Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish

OUR VISION

To be a vibrant Catholic Community 

unified in its commitment 

to growing disciples for Christ 

Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney 
Mob: 0417 279 437 
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence:  Fr Phil McCormack  
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310 
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160 
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair:  Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au

Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au

Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com 

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.

         

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.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another 
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.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future, 
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.

Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for gathering us together 
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.

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

 to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

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 - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass

Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone

Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 6.30pm Community Room Ulverstone 

Weekday Masses 26th – 29th Nov, 2019                                                      

Tuesday:         9:30am Penguin                                                                           

Wednesday:    9:30am Latrobe 
Thursday        12noon Devonport
Friday:            9:30am Ulverstone                                                                                                                        
Next Weekend 30th Nov & 1st December

Saturday Vigil:     6:00pm Devonport
                           6:00pm Penguin
Sunday Mass:      8:30am Port Sorell
                           9:00am Ulverstone
                          10:30am Devonport
                          11:00am Sheffield
                          5:00pm Latrobe

MINISTRY ROSTERS 30th NOVEMBER/1st DECEMBER 2019

Devonport:

Readers: Vigil: M Kelly, R Baker, B Paul 10:30am A Hughes, T Barrientos, P Piccolo

Ministers of Communion: Vigil D Peters, M Heazlewood, T Muir, M Gerrand, P Shelverton

10.30am: F Sly, E Petts, K Hull, S Arrowsmith, K & K Maynard

Cleaners 29th Nov: P & T Douglas 6th Dec: M.W.C.

Piety Shop 30th Nov: A Berryman 1st Dec: O McGinley

Ulverstone:

Reader/s: A & F Pisano   Flowers: C Stingel   Hospitality:  T Good Team

Ministers of Communion: M Byrne, D Griffin, K Foster, R Locket

Church Cleaning 3rd Dec: Murray’s Cleaning Service

Penguin:

Greeters   J Garnsey, S Ewing      Commentator:  A Landers    Readers: M & D Hiscutt

Ministers of Communion: J Garnsey, S Ewing   Liturgy: S.C. J      Setting Up: S Ewing

Care of Church: M Bowles, J Reynolds

Latrobe:

Reader:  Kurt Adkins    Ministers of Communion:   M Eden     Procession of Gifts:  M Clarke

Port Sorell:

Readers: M Badcock, G Gigliotti    Ministers of Communion: J & D Peterson   
Cleaners:  C & J Howard

                                    

Readings this Week: Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe

 First Reading: 2 Samuel 5: 1-3  
  

Second Reading:  Colossians 1:12-20

Gospel: Luke 23:35-43

PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY’S GOSPEL:

In a comfortable position, I ask God to strengthen the simple desire to be in his presence. I ask the Holy Spirit to free my heart of any distractions and allow my awareness of God’s loving desire for me to grow. 
When ready, I read the Gospel reflectively. 
I ask the Holy Spirit to help me grasp its meaning in my own life. 
I listen to whatever God might bring to my attention. 
I may allow myself to enter the scene imaginatively. 
Perhaps I find myself watching Jesus from the crowd. 
What strikes me about him as he is approached by the jeering leaders …

The mocking soldiers … the abusive criminal? 
I notice how I feel as I stand before his anguish and suffering humanity ... his dignity and profound humility ... his love and compassion. 
Perhaps I am drawn to the ‘good thief’, prepared to defend Jesus in his hour of need, as he places his trust in Christ and his kingdom. 
How do I feel now …? 
Perhaps daunted and fearful … or inspired and drawn? 
Are there ways in which I can respond even more deeply to suffering, both that of the whole world, and of its people? 
I share whatever is in my heart with the Lord. I end my prayer slowly, perhaps asking for the grace to notice the times where I can work more effectively for Christ’s Kingdom. Glory be …

Readings Next Week: First Sunday of Advent – Year A

 First Reading: Isaiah 2:1-5

Second Reading:  Romans 13:11-14

Gospel: Matthew 24:37-44

                                  

Your prayers are asked for the sick:

