Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
To be a vibrant Catholic Community
unified in its commitment
to growing disciples for Christ
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
Mob: 0417 279 437
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Weekday
Masses 24th – 27th July
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin … St Sharbel Makhlûf
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe … St James
Thursday: 12noon Devonport … Sts Joachim and Anne
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 28th & 29th July, 2018 
Piety Shop: 28th July:
closed 29th July: T Omogbai-Musa
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: M McLaren Ministers of Communion: B Deacon, K Reilly
Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Penguin:
Readers: Fifita Family Ministers of
Communion: A Guest,
J Barker Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Latrobe:
Reader: M Chan Minister of Communion: M Eden Procession of Gifts: Parishioners
Port Sorell:
Readers: V Duff, G Duff Minister of Communion: L Post Clean/Flowers/Prepare: A Hynes
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
I notice what mood I am in and what is weighing on my mind and
heart.
I ask the Holy Spirit to help me as I pray.
After a while, I read the
Gospel passage slowly, noticing the thoughts or feelings that arise within me.
I share these with the Lord and listen to what he has to say to me.
This may be
my whole prayer … or perhaps I ponder one of the following suggestions.
The
apostles tell Jesus about all they have been doing.
As I look back over today
or the last few days, what do I recall?
What brought me closer to God?
Where
did I need God’s help?
I share with the Lord, simply and easily, as one friend
to another.
Like the apostles, Jesus invites me to come away for a while and
rest with him.
Today, in the stillness, perhaps he has something to share with
me … or may be I am simply at rest in his presence.
Jesus and the apostles
discover that the crowds have followed them.
I ponder Jesus’s response to the
people.
I may like to ask him: ‘Who are the people in need to whom I am called?’
or ‘What grace do I need, to help me to try to respond as you did?’
After a
while, I bring this prayer to a close, thanking the Lord for being with me.
Glory be ...
Readings next week –Seventeenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Let us pray for those whose anniversary
occurs about this time: 18th – 24th July
Kathleen Monaghan, Teresa Askew, Deda Burgess, Marlene Willett, Ronald Buxton, Brian Innes, William Dooley, Margaret Charlesworth, Peter Sulzberger, Joseph Peterson, Edward Mahony, Jean Braid, Robbie McIver, Marie Foster, Fay Capell, Richard Carter, Joan Davidson, Ernest Pilcher and Marie Kingshott. Also Aileen & Gerard Reynolds.
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly
Ramblings
This has been an interesting week for a number of reasons. Our access to the Parish House has been curtailed as work has begun on the driveway between 88 & 90 Stewart Street; and because of the bad weather it looks like being curtailed into next week.
On Tuesday we (Fr Paschal, John Lee-Archer, Grainne Hendrey and I) spent the afternoon with Ron Huntley who worked with us on some of the questions we need to address as a Parish moving forward. This was a follow-up conversation to work that we had been part of in Canada as well as the Proclaim Conference in Brisbane last week.
This weekend I am providing support for Fr John Girdauskas in Burnie as he spends time with his family following the death of his mother. Hopefully I will be back celebrating Masses in all Mass Centres in the coming fortnight.
Two weeks ago we printed copies of the Plenary 2020 Prayer Card for each Mass Centre as well as including the Prayer in the newsletter. However, I would like to apologise for not making more information about the Plenary 2020 more available before this. Here are some links which provide information that might be useful – http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au;
http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/resources/read/
http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/OrmRushParticipationReception.pdf
Please
take care on the roads and I look forward to seeing you next weekend.
SEMINARIANS
SUPPORT DINNER 2018:
The 2018 Archdiocese/Parishes Seminarian Support Dinner is
being coordinated by the Knights of the Southern Cross together with the valued
support of Guilford Young College. Your attendance in support to the 2018
Archdiocese/Parishes Seminarian Support Dinner would be most welcomed. The
event is being held on Thursday 16th August commencing 6.30pm, Guilford Young
College – Hobart Campus. The cost for the dinner is $60.00 per person and will
include a complimentary drink upon arrival followed by canapés and a
four-course meal. To secure your ticket, please speak to Fr Mike or Fr Paschal.
