Liturgy

HOLY WEEK LITURGIES IN PARISHES

For many families, embracing the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter enhances their celebration of this most important feast in the Church year. Parishes will also be offering the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Not sure of the times of liturgies in your parish?

Some of our local parishes have supplied schedules, which can be found on the College website here.

https://johnxxiii.springcms.com.au/view/parent-resources/parish

Further information for various parishes is available on the website of the Perth Archdiocese: http://www.perthcatholic.org.au/Parishes_and_Mass_Times.htm?cms%2Erm=List

SACRAMENT PROGRAM

Do you have a child in Year 3, 4 or 6?

Students in these classes are excited about their Parish commitment liturgies and about preparing for the Sacrament this year. It is a great privilege for this task to be shared among parents, the parish and the College, in what is the ‘family-focused, parish-based and Catholic school supported’ sacrament program of our archdiocese.

If you have not already enrolled your child in a a parish program it is important to do that immediately.

If you need support in this, there are several people available to assist:

Contact your Parish Priest or Sacrament Coordinator.
Contact Mary-Anne Lumley, Parish Liaison lumley.mary-anne@johnxxiii.edu.au or 9383 0513.
Information for all parishes may be found on the archdiocesan website:

http://www.perthcatholic.org.au/Parishes_and_Mass_Times.htm?cms%2Erm=List

Information from parishes will be on the College website as it becomes available?

Parishes in the College catchment area may have supplied information about their programs. Check the College website here.

GOOD NEWS for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

“The blind man went off and washed himself and came away with his sight restored.”

(John 9:1-41)

The reflection is from a homily by Fr Richard Leonard for this Sunday. It is printed here with kind permission. Fr Richard Leonard SJ is the Director of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting, is a member of the Australian Catholic Media Council and is author of Preaching to the Converted, Paulist Press, New York, 2006.

The plunging of an adult or an infant into the baptismal font three times is the most important

moment in the ceremony and meant to be the most moving one as well. Most of us think that this action is associated with the Trinity. It is. But the more ancient association is with the three days Jesus lay in the tomb…

The season of Lent has its origins in third century Egypt where there was a commemoration of Jesus’ forty days in the desert. In the fourth century these forty days are moved to their present location in the Church’s calendar as the final preparation time for baptismal candidates at Easter and by the fifth century these penitential and baptismal focuses came together as one season for all believers to observe. Even the word Lent, from the old English word Lencten meaning Spring, alerted Christians in the northern hemisphere that this season was linked to the waking of nature after the long sleep of winter. Lent is about waking up to see that light and life have come in Christ.

Over the centuries the Church has tended to place more emphasis on penance than baptism. The Second Vatican Council, however, went back to the most ancient sources of this season, re-established the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and encouraged us to see the link between our acts of penance and our ongoing conversion to Christ expressed in the baptismal promises made for us many years before.

On this last Sunday in Lent Lazarus is given to us to help us think about the tombs in which we lie hidden and the life to which we are called. The bad spirit seduces most of us into having some form of secretive life. It might be a secret we can’t tell, a sin we can’t confess or a memory we want to bury. At its worst it can be a lifestyle or a pattern of unethical behaviour we have divorced from the rest of our lives. We may even con ourselves into believing that all of this is normal and ‘not so bad’.

These tombs often look similar. They seem small on the surface, but as we get away with our secrets we bury ourselves in them more deeply. We jealously guard the entrance, displacing energy to defend our tombs and we’re ashamed if anyone rolls away the stone and sees the mess inside.

But this Sunday Jesus stands at the entrance of our tombs and calls us out of them. We’re asked to face down the bad spirits that keep us locked in secrecy, to move away from shame, embrace repentance, recognise the price to be paid for being true to what’s best in ourselves and we’re invited to know the light and life of Christ’s healing and forgiveness.

No one can pretend that this journey is easy, but it’s what Lent is all about: the journey from the tomb of our own particular deaths, through penance to the new life of Easter.

COMMUNITY LITURGY

Next Friday 7th April Community Mass will begin in the Library Courtyard at 7:30am, as we anticipate Palm Sunday and Holy Week. The procession to the Chapel for mass – with palms and singing – is a foretaste of Sunday (or Saturday evening parish masses). If you cant be at school by 7:30, just come to the Chapel at 8:00 for the Mass, which will conclude at the usual time of 8:30.

If you have not previously attended Community Mass, and especially if you are new to the College, you are very welcome. People are welcome to attend on a regular basis – or less frequently, depending on personal schedules. Some people commit to Community Mass as part of their Lenten practice.

The first Community Mass of Term Two, where we continue to celebrate the seven-week season of Easter, will be on Friday 28 April.

For any enquiries concerning the Community Mass, please contact Mary-Anne Lumley: Lumley.mary-anne@johnxxiii.edu.au or 9383 0513.

When: Fridays in Term Time

Time: 8:00-8:30am

Where: College Chapel

Except – next Friday, 7 April. Start time 7:30 in the Library Courtyard.