Margaret Becker, Marilyn Bielleman, Tony Kiely, Brenda Paul, Erin Kyriazis, Carmel Leonard, Philip Smith, Frank McDonald & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently:

David Cole, Sandie Vanbrugh, Fay Glover, Geoffrey Woods, Murray Hay, Gerald Eeles, Peter Imlach

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 21st – 27th November

George Carter, Francis Farruge, Shirley Bellchambers, Joyce Doherty, Bernadette Ibell, Georgina Colliver, James Suckling, Christopher Davey, Mark Davey, Laszlo Kiss, Mary Coventry, Harry Wilson, Joseph Thi, Rita Pompili, Gwen Thorp, Muriel Peterson, James Lowry.

       May the souls of the faithful departed, 
through the mercy of God, 
Rest in peace.  Amen

                                    

Weekly Ramblings

We welcome Kanishka Perera, a student for the priesthood, to our Parish this weekend. He will be with us until Christmas learning something of our Parish and sharing with us some of his story and his journey – I know that you will make him feel very welcome during his brief stay with us.

We are awaiting the arrival of some extra copies of the Diocese of Wollongong Advent Program ‘The Way’ – they should be available next weekend in time for Advent. These little books provide a daily reflection for each of the days of Advent and Christmas time and will, I’m sure, be a valuable aid for prayer during this time.

As it is the end of the Liturgical Year I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who assist us each week in ensuring that our Churches are prepared for Liturgy and in every other facet of what it takes for a Parish to be a great community. I look in wonder at the number of people named on the front cover of our Bulletin each week who are involved over the following week – and there are so many more whose names are not mentioned there and to whom I am immensely grateful. I am saying thanks now before the sometimes ‘madness’ of the coming weeks take over and things get lost in the rush – so once again, thanks to everyone who assists each week in any way whatever for all you do for our Parish.

Take care on the roads and in your homes,

                                      

MACKILLOP  HILL  SPIRITUALITY  CENTRE:

SPIRITUALITY IN THE COFFEE SHOPPE:    Monday 25th November 10:30am – 12pm.  Last coffee shop for 2019 so come and enjoy morning tea, invite a friend - let’s celebrate all that we have received from one another this year!! Everyone welcome! We look forward to your company at 123 William Street, Forth. No booking necessary.      Phone 6428:3095

KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS:

The next meeting will be held at the Parish Hall Devonport on Sunday 1st December commencing at 6:00pm.

CHRISTMAS PARTY – ULVERSTONE:

‘Come one – come all’ to our annual Christmas Party on Tuesday 3rd December starting at 1:45pm at Sacred Heart Church Community Room Ulverstone. We hope you will join us for some light entertainment, a cuppa and a chat.

RSVP 1st December to Juliet Smith 6425:5854, 
Debbie Rimmelzwaan 0419 142 374 or
                                               Elizabeth Cox 0400 179 297.

                                  

ADVENT GATHERING 2019:

‘The wilderness and the dry land shall rejoice, the desert shall rejoice and blossom abundantly” Isaiah 35:1

We are invited to create a more joyful, more hope filled and servant Church.

Date: 5th December, 10am – 11:30am Parish House, Devonport. Contact Clare Kiely-Hoye 0418 100 402

                                  

CHRISTMAS PLAY - SACRED HEART CHURCH CHRISTMAS EVE MASS:

‘CALLING ALL CHILDREN’ would you like to take part in the nativity play at the 6pm Christmas Eve Mass at Sacred Heart Church? You are very welcome to come along to practise during 9am Mass at Sacred Heart Church on Sunday 8th, 15th, and 22nd December. If you would like more information please phone Charlie Vella 0417 307 781.

                                  

PIETY SHOP OLOL CHURCH:

A variety of Christmas Cards are now available also 2020 Columban Calendars.

THURSDAY 28th November, Eyes down 7:30pm.  Callers Rod Clark & Merv Tippett

                                  

NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:

IMMACULATA MISSION SCHOOL 2020

What is it: A ten-day live-in formation school for young people. When: 1-10 January, 2020 Where: The Glennie School, Toowoomba QLD Who: 15-35 year olds How much: $390 before 18th November $450 after 18th November (cost includes all accommodation, food, speakers and activities) For more info or to register: www.sistersoftheimmaculata.org.au/ims or 0406 372 608  

PLENARY    2020.