If you have any queries please contact the Dinner Co-ordinator Mr Les Gardner
6229:0103
FROM THE
PARISH PASTORAL TEAM:
MT ZION PRAYER GROUP: Invites all parishioners to their regular meeting on
Monday 30th July at 7pm in the Community Room, Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone.
At this meeting John and Glenys Lee-Archer will share with us their recent
experiences in their pilgrimage to Halifax and Baltimore. There will be ample
opportunity to ask questions. There will also be a number of songs of praise
and worship. We look forward to your company. Let us get behind Fr Mike and his
mission for a vibrant Catholic Community. Please bring a plate for supper.
There are three prizes of $100.00 each week.
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 26th
July – Tony Ryan & Merv Tippett.
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
CATHOLIC FAMILY DAY – JULY 29 AT NEWSTEAD: The Archdiocesan Office of Life, Marriage and Family
will be holding an event for families on Sunday, July 29 from 1:30pm-4:30pm at
the Emmanuel Centre, 123 Abbott Street, Newstead. The event will feature
children’s activities as well as a seminar for parents entitled ‘Equipping
Catholic Parents for a Hypersexualised Culture’. The seminar will be run by
Katrina Zeno, the Coordinator of the John Paul II Resource Centre in Arizona,
USA. She will look at emerging cultural trends and how parents can pass on a
positive vision for human happiness, marriage and the family to their children.
To RSVP contact Ben Smith at ben.smith@aohtas.org.au.
THE JOURNEY CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAM:
Grief to Grace – Healing the Wounds of Abuse – is a spiritual retreat for anyone who has
suffered degradation or violation through physical, emotional, sexual or
spiritual abuse. The retreat will be held May 26th – 31st
2019. To request an application contact Anne by emailing info@grieftograceaus.org.au or
phone 0478599241. For more information visit www.grieftograce.org
Third Self
Decades ago, Jesuit
philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) intuited
where this evolution is headed. Husband and wife team Louis Savary and Patricia
Berne translate Teilhard’s often complex, abstract ideas into words we might
understand and to which we may relate:
Louis Savary and Patricia Berne, Teilhard de Chardin on
Love: Evolving Human Relationships (Paulist Press: 2017), 7, 39-40, 44-45.
This article is taken from the archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here
He’s a loser! You’re a loser! Among all the hurtful slurs we mindlessly utter this particular one is perhaps the most hurtful and damaging. It needs to be forbidden in our public discourse and stricken from our vocabulary.
We’ve come a long ways today in forbidding certain language in our public discourse. Mostly the terms that we outlaw have to do with pejorative phrases that refer to someone’s race, gender, or disability. Categorically forbidding them in our language was long overdue and may not be dismissed as simple political correctness. It’s a matter of correctness, plain and simple, of justice, of charity, of fundamental human decency. Language is an economy that’s also often unjust. It unfairly affirms some and unduly slanders others. We need to be careful with it. Language can deeply scar others, even as it keeps us unconsciously locked inside negative stereotypes that leave our minds and our hearts colored by racism, bigotry, and misogyny.
But racial, gender, and disability slurs are not the only slurs that cut, wound, and scar others. Terrible as they are, those insulted by them have the consolation of knowing that the insult is aimed at millions (or, in the case of gender, billions) of others. There’s consolation in numbers! Being shamed along with millions or billions of others still hurts, but you’re in good company.
There are slurs however, insults, that are more brutally singular and more cruelly personal, which aim to shame one’s particularly private inadequacies. With such a slur you’re no longer in good company, you’re now unanimity-minus-one. The term “loser” is such a slur. It aims to shame a person in a very singular, hurtful way. When you’re called a “loser”, you’re not being singled out and shamed because you belong to a certain set, a race, a gender, or a class of people. You’re being shamed because you – you alone, singularly, personally – are judged as not measuring up, as not worthy of respect, and as not worthy of full acceptance. You’re judged as inferior with an inferiority that cannot be blamed on anyone except yourself. You’re deemed a loser! And you’re alone in that!
