Fr Paul - College Chaplain

Friends,

We all have gone through half journey of the season of Lent. Congratulations to all of us.

The fourth Sunday of Lent, which is called the Laetare Sunday, the Sunday of Joy, gives us a hope that we are going to join the Joy of Easter, the glory of the resurrected Christ. It also reminds us that we need to try our best to prepare spiritually for our life by renewing our commitments and receiving the grace of God through the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist during Lent.

Although we cannot celebrate any school mass or participate in the Easter celebration at our college because of the coronavirus, our diocese still encourages you to continue active participation in the life of the Church, through activities such as time in personal and family prayer, reflecting on the Scriptures, making a spiritual communion, or even participating in a Mass online.

On 19 March, the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope Francis offered the Holy Mass to pray for the victims of the COVID-19. He urged all of us, Catholics and non-Catholics, to pray for them, saying, “In this moment of crisis because of the pandemic we are experiencing, this nearness asks to be manifested more… Perhaps we cannot draw near physically to others because of the fear of contagion, but we can reawaken in ourselves a habit of drawing near to others through prayer, through help. There are many ways of drawing near.”

Some people in the lock-down area say, “if you can’t go outside, go inside.”

Let us go inside to pray with our God for our suffering brothers and sisters and for our country.

Archbishop Christopher Prowse (Catholic Archbishop of Canberra – Goulburn, Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Wagga Wagga) composed this following prayer and invites each of us to pray for the victims and those involving in the service for them.

A PRAYER AT A TIME OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Heavenly Father,

We praise and thank you for your loving presence, especially in the Lent/Easter season.

We offer heartfelt thanks, dear Lord, particularly for our recent rains.

Once again, we come to you in our need. As your children we are in need of your healing and protection.

Just as we have been recovering from our dangerous bushfire summer, we have now been thrown into a fearful coronavirus (COVID 19) autumn.

We are tired and frightened. We feel a sense of panic and future uncertainty on a global scale.

Be with us now, Loving Master. Without you all is nothing – only empty hearts and a total reliance on our own feeble resources.

But with you “there is mercy and fullness of Redemption” (Psalm 130/7). With you there is “the loving mercy of the heart of our God (who) will give light to those who sit in darkness, those who dwell in the shadow of death, and guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1/79).

It seems that so many public gatherings are now postponed or cancelled. There is virus death, the sick, and the anxious. We are spending more time on our own, or with family or friends.

We pray for the sick and those looking after them. Help us to offer practical help to those