You are invited to a conversation with John Warhurst AO, Chair of Concerned Catholics Canberra/Goulburn Diocese, about his commitment to Catholic Church Renewal and reform.

Don’t miss this opportunity!!

Saturday  7th December  11am – 1 00 pm     at     St Patrick’s College, Launceston.

Enquiries    -    MacKillop Hill    Ph 6428 3095  

     

AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC YOUTH FESTIVAL

From Sunday 8^th December the Youth of Australia will gather in Perth for the Bi-Annual Catholic Youth Festival. The gathering exists to provide young people with opportunities to deepen their relationship with Jesus, be empowered to be disciples in the world today and encounter and celebrate the vitality of the Church in Australia

The Australian Catholic Youth Festival exists to:

•  Provide a high quality formative and experiential opportunity for young Catholics to encounter Jesus Christ, in the context of the Catholic Church in Australia;
• Listen to and discuss the issues and challenges in the lives of young Catholics in Australia;
• Evangelise young people and empower them to be evangelists;
• Provide young people with local examples and connections of vocations, social action, liturgy and prayer, catholic music and catechesis

                            

Letter From Rome

The Right Pope for a Changing Church in this 'Change Of Eras'

Francis astounds many believers and challenges their faith, just as a man from Nazareth did two millennia ago. Robert Mickens, Rome. November 21, 2019. This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete access is via paid subscription

For the 32nd time since his election as Bishop of Rome nearly seven years ago, Pope Francis has left the Eternal City and the Italian peninsula to visit another patch of his far-flung, 1.2 billion-member flock around the world.

The pope, who turns 83 in just a few weeks, is currently making a Nov. 19-26 apostolic journey to Thailand and Japan. It is his fourth such visit to Asia.

And as he always does at the start of such trips, he again greeted the journalists who are traveling with him not long after his plane was in the air. One of them took the opportunity of the informal exchange to ask Francis about his South American homeland.

"When are you going to Argentina?" the pope was asked.

"He answered with a very clear 'I don't know' expression, and then told the journalist 'ask the Almighty' (Pregúntale al Padre Eterno)," according to one eyewitness who then tweeted the encounter.

The pope – who was born of Italian immigrants in 1936 in Buenos Aires – was last in Argentina in late February 2013. That's when, as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he flew to Rome for the conclave that ended up electing him pope several days later (March 13).

Don't cry for me Argentina

Francis' response to the journalist's question was very telling. He seemed to be suggesting that only God knows when he will return to Argentina.

The topic of the still unrealized papal visit there was discussed last week in this very column, and not for the first time.

As someone who has had a front row view of the last three pontificates, I've had a hunch – and it was only just a hunch – that when Pope Francis eventually returned to Argentina it would be to resign from the papacy. And in Argentina he would remain.

I was wagering on that for a number of reasons, which were laid out several months ago.

"However, there are things happening right now that suggest all bets are off," I confessed last week, concluding that Francis would not likely resign in light of the nasty and stiff opposition he's getting because of his reforming efforts.

His brief comments on the plane seem to validate this. And it would suggest that he has no plans of returning – or retiring – to Buenos Aires. Perhaps the next time Bergoglio goes back home it will be in a box – if that is in his last will and testament and if the Vatican honors it.

The most recent Roman Pontiff not to be entombed in St. Peter's Basilica or anywhere else in the Eternal City died in the 14th century. Urban V, who was the sixth and penultimate of the Avignon popes, was buried in France in 1370 at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Victor in Marseille.

Before that a number of popes had been laid to rest in tombs throughout Italy, France and Germany. But it appears that the last one to be buried outside of Rome since Urban V was Gregory XII in 1415.

Interestingly, he was also the last pope to resign before Benedict XVI did so five centuries later. Gregory's mortal remains are in a church in the Marches region of Italy, where he was buried as a cardinal.