This kind of shaming isn’t new. It has ever been thus. Certain people have always been shunned, shamed, and ostracized. We have this curious human flaw that, unless it’s addressed, has us believe that for us to be happy it isn’t enough that we be accepted, someone else has to be excluded.
In biblical times, people who had leprosy were ostracized from society, condemned to live in regions outside of normal life, and cry out “unclean” whenever anyone approached them. But they had legitimate reasons for putting these persons outside the circle of normal life. Leprosy held the danger of contagion. Today, without any kind of legitimacy, we’re still designating certain people as “lepers”, as unfit to flourish inside the circles of normal life. We classify them as “losers” and condemn them to the fringes. They’re the new lepers.
Examples of this abound, but perhaps we see this most simplistically played out in our high schools where there is always a crowd that’s popular, an “in” crowd who dictates the ethos, decides what’s acceptable, and holds down the center of the community, even as they don’t constitute its majority. The majority of students are outside that more-exclusive inner circle of popularity, on the edges of it, trying for full acceptance, not fully “in” and not fully “out”. But there’s always still another set, the ones seen as “losers”, as not measuring up, as not being worthy of full status and recognition. This group is not given permission to fully belong. Every human circle has that category of persons.
There are a myriad of complex reasons, many to do with mental health, which can help explain why, sometimes, tragically, a high school boy will take up a gun, come into his school, and shoot his classmates. But it’s hard not to notice that, almost always, it’s a young man who has been deemed a “loner”, a loser. We can’t blame his immediate peers and his classmates for deeming him such, however consciously or unconsciously this is done. His classmates are victims, not just of this young man’s illness and rage, but also of a society that blindly helps produce this kind of illness and rage.
I’m not a parent, but if I were, I would try with all the moral powers that I possessed as a parent to have my children purge their vocabulary of racial, gender, and disability slurs. But I would, too, use every moral and persuasive power I had to have them purge their vocabulary of pejorative words that shame someone else in his or her singularity. The word “loser” would be forbidden in the house.
Both society and the church are houses. We have, thank goodness, in recent decades forbidden the use of words that disparage another person on the basis of his or her race, gender, or disability. It’s time we forbid some other slurs inside the house!
A Pope who is not afraid of open discussion and even dissent in the Church
by Fr Noel Connolly SSC, Plenary Council Facilitation Team
This article is taken from the Plenary Council Website. You can find this and other articles by clicking here
Pope Francis is an unusual Pope who is bringing real change to the Church by encouraging open discussion
and refusing to silence dissent. In fact, he has said, “Open and fraternal debate makes theological and
pastoral thought grow…. That doesn’t frighten me. What’s more, I look for it.”
Many people would like to see him clarify matters and crack down on dissent, but Francis is patient and wants people to speak their minds because he believes in a synodal church. He trusts that the Holy Spirit will guide us in the right direction.
Pope Francis, talking to the bishops before the first session of the Synod on the Family, told them: “You need to say all that you feel with parrhesia” [boldly, candidly and without fear]. “And at the same time, you should listen with humility and accept with an open heart what your brothers say.”
Parrhesia, or speaking boldly, listening humbly and always with an open trusting heart is Francis’s prescription for synodality and discernment. It is also collegial consensus-building. Francis is not in a hurry.
For him, initiating processes is more important than forcing or arriving at quick decisions.
Here in Australia, we are about to begin in earnest our process of preparation for the 2020 Plenary Council, where we will discuss and discern the future of our Church in Australia. Archbishop Coleridge, the chair of the Bishops Commission for the Plenary Council, has assured us that everyone is invited to speak freely, speaking from their heart and their mind.
At the beginning of the Synod, the Pope invited the bishops to speak up even if they thought he might not want to hear what they had to say. We are invited to speak boldly even if it may seem to be something the bishops and priests might not want to hear. In fact, Vatican II in Lumen Gentium (n. 37) tells us everyone is “permitted and sometimes even obliged to express their opinion on those things which concern the good of the Church”. Pope Francis believes in the sensus fidelium, or the sense of the faithful, as an important part of the teaching authority of the Church.
This is a new approach to what it means to be Church. Lay people have not always been encouraged to speak up and we clergy have not always appreciated our responsibility to invite the sensus fidelium and to listen humbly.
