Liturgy

Community Liturgy

Thanks to the 2020 Homeroom leaders who prepared the Eucharist this morning.

Next Friday’s Community Liturgy will be the last for this year. If you have not managed to get to a Community Mass yet, treat yourself to a joyful liturgy as we journey through the church season of Advent. Students from Year 9 will be preparing this Mass.

Thursday 12 December, the last day of term, students from Pre-Primary to Year 9 will celebrate the Eucharist together in the gym at 9:00. Parent are most welcome to attend also.

Community Liturgy summary

Where: College Chapel
Time: 8:00am – 8:30am
When: every Friday in term time

SACRAMENT PROGRAM 2020

Do you have a child currently in Year 2, 3 or 5? Next year the children will be respectively preparing for the sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist and Confirmation. While the students will learn the appropriate content in their Religion classes, they celebrate the sacraments with their family in their parishes.

The archdiocesan Sacrament Policy is ‘family-focused, parish-based, Catholic school supported’, so it is the right of the parents to enrol their child in a parish program – usually, but not necessarily the parish closest to home. Some of our local parishes have begun the enrolment process.

Please see here for schedules and other information which has been supplied by parishes.

website: http://www.johnxxiii.edu.au/view/parent-resources/parish

If you have any further queries please contact Mary-Anne Lumley: mary-anne.lumley@cew.edu.au

Parish Connections

Advent begins this Sunday. Some of our local parishes warmly invite families to enter into this season with some special celebrations. Please refer to details below.

GOOD NEWS for the 1st Sunday in Advent

The Lord is coming when we least expect.

Matthew 24:37-44

The reflection for this Sunday’s Gospel is from a homily by Jesuit priest, Fr Richard Leonard. 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.

‘Night and Day’ is the dominant image presented to us in the readings for this Sunday, the beginning of Advent. The season of Advent is for the Church the time just before the dawn of Christmas, when the fullness of God's love took human flesh in Jesus.

The moments before dawn are often special: cities are still, the air is damp, noise is at a minimum and, at least on clear days, there is an anticipation of the sun bursting forth into daylight. No wonder Paul and Matthew found it such a rich metaphor for the coming of Christ.

… Being in the light is not just about what we see, it is about what we do. St Ignatius Loyola often spoke about the things we keep buried in the dark. For Ignatius the experience we won't speak about, the sins we won't confess and the memories we suppress are the signs of the bad spirit. They gain an inordinate power over us and we displace a lot of energy keeping them buried in the dark. Ignatius always saw the hand of the good spirit when these things came into the light. Every time someone says to me, ‘Father, I've never told anyone this before, but I want to talk about it now…’ I thank God that the good spirit is alive and active. St Ignatius encourages us to be alert to all the ways we con ourselves that keeping secrets hidden in the dark is a necessary or acceptable way to live.

May this Advent be the season in which we bring to consciousness all the things that stop us from being fully alive and basking in the light.

In the words of a hymn by Marty Haugen[1]

You shall be the path that guides us, you the light that in us burns;

Shining deep within all people, yours the love that we must learn,

For our hearts shall wander restless, 'til they safe to you return;

Finding you in one another, we shall all your face discern.

May our preparation for Christmas confirm us in the truth of Haugen's words about Jesus Christ and humanity.