It would cause a major upheaval among the Catholic establishment if Pope Francis were to stipulate that his final resting place be back home in Buenos Aires, either in the cathedral of his former diocese or the cemetery where the Bergoglio family is buried.

Some of his enemies, especially those insinuating that he's a heretic, might be thrilled if he were to choose not to be entombed in St. Peter's or another church in Rome. But no one should be surprised.

On numerous occasions Francis has broke with, what many people believe to be, longstanding tradition. But ever since his election to the See of Peter, he has tried to help Catholics recover the true sense of Tradition, not the bizarre 19th century parody that the self-proclaimed traditionalists staunchly defend.

'Almost everything will pass away'

In the apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, his blueprint for Church reform, the pope says we must "concentrate on the essentials" of Christian faith. He warns us not to make too much of the "secondary aspects which, important as they are, do not in and of themselves convey the heart of Christ's message."

With this type of thinking Francis astounds many believers and challenges their faith, just as a man from Nazareth did two millennia ago.

"In today's Gospel, Jesus astounds both his contemporaries and us," Francis said last Sunday at Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

"While every else was praising the magnificent temple in Jerusalem, Jesus tells them that 'one stone' will not be left 'upon another'.

"Why does he speak these words about so sacred an institution, which was not merely a building but a unique religious symbol, a house for God and for the believing people?

"Why does he prophesy that the firm certitude of the people of God would collapse?

"The pope said Jesus tells us "almost everything will pass away… but not everything."

"He explains that what will collapse and pass away are the penultimate things, not the ultimate ones: the temple, not God; kingdoms and human events, not humanity itself. The penultimate things, which often appear definitive but are not, pass away," Francis noted.

The pope is also trying to explain that to today's Catholics, so many of whom are unable or unwilling to distinguish between what is ultimate and what is penultimate; what is essential and what is secondary; what it intrinsic and what is accidental.

Pope Francis' critics seem to be obsessed with preserving all the secondary or incidental features of Roman Catholicism that, rather than clarify the message of Christ, end up actually obscuring it. And end up keeping Christians in the one fractured Church permanently divided.

These critics are part of a sectarian and tribal Catholicism, which cultivates an identity largely based on externals that are of human, rather than divine origins. These sisters and brothers are Roman Catholics first, Christians second.

The right pope for a Change of Eras

Pope Francis has said that we are currently in a change of epochs (or eras) and not just experiencing a period of change. It is a time of a colossal paradigm shift.

One stone will not be left on another. Many of the sacred institutions and unique religious symbols that Catholics have clung to and defended for so long – even for centuries – may no longer be left standing in this change of epochs. Those that are not essential will need to be changed or discarded.

Francis is trying to discern how and to what extent we need to do this. But he is facing resistance. Some of that is being manifested through attacks against his integrity as a disciple and faith leader.

That resistance is especially fierce and unrelenting within the Roman Curia, which the cardinals who gathered in 2013 to prepare for the last conclave hoped the next pope would clean up and whip into shape. One area they wanted him to tackle was financial corruption inside the Vatican.

It looked like Francis had clear ideas about how to do that. Several times in the early weeks of his fledgling pontificate, he repeated: "St. Peter never had a bank account."

He might as well have added that the "first pope" also never had a bank. But the current one does.

Actually, there are at least three or four large financial, bank-like institutions connected to the Holy See or Vatican. And they seem to be forever embroiled in controversy because of mismanagement or actual corruption.

The pope's plan to deal with this financial mess seemed obvious enough: close down these institutions and entrust the Holy See's financial resources to the most reputable outside financial institutions.

That's what he did when he became archbishop of Buenos Aires. But for a variety of reasons, and not all of them nefarious, powerful Vatican personalities and interests would never allow this to happen.

At least up till now.

Francis, following efforts begun by Benedict XVI, has decreed numerous "reforms" aimed at bringing transparency and accountability to the Vatican's often murky and disastrous financial operations. But these reforms are obviously not working.

In the end this could actually be to the pope's advantage. If it is proven, once more, that Vatican officials cannot manage finances, Francis – who must be losing patience with this – will then have all the reasons needed to close the city-state's financial institutions.