We all have much to learn and it may be a little messy and hurtful in the process. Consulting, speaking up, listening, discerning are all skills and they take practice to master. I imagine that the first time we speak boldly, it may be clumsy and/or angry. It will probably be even more difficult for us to listen humbly, neither pointing a finger at, nor judging others, but with open kind hearts trying to appreciate what the Spirit is saying through each of us.
It will require of us virtues like charity, open-mindedness, trust and patience. Charity to be kind, respect and listen to one another. Open-mindedness because “we cannot dialogue with people if we already know all the answers to their problems”. And, above all, trusting and patient because, as Pope Francis has shown us, we need not be afraid of open and fraternal debate because that is how we will find what the Spirit wants.
Most important things take time to emerge, but if we give ourselves boldly, humbly and trustingly to the process, it will bear fruit at the right time. There may not be remarkable decisions, but if we become a more synodal, consultative and participatory Church, it will be worth it.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.
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)
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month.
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 7pm Community Room Ulverstone
Weekday
Masses 24th – 27th July
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin … St Sharbel Makhlûf
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe … St James
Thursday: 12noon Devonport … Sts Joachim and Anne
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Weekend Masses 28th & 29th July, 2018
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 28th & 29th July, 2018
Devonport:
Readers Vigil: M Kelly, B Paul, R Baker 10:30am: J Henderson, J Phillips, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: B O’Connor, R Beaton, T Bird, Beau
Windebank, J Heatley
10:30am: K Hull, F Sly, E Petts, S Riley, S
Arrowsmith Parish House
Mower roster July:
B Windebank
Cleaners: 27th July: M & R Youd 3rd Aug: M.W.C.
Piety Shop: 28th July:
closed 29th July: T Omogbai-Musa
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: M McLaren Ministers of Communion: B Deacon, K Reilly
Cleaners: M Swain, M Bryan Flowers: C Stingel
Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Penguin:
Greeters: Fifita Family Commentator: Y Downes
Readers: Fifita Family Ministers of Communion: A Guest, J Barker Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Readers: Fifita Family Ministers of Communion: A Guest, J Barker Liturgy: Penguin Setting Up: E Nickols Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Latrobe:
Reader: M Chan Minister of Communion: M Eden Procession of Gifts: Parishioners
Port Sorell:
Readers: V Duff, G Duff Minister of Communion: L Post Clean/Flowers/Prepare: A Hynes
Readings this week –Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6
Second Reading: Ephesians 2: 13-18
Gospel: Mark 6: 30-34
PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:
As I come to prayer today, I take time to settle and to
become quiet.
I notice what mood I am in and what is weighing on my mind and heart.
I ask the Holy Spirit to help me as I pray.
After a while, I read the Gospel passage slowly, noticing the thoughts or feelings that arise within me.
I share these with the Lord and listen to what he has to say to me.
This may be my whole prayer … or perhaps I ponder one of the following suggestions.
The apostles tell Jesus about all they have been doing.
As I look back over today or the last few days, what do I recall?
What brought me closer to God?
Where did I need God’s help?
I share with the Lord, simply and easily, as one friend to another.
Like the apostles, Jesus invites me to come away for a while and rest with him.
Today, in the stillness, perhaps he has something to share with me … or may be I am simply at rest in his presence.
Jesus and the apostles discover that the crowds have followed them.
I ponder Jesus’s response to the people.
I may like to ask him: ‘Who are the people in need to whom I am called?’ or ‘What grace do I need, to help me to try to respond as you did?’
After a while, I bring this prayer to a close, thanking the Lord for being with me. Glory be ...
I notice what mood I am in and what is weighing on my mind and heart.
I ask the Holy Spirit to help me as I pray.
After a while, I read the Gospel passage slowly, noticing the thoughts or feelings that arise within me.
I share these with the Lord and listen to what he has to say to me.
This may be my whole prayer … or perhaps I ponder one of the following suggestions.
The apostles tell Jesus about all they have been doing.
As I look back over today or the last few days, what do I recall?
What brought me closer to God?
Where did I need God’s help?
