys of the Sunday of the resurrection may be attained with uplifted and clear mind.
The council of Nicaea in 325 and the Second Vatican Council may be seen as the two poles in the history of Lent: Nicaea acknowledged its existence while Vatican II confirmed its importance. The sixteen centuries between the two councils saw a variety of developments in the way Christians observed this season.
At an early date, the last week of Lent – ‘Holy Week’ – became distinct and focused on the last days of Christ’s life on earth, followed by his resurrection. This was an obvious development inasmuch as the week tied in with the overall chronology suggested by the gospel writers (the precise chronology is debated by scholars). The ‘week’ begins with Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:21-38; John 12:12-18). It moves to the ‘Last Supper’ with his disciples on Maundy Thursday – ‘Maundy’ deriving from the Latin mandatum, meaning commandment, following Christ’s invitation: ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you’ (John 13,34) – and his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, followed by his arrest and the beginning of his trial. Good Friday – ‘good’ in the sense that it is the day on which our redemption is realised – commemorates the bitter details of Christ’s passion: his scourging and crowning with thorns; his condemnation by Pontius Pilate; his journey to Calvary; his death on the cross; and his burial. Holy Saturday quietly remembers Christ’s time in the tomb, and Easter Sunday rejoices in his resurrection ‘on the third day’ – ‘third’ in the sense of counting Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The long, earlier part of Lent sought to relive more directly Christ’s forty days in the desert, giving Christians appropriate time for quiet, prayer and purification. The psalms and the scripture readings which make up the Divine Office – the seven ‘hours’ of Matins (morning prayer), Lauds (Praise), Terce (third hour after sunrise), Sext (sixth hour), None (ninth hour), Vespers (evening prayer) and Compline (final prayer) – were selected to harmonise with this ‘Lenten’ spirit. The readings during Holy Week followed closely the story presented in the gospels together with suitable readings from the Old Testament and other parts of the New Testament – specially notable are the four ‘Songs of the Suffering Servant’ from the book of Isaiah (42:1-9, 49:1-7, 50:4-9 and 52:13-53:12) which provide the first readings at the Masses for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of this week.
Appropriate colours also came to be chosen for the vestments worn by the priests and other celebrants at the liturgical services. Purple is prevalent during Lent, the colour signifying both penance and hope; red is chosen for Good Friday, signifying Christ’s shedding of blood and his martyrdom; while the colour for Maundy Thursday as well as for the Easter vigil and Easter itself is white, celebrating Christ’s triumph. In these colours we find proper attention paid to the visible and sensitive dimensions of the liturgy and of human life.
Many of the details of the liturgy of Lent today – including the use of English and other vernacular languages rather than Latin – came about through the reforms inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council, for which we can be truly grateful. The reform of the liturgy of Holy Week, however, was largely the work of Pope Pius XII in the decade before the summoning of Vatican II. Another recent recovery from the early Church is the reception of catechumens into the Church on Maundy Thursday, which, as the celebration of the Last Supper, is a particularly appropriate day for catechumens to receive Communion (the Eucharist) for the first time. A wonderful occasion for me occurred when, during a period of teaching in Malaysia, I was privileged to witness the reception of some hundred adult catechumens, and their first Communion, during the Maundy Thursday liturgy in the parish church of St Francis Xavier in Petaling Jaya.
Vatican II explicitly linked the catechumenate and Lent. So we may appropriately conclude this short History of Lent by quoting from the council’s decree on Missionary activity:
It is to be desired that the liturgy of the Lenten and Paschal seasons should be restored in such a way as to dispose the hearts of the catechumens to celebrate the Easter mystery at whose solemn ceremonies they are reborn to Christ through baptism.
But this Christian initiation in the catechumenate should be taken care of not only by catechists or priests, but by the entire community of the faithful, so that right from the outset the catechumens may feel that they belong to the people of God. And since the life of the Church is an apostolic one, the catechumens also should learn to cooperate wholeheartedly, by the witness of their lives and by the profession of their faith, in the spread of the Gospel and in the building up of the Church. (Ad gentes, 14).
Norman Tanner SJ teaches Church History at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
I CAN BUT TRY (1)
This article is from the blog - Along The Edge - by Fr Val Farrell. The original blog can be found here
I shall be dying soon. Not too soon I hope, but soon enough to justify my saying so.
I am told that the last "oldest person" to die in this country had just turned 113. As I shall be 77 this August, even if I live long enough to earn a place in the record books, I am already well on the way. And my family's average age for troubling the Undertaker gives me no great reason to expect I shall beat the record set by that lady from Yorkshire.
What is all this about? Well, I'll tell you, it's the books, that's what it is, the books. They've got to me. It's not that I've been a great reader, more a dabbler really and late into the field at that, but I have acquired a great many books. Moving into this nice comfortable flat, I took only a relatively small number with me (240 or so), but still enough to alarm the staff. I left by far the greater number behind in the presbytery where I had my home for some 30 years. They were to be shared out among friends and relatives as time went by. Alas time went by faster than friends and relatives, or even honest thieves showed up, and as the Bishop has chosen my old presbytery for his latest future-shaping idea, I've had to get the books out of there, pronto. It's been a wrench.
I must not make too much of it for many of the books spent their time on my shelves beckoning me to read them. But even in that unrequited state, we became friends, the books and I. So parting is indeed a wrench, a wrench that is at its most acute this very day. For even as I write the man from Cleveleys may be on his way. He will be looking round the piles of books in my old place and taking what he wants. To be honest, I hope he takes them all. No he has not promised me any money for them, but better by far that these books beckon someone else to read them than that they end up on the rubbish dump.
I mentioned that I shall be dying soon and a necessary part of any dying is letting go of things, in my case, these books. So a part of my dying is taking place today.
An equally important part of dying is a very positive thing, the conscious leaving of our things to others. Such are wills. Mine is made and settled and yet there are still some things, not of a physical nature, I would like to pass to others. These are the thoughts, dreams and ideas which surfaced in me as I attempted to live out my allotted time span. They may prove of no use to any one but I would rather they floated on the airwaves than that they simply joined me in the grave. I can but try. Such as they are, they will appear later in part 2. I live in the hope that people will not be so rude as to ignore them even now while the pulse of that exciting thing called life still throbs.
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