Remember the pope's words: "That what will collapse and pass away are the penultimate things, not the ultimate ones."

Francis is a pope very different from most of those who have gone before him by the fact that he is doing nothing to prevent the collapse of so many penultimate or non-essential institutions and symbols that, for too long, we have taken to be essential to our Church and faith.

Instead, he is actually helping to facilitate their collapse in order to help us preserve what is ultimate and truly essential.

And because of this he is the right pope for a changing Church in this change of eras.

                                 

Standing Before The Cross 

This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here  

Picture yourself before the crucified Jesus; recognize that he became what you fear: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability, and failure. He became sin to free you from sin (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). He became what we do to one another in order to free us from the lie of punishing and scapegoating each other. He became the crucified, so we would stop crucifying. He refused to transmit his pain onto others.

In your imagination, receive these words as Jesus’ invitation to you from the cross:

My beloved, I am your self. I am your beauty. I am your goodness, which you are destroying. I am what you do to what you should love. I am what you are afraid of: your deepest and best and most naked self—your soul. Your sin largely consists in what you do to harm goodness—your own and others’. You are afraid of the good; you are afraid of me. You kill what you should love; you hate what could transform you. I am Jesus crucified. I am yourself, and I am all of humanity.

And now respond to Jesus on the cross, hanging at the center of human history, turning history around:

Jesus, Crucified, you are my life and you are also my death. You are my beauty, you are my possibility, and you are my full self. You are everything I want, and you are everything I am afraid of. You are everything I desire, and you are everything I deny. You are my outrageously ignored and neglected soul.

Jesus, your love is what I most fear. I can’t let anybody love me for nothing. Intimacy with you or anyone terrifies me.

I am beginning to see that I, in my own body, am an image of what is happening everywhere, and I want it to stop today. I want to stop the violence toward myself, toward the world, toward you. I don’t need ever again to create any victim, even in my mind.

You alone, Jesus, refused to be crucifier, even at the cost of being crucified. You never asked for sympathy. You never played the victim or asked for vengeance. You breathed forgiveness.

We humans mistrust, murder, attack. Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates. We hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters.

Now I see that you live in me and I live in you. You are inviting me out of this endless cycle of illusion and violence. You are Jesus crucified. You are saving me. In your perfect love, you have chosen to enter into union with me, and I am slowly learning to trust that this could be true.

                                       

Saints For A New Situation

This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here 

Everywhere in church circles today you hear a lament: Our churches are emptying. We’ve lost our youth. This generation no longer knows or understands the classical theological language. We need to announce Jesus again, as if for the first time, but how? The church is becoming evermore marginalized. 

That’s the situation pretty much everywhere within the secularized world today. Why is this happening? Faith as a spent project? Secularity’s adolescent grandiosity before the parent who gave it birth, Judeo-Christianity?  The “buffered self” that Charles Taylor describes? Affluence? Or is the problem mainly with the churches themselves? Sexual abuse? Cover-up? Poor liturgies? Poor preaching? Churches too liberal? Churches too conservative?

I suspect it’s some combination of all of these, but single out one issue here to highlight, affluence. Jesus told us that it’s difficult (impossible, he says) for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. No doubt, that’s a huge part of our present struggle. We’re good at being Christians when we’re poor, less-educated, and on the margins of mainstream society. We’ve had centuries of practice at this. What we haven’t had any practice at, and aren’t any good at, is how to be Christians when we’re affluent, sophisticated, and constitute the cultural mainstream.

So, I’m suggesting that what we need today is not so much a new pastoral approach as a new kind of saint, an individual man or woman who can model for us practically what it means to live out the Gospel in a context of affluence and secularity.  Why this?

One of the lessons of history is that often genuine religious renewal, the type that actually reshapes the religious imagination, does not come from think-tanks, conferences, and church synods, but from graced individuals – saints, wild men and women who, like Saint Augustine, Saint Francis, Saint Clare, Saint Dominic, Saint Ignatius, or other such religious figures can reshape our religious imagination. They show us that the new lies elsewhere, that what needs fixing in the church will not be mended simply by patching the old. What’s needed is a new religious and ecclesial imagination. Charles Taylor, in his highly-respected study of secularity, suggests that what we’re undergoing today is not so much a crisis of faith as a crisis of imagination. No Christians before us have ever lived within this kind of world.