I share with the Lord, simply and easily, as one friend to another.
Like the apostles, Jesus invites me to come away for a while and rest with him.
Today, in the stillness, perhaps he has something to share with me … or may be I am simply at rest in his presence.
Jesus and the apostles discover that the crowds have followed them.
I ponder Jesus’s response to the people.
I may like to ask him: ‘Who are the people in need to whom I am called?’ or ‘What grace do I need, to help me to try to respond as you did?’
After a while, I bring this prayer to a close, thanking the Lord for being with me. Glory be ...
Readings next week –Seventeenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: 2 Kings 2:42-44
Second Reading: Ephesians 4:1-6
Gospel: John
6:1-15
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Vick Slavin, Sue Waterworth, Anna Leary, Madeleine Simpson, Edgar Nool, Mary Webb,
Kasia Hoffler, Rosalinda Grimes, Rose Kirk-Patrick & ….
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Beverley Curtis, Sr Eily Sheehy, Sr Cecily Kirkham, Caterina Girdauskas, Molly
Snare, Sr Luke McMahon SSJ, Valentine Daug, Lyell Willcox, Kath Jamieson, Dawn
Beamish
Let us pray for those whose anniversary
occurs about this time: 18th – 24th July
Kathleen Monaghan, Teresa Askew, Deda Burgess, Marlene Willett, Ronald Buxton, Brian Innes, William Dooley, Margaret Charlesworth, Peter Sulzberger, Joseph Peterson, Edward Mahony, Jean Braid, Robbie McIver, Marie Foster, Fay Capell, Richard Carter, Joan Davidson, Ernest Pilcher and Marie Kingshott. Also Aileen & Gerard Reynolds.
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly
Ramblings
On Tuesday we (Fr Paschal, John Lee-Archer, Grainne Hendrey and I) spent the afternoon with Ron Huntley who worked with us on some of the questions we need to address as a Parish moving forward. This was a follow-up conversation to work that we had been part of in Canada as well as the Proclaim Conference in Brisbane last week.
This weekend I am providing support for Fr John Girdauskas in Burnie as he spends time with his family following the death of his mother. Hopefully I will be back celebrating Masses in all Mass Centres in the coming fortnight.
Two weeks ago we printed copies of the Plenary 2020 Prayer Card for each Mass Centre as well as including the Prayer in the newsletter. However, I would like to apologise for not making more information about the Plenary 2020 more available before this. Here are some links which provide information that might be useful – http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au;
http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/resources/read/
http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/OrmRushParticipationReception.pdf
Please
take care on the roads and I look forward to seeing you next weekend.
SEMINARIANS
SUPPORT DINNER 2018:
The 2018 Archdiocese/Parishes Seminarian Support Dinner is
being coordinated by the Knights of the Southern Cross together with the valued
support of Guilford Young College. Your attendance in support to the 2018
Archdiocese/Parishes Seminarian Support Dinner would be most welcomed. The
event is being held on Thursday 16th August commencing 6.30pm, Guilford Young
College – Hobart Campus. The cost for the dinner is $60.00 per person and will
include a complimentary drink upon arrival followed by canapés and a
four-course meal. To secure your ticket, please speak to Fr Mike or Fr Paschal.
If you have any queries please contact the Dinner Co-ordinator Mr Les Gardner
6229:0103
FROM THE
PARISH PASTORAL TEAM:
The Parish Pastoral Team meets on Sunday 29th July . At the
meeting we will hear about the Proclaim 2018 conference attended by Grainne,
John and Fr Paschal. If you would like to see some of the presentations they
are available via facebook. Just search Shalom World in facebook, and then
select videos.
Thank you to the parishioners who have emailed their
details to the Parish email. If you have not done so, we ask that you email the
Parish on merseyleven@aohtas.org.au.
Please use the subject: Parishioner Contact Details and include your name and
the names of others who will share your email (such as your spouse, children,
housemates); your address; and your mobile and/or landline numbers. This
information will enable Fathers Mike and Paschal and the office staff to notify
you of important events that occur between Sunday newsletters (such as funerals
and changed Mass times) and will also enable updating of the Parish database.