What will this new kind of saint, this new St. Francis, look like?  I honestly don’t know. Neither, it seems, does anyone else.  We have no answer yet, at least not one that’s been able to bear much fruit in the mainstream culture.  That’s not surprising. The type of imagination that reshapes history isn’t easily found. In the meantime we’ve come about as far as we can along the road that used to take us there, but which for many of our children no longer does.

Here’s our quandary: We’re better at knowing what to do once we get people into a church than we are at knowing how to get them there. Why? Our weakness, I believe, lies not in our theological imagination where we have rich theological and biblical insights aplenty. What we lack are saints on the ground, men and women who, in a passion and fidelity that’s at once radically faithful to God and fiercely empathic to our secular world, can incarnate their faith into a way of living that can show us, practically, how we can be poor and humble disciples of Jesus even as we walk in an affluent and highly secularized world.  

And such new persons will appear. We’ve been at this spot before in history and have always found our way forward. Every time the world believes it has buried Christ, the stone rolls back from the tomb; every time the cultural ethos declares that the churches are on an irrevocable downward slide, the Spirit intervenes and there’s soon an about face; every time we despair, thinking that our age can now longer produce saints and prophets, some Augustine or Francis comes along and shows that our age, like times of old, can too produce its saints; and every time our imaginations run dry, as they have now, we find that our scriptures are still full of fresh insight. We may lack imagination, but we don’t lack hope.

Christ promised we will not be orphaned, and that promise is sure. God is still with us and our age will produce its own prophets and saints. What’s asked of us in the moment is biblical patience, to wait on God. Christianity may look tired, tried, and spent to a culture within which affluence and sophistication are its current gods, but hope is already beginning to show its face: As secularization, with its affluence and sophistication, marches unswervingly forward we’re already beginning to see a number of men and women who have found ways to become post-affluent and post-sophisticated. These will be the new religious leaders who will teach us, and our children, how to live as Christians in this new situation.

                                  

Stewardship Weekend

This article is taken from the Blog posted by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timoneum, Baltimore. You can find the original blog by clicking here  

We usually say that “Kick-Off” weekend is the best weekend of the year, but “Stewardship” Weekend is a close second.  That’s right, one of our staff’s (and our parishioner’s) favorite weekends of the year is the weekend when we ask for money. 

This coming weekend is Stewardship Weekend, the only weekend of the year that we ask our parishioners to evaluate their giving to the parish and commit to a plan for the year ahead. 

Here are a few things about stewardship weekends that we’ve learned along the way:

1) Exercise discipline throughout the year.

Hosting a successful “Stewardship Sunday” is tied to the discipline you exercise all year long.  Asking for money too often can cause your parishioners to tune out or turn off your message altogether.  We host no fundraisers, have no second or special collections, and never sell anything in our lobby.  This discipline ensures that our congregation is open to the message when we preach it once and only once a year.

2) Prepare your congregation ahead of time.

When people don’t know an “ask” is coming, they may feel cornered.  This discomfort, in turn, leads them to inaction or reluctant commitment. 

So that no one is surprised or blindsided, we give plenty of advanced notice that Stewardship Sunday is coming.  We actually distribute commitment cards in the weeks leading up to the stewardship weekend to encourage people to take them home and pray about their gift.  It’s also beneficial to let your parishioners know that it’s not the best weekend to invite guests.

3) Only ask for money.

When we first started celebrating stewardship weekend, we would also invite people to think about gifts of “time and talent.” In other words, volunteering in ministry.  Our stewardship cards even had a place where you could indicate that you were interested in volunteering.  It turned out to be a mistake.  Many more people were willing to make a commitment to the broad idea of service, than to a specific financial commitment.  Typically, their service commitment often went unfilled too.  On the other hand, we’ve found that if we can get people to give, it’s easy to get them to serve.  They want to serve where they have a financial investment. 

4) Make it fun.

Asking for money (and being asked for money) can be uncomfortable.  Pastors dread this weekend and parishioners try to avoid it altogether.  To bring down our parishioner’s natural defenses, we try to make stewardship weekend a celebration.  We always include humor in the homily, because when you get people smiling, they relax.  At the end of Mass, we usually include some kind of fun element like a video.  Food can also help people relax so we also like to have some treat or snack to give away after Mass.

If you’re looking for even more best practices that we’ve learned over the years to make your Stewardship Weekend the best yet, check out our new book Churchmoney.  It even contains a few example homilies from our Stewardship weekends that you can learn from (or steal from).  It’s available for purchase at Amazon and Ave Maria Press. 

                             

Gethsemane Moments

A conversation with the author of a powerful novel about the six Jesuit priests who were killed in El Salvador on 16 November 1989 prompted Mark Dowd to reflect deeply on the final few hours of the martyrs’ lives. How might their experience have compared to others in which mortal danger was only days, minutes or even seconds away? Is there a way in which faith and prayer can shape our response in so-called ‘fight or flight’ situations? Mark Dowd is a freelance writer and broadcaster. He is the author of Queer & Catholic: A life of contradiction (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2017).

Jorge Galán’s novel, Noviembre, won the Premio Real Academia Española in 2016, and is now available in an English translation by Jason Wilson as November, published by Little, Brown Book Group in 2019.       

This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here

These last few days I’ve been obsessed with the human autonomic nervous system. One particular element has captured my attention: the so-called ‘fight or flight’ response. When faced with a violent threat to life, the body goes into overdrive. The tiny amygdala in the brain sends out signals via the hormone, epinephrine, and within seconds, via a chain reaction of neurotransmitter responses, the heart is pumping blood, lungs are taking in more oxygen, pupils are dilated to increase awareness of danger and sweat covers the skin. It will evaporate within seconds, keeping the human body cool under pressure. All of these physiological responses will assist you whether you opt for either ‘fight’ or ‘flight’. But that decision to stay or bolt can never be a purely physical one: it is ultimately one rooted in a deeper moral identity. As the celebrated rock song from the Clash asks, ‘Should I stay or should I go?’

What provoked such musings was a session I chaired last week at the London Review Bookshop with the Salvadoran author, Jorge Galán. He was discussing his new book, Noviembre, about the events surrounding the murder of the six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and her daughter on 16 November 1989. It was the evil work of a ruthless, army-sponsored death squad during the civil war which raged in the tiny Central American country between 1980 and 1992. In his gripping account, Galán refers to a visit by soldiers to the Jesuits’ house at 6.30pm in the evening, just hours before the brutal massacre. He calls it El Cateo, ‘the search’. In effect, it was a reconnaissance mission, to check out who was around and the configuration of the rooms in the building. Once the soldiers had come and gone, imagine the atmosphere in that house. The principal target for the Atlacatl Battalion was Father Ignacio Ellacuría SJ, who was said to be close to brokering a peace deal between the guerrilla insurgency and the military government. But his Jesuit brothers must have all known they were in mortal danger. They held their ground and paid the price only hours later, in the dark of the night, with their lives. And because the assassins were under orders to leave no witnesses, so too did Elba and Celina Ramos. The international revulsion to the murders was so great that many, in hindsight, saw it as a turning point on the road to an eventual peace.

What values, what deep-rooted loyalties in the human soul can combat the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome and opt for a third way: submission to a fate that almost certainly leads to the surrender of one´s own life?

My conversation with Jorge Galán prompted me to revisit the 2010 film, Of Gods and Men, which centred on the French Cistercian community at their monastery at Tibhirine in Algeria in 1996, when the gentle monks came face-to-face with the threat of Islamist militias during the civil war. They too faced a Gethsemane moment, and the film chronicles the tensions within the brethren about a decision to stay or leave, which reaches a dramatic climax with a show of hands. A decision was made to honour their decades of service administering medicines and education to the local town community. Both the Jesuits of El Salvador and the Trappists of Tibhirine were fortified in their resolve by having taken a collective decision. Any subsequent wavering by an individual motivated by an understandable, instinctive sense of self-preservation might have been tempered by the bonds forged of acting together. All for one and one for all, if you will.