Your information will be kept private, and not be shared without your
permission.
AUSTRALIAN
CHURCH WOMEN: will host a service for Fellowship Day at Lifeway Baptist
Church, William Street Devonport on Friday 27th July at 1:30pm. Please
note: the service will be held in the hall behind the Church. All
welcome. Plate please.
Spirituality in the
Coffee Shop: Monday 30th July 10:30am - 12
noon. Come and discuss the issues about faith and life that matter to you! Morning tea & good company! No booking necessary!
MT ZION PRAYER GROUP: Invites all parishioners to their regular meeting on
Monday 30th July at 7pm in the Community Room, Sacred Heart Church Ulverstone.
At this meeting John and Glenys Lee-Archer will share with us their recent
experiences in their pilgrimage to Halifax and Baltimore. There will be ample
opportunity to ask questions. There will also be a number of songs of praise
and worship. We look forward to your company. Let us get behind Fr Mike and his
mission for a vibrant Catholic Community. Please bring a plate for supper.
FOOTY
TICKETS:
Round 15 (Friday 13th July) St Kilda by 64 points.
Congratulations to the following winners;
Jan Peterson, M
Peters, Shingle Shed.
For some fun why not help support our Parish fundraiser and
buy a footy ticket (or two) $2.00.
There are three prizes of $100.00 each week.
There are three prizes of $100.00 each week.
You’ve got to be in it to win it!!
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers for Thursday 26th
July – Tony Ryan & Merv Tippett.
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
CATHOLIC FAMILY DAY – JULY 29 AT NEWSTEAD: The Archdiocesan Office of Life, Marriage and Family
will be holding an event for families on Sunday, July 29 from 1:30pm-4:30pm at
the Emmanuel Centre, 123 Abbott Street, Newstead. The event will feature
children’s activities as well as a seminar for parents entitled ‘Equipping
Catholic Parents for a Hypersexualised Culture’. The seminar will be run by
Katrina Zeno, the Coordinator of the John Paul II Resource Centre in Arizona,
USA. She will look at emerging cultural trends and how parents can pass on a
positive vision for human happiness, marriage and the family to their children.
To RSVP contact Ben Smith at ben.smith@aohtas.org.au.
THE JOURNEY CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAM:
This week on The Journey, as we listen to the Gospel of
Mark, we are again encouraged to follow Jesus. Sr Hilda shares her Wisdom from
The Abbey with “Teapot Stories”, and our very own Pete Gilmore shares his analogy
of the “Flat Tyre” in his Living the Gospel God spot, As we know, music soothes
the soul, and we are blessed to have soul lifting music as part of our weekly
program. Go to www.jcr.org.au
or www.itunes.jcr.org.au
where you can listen anytime and subscribe to weekly shows by email.
Grief to Grace – Healing the Wounds of Abuse – is a spiritual retreat for anyone who has
suffered degradation or violation through physical, emotional, sexual or
spiritual abuse. The retreat will be held May 26th – 31st
2019. To request an application contact Anne by emailing info@grieftograceaus.org.au or
phone 0478599241. For more information visit www.grieftograce.org
Third Self
This article is taken from the daily email sent out by the Center for Action and Contemplation and includes reflections by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to receive these emails by clicking here
We speak of the
“sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 70s. I think what has happened thus far is
only the rumblings before the real revolution, the movement beyond either/or to
both/and. God and evolution are inviting us toward a relational wholeness that
is a synergy and a life energy higher than either one apart but even larger
than both together.
Decades ago, Jesuit
philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) intuited
where this evolution is headed. Husband and wife team Louis Savary and Patricia
Berne translate Teilhard’s often complex, abstract ideas into words we might
understand and to which we may relate:
Teilhard, studying the human race over many thousands of
years, realized that humanity was indeed learning to evolve in love. And once
enough people began living with agape love, it would create a revolution like
no other revolution. In time, such all-embracing love would bring about true
freedom, true peace, and true harmony on Earth. . . .
Two things happen in any loving relationship. First, a new
being—the relationship—is born with its own unique potentials and purpose.