Such ties and loyalties are not, alas, available to those who act in isolation. When Saint Oscar Romero preached his unforgettable sermon on 23 March 1980 in San Salvador’s packed Metropolitan Cathedral, in which he urged the death squads to cease the repression and desist from murdering their fellow campesinos, he must have known his days were numbered. We will never know how much Romero saw of his sniper assassin the following day as he celebrated Mass in the chapel at the Hospital of Divine Providence. The temptation is to assume that saints are superhuman and immune from the fears of mortals. But all the evidence points to the contrary. Jan Graffius, curator of Stonyhurst College, who was entrusted with the task of preserving Romero’s possessions, wrote in these pages six years ago about a shock discovery when she was in the capital of El Salvador and carrying out her work:

…it was during a minute examination for mould on the black woollen trousers that I had my most moving insight. They were covered with a white, speckled deposit, formed into circular pools, which at first sight appeared to be some kind of mildew, although it did not resemble anything I had come across before. Under magnification it became clear that these were salt crystals – the residue of a sudden and profuse sweat. According to eyewitnesses at his last Mass, Romero suddenly flinched, having seen the gunman at the door of the church.

In this sudden moment staring at death, quite literally down the barrel of a gun, no-one was in the frame alongside Monseñor Romero. He was totally exposed and defenceless. Yet he also had Christ alongside him. Surely that was his firm conviction when one considers how he responded to those around him who gave warnings that his ever more trenchant criticisms of the military government were going to lead to his premature death? ‘If they kill me,’ he said, ‘I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.’ When you have such faith, anything is possible, even if you are doing everything possible to combat the urge to fight or to flee. Such faith, nevertheless, does not inhibit the spontaneous workings of the automatic nervous system.

In the aftermath of Gethsemane, of course, Jesus neither fought nor fled. As a keen and inquisitive primary school child at St Mark’s in Salford, I recall the perplexed looks on the teacher’s face when my curiosity got the better of me. If the apostles had all fallen asleep and Jesus was left totally alone to ponder his fate in the garden, who on earth was around writing down all his words?

My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done. (Matthew 26:42)

I never did get a satisfactory answer to my question as a ten-year-old, but fifty years on different questions remain. For Jesus, in nature both truly divine and truly human, what was the essence of that existential hour of torment? Was there some flash-frame of fast-forwarding horror to physical glimpses of what was to occur in under 24 hours? Does advance premonition of fate produce the sweat that results in drops of blood? Or was there an even more profound dread and sense of torment? Only three years after I posed those primary school questions I became enamoured of the music of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. The song that made its greatest impression on me was the Gethsemane solo, ‘I Only Want to Say’, sung on my MCA label recording by Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan.  

Why should I die? Oh why should I die?

Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain?

Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain

Show me there's a reason for your wanting me to die

You're far too keen on where and how, but not so hot on why.

The precise detail of what went through the mind of Jesus in his passion is, of course, pure conjecture. But this suggested notion of wasted mission, of it all being ultimately pointless I find on a par with the cry from the cross, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?’ It is a cry of despair and abandonment.

The Cistercians had each other as they were led away to their fate by their captors. So too, in their savage moment of annihilation, the Jesuit martyrs were together in that sense of shared destiny; and, of course, they had an inspirational loyalty to Romero who had gone before them nine years previously. Saint Oscar Romero no doubt cleaved to the inspiration of Christ’s kenosis, his self-emptying to the will of the Father.

But in all this reflection, I sense the utter aloneness and bleakness of an unsupported Jesus in that garden. It has taken sixty years of my life for this finally to feel real, to feel its call to stare into a nihilistic void. The very grounds of his deepest nature summon him, ultimately, to choose a course which transforms the world. 

‘Love endures’, says Father Christian de Chergé, head of the Cistercian community as they vote to stay and face their aggressors. ‘Love endures.’