Second, the relationship—this new being—enhances and develops the individuals
within it, each with their own unique potentials and purpose. Both effects, when
recognized and developed, foster evolution. . . .
St. Thomas Aquinas was onto something important in the
twelfth century when he wrote, in Latin, Relatio realis est. In English, this
means something like “A relationship is something real.” If something is real,
it means that it exists and can have an effect on other things, an effect that
individual elements of the relationship by themselves might not be able to
have. This is true of relationships on all levels of existence.
Among human beings, it is easy to see that a relationship
has a life of its own and can have an effect on things—both on the individuals
that make up the relationship and on things outside the relationship. Think of
what close-knit groups of people can accomplish, for example, sports teams,
research teams, ministry groups, and certain famous families. . . .
[In] Teilhard’s approach, when two people come together in a
caring and productive way, not only are the two relating people enhanced and
their capacities developed by their interaction, but their union, or
relationship, becomes itself a Third Self [which] Teilhard calls . . . “a
psychic unity” or “higher soul” or “higher center.” . . . The Third-Self
relationship is capable of accomplishing more than either [of the members] alone.
Louis Savary and Patricia Berne, Teilhard de Chardin on
Love: Evolving Human Relationships (Paulist Press: 2017), 7, 39-40, 44-45.
A SLUR THAT CUTS DEEP
This article is taken from the archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here
He’s a loser! You’re a loser! Among all the hurtful slurs we mindlessly utter this particular one is perhaps the most hurtful and damaging. It needs to be forbidden in our public discourse and stricken from our vocabulary.
We’ve come a long ways today in forbidding certain language in our public discourse. Mostly the terms that we outlaw have to do with pejorative phrases that refer to someone’s race, gender, or disability. Categorically forbidding them in our language was long overdue and may not be dismissed as simple political correctness. It’s a matter of correctness, plain and simple, of justice, of charity, of fundamental human decency. Language is an economy that’s also often unjust. It unfairly affirms some and unduly slanders others. We need to be careful with it. Language can deeply scar others, even as it keeps us unconsciously locked inside negative stereotypes that leave our minds and our hearts colored by racism, bigotry, and misogyny.
But racial, gender, and disability slurs are not the only slurs that cut, wound, and scar others. Terrible as they are, those insulted by them have the consolation of knowing that the insult is aimed at millions (or, in the case of gender, billions) of others. There’s consolation in numbers! Being shamed along with millions or billions of others still hurts, but you’re in good company.
There are slurs however, insults, that are more brutally singular and more cruelly personal, which aim to shame one’s particularly private inadequacies. With such a slur you’re no longer in good company, you’re now unanimity-minus-one. The term “loser” is such a slur. It aims to shame a person in a very singular, hurtful way. When you’re called a “loser”, you’re not being singled out and shamed because you belong to a certain set, a race, a gender, or a class of people. You’re being shamed because you – you alone, singularly, personally – are judged as not measuring up, as not worthy of respect, and as not worthy of full acceptance. You’re judged as inferior with an inferiority that cannot be blamed on anyone except yourself. You’re deemed a loser! And you’re alone in that!
This kind of shaming isn’t new. It has ever been thus. Certain people have always been shunned, shamed, and ostracized. We have this curious human flaw that, unless it’s addressed, has us believe that for us to be happy it isn’t enough that we be accepted, someone else has to be excluded.
In biblical times, people who had leprosy were ostracized from society, condemned to live in regions outside of normal life, and cry out “unclean” whenever anyone approached them. But they had legitimate reasons for putting these persons outside the circle of normal life. Leprosy held the danger of contagion. Today, without any kind of legitimacy, we’re still designating certain people as “lepers”, as unfit to flourish inside the circles of normal life. We classify them as “losers” and condemn them to the fringes. They’re the new lepers.
Examples of this abound, but perhaps we see this most simplistically played out in our high schools where there is always a crowd that’s popular, an “in” crowd who dictates the ethos, decides what’s acceptable, and holds down the center of the community, even as they don’t constitute its majority. The majority of students are outside that more-exclusive inner circle of popularity, on the edges of it, trying for full acceptance, not fully “in” and not fully “out”. But there’s always still another set, the ones seen as “losers”, as not measuring up, as not being worthy of full status and recognition. This group is not given permission to fully belong. Every human circle has that category of persons.
There are a myriad of complex reasons, many to do with mental health, which can help explain why, sometimes, tragically, a high school boy will take up a gun, come into his school, and shoot his classmates. But it’s hard not to notice that, almost always, it’s a young man who has been deemed a “loner”, a loser. We can’t blame his immediate peers and his classmates for deeming him such, however consciously or unconsciously this is done. His classmates are victims, not just of this young man’s illness and rage, but also of a society that blindly helps produce this kind of illness and rage.
I’m not a parent, but if I were, I would try with all the moral powers that I possessed as a parent to have my children purge their vocabulary of racial, gender, and disability slurs. But I would, too, use every moral and persuasive power I had to have them purge their vocabulary of pejorative words that shame someone else in his or her singularity. The word “loser” would be forbidden in the house.
Both society and the church are houses. We have, thank goodness, in recent decades forbidden the use of words that disparage another person on the basis of his or her race, gender, or disability. It’s time we forbid some other slurs inside the house!
A Pope who is not afraid of open discussion and even dissent in the Church
by Fr Noel Connolly SSC, Plenary Council Facilitation Team
This article is taken from the Plenary Council Website. You can find this and other articles by clicking here
Pope Francis is an unusual Pope who is bringing real change to the Church by encouraging open discussion
and refusing to silence dissent. In fact, he has said, “Open and fraternal debate makes theological and
pastoral thought grow…. That doesn’t frighten me. What’s more, I look for it.”
Many people would like to see him clarify matters and crack down on dissent, but Francis is patient and wants people to speak their minds because he believes in a synodal church. He trusts that the Holy Spirit will guide us in the right direction.
Pope Francis, talking to the bishops before the first session of the Synod on the Family, told them: “You need to say all that you feel with parrhesia” [boldly, candidly and without fear]. “And at the same time, you should listen with humility and accept with an open heart what your brothers say.”
Parrhesia, or speaking boldly, listening humbly and always with an open trusting heart is Francis’s prescription for synodality and discernment. It is also collegial consensus-building. Francis is not in a hurry.
For him, initiating processes is more important than forcing or arriving at quick decisions.
Here in Australia, we are about to begin in earnest our process of preparation for the 2020 Plenary Council, where we will discuss and discern the future of our Church in Australia. Archbishop Coleridge, the chair of the Bishops Commission for the Plenary Council, has assured us that everyone is invited to speak freely, speaking from their heart and their mind.
At the beginning of the Synod, the Pope invited the bishops to speak up even if they thought he might not want to hear what they had to say. We are invited to speak boldly even if it may seem to be something the bishops and priests might not want to hear. In fact, Vatican II in Lumen Gentium (n. 37) tells us everyone is “permitted and sometimes even obliged to express their opinion on those things which concern the good of the Church”. Pope Francis believes in the sensus fidelium, or the sense of the faithful, as an important part of the teaching authority of the Church.
This is a new approach to what it means to be Church. Lay people have not always been encouraged to speak up and we clergy have not always appreciated our responsibility to invite the sensus fidelium and to listen humbly.
We all have much to learn and it may be a little messy and hurtful in the process. Consulting, speaking up, listening, discerning are all skills and they take practice to master. I imagine that the first time we speak boldly, it may be clumsy and/or angry. It will probably be even more difficult for us to listen humbly, neither pointing a finger at, nor judging others, but with open kind hearts trying to appreciate what the Spirit is saying through each of us.
It will require of us virtues like charity, open-mindedness, trust and patience. Charity to be kind, respect and listen to one another. Open-mindedness because “we cannot dialogue with people if we already know all the answers to their problems”. And, above all, trusting and patient because, as Pope Francis has shown us, we need not be afraid of open and fraternal debate because that is how we will find what the Spirit wants.
Most important things take time to emerge, but if we give ourselves boldly, humbly and trustingly to the process, it will bear fruit at the right time. There may not be remarkable decisions, but if we become a more synodal, consultative and participatory Church, it will be worth it.
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