Liturgy
Community Liturgy
Our community was blessed this morning as students from St Louis House prepared the celebration of the Eucharist. (See the reflection below by Australian Jesuit, Fr Andrew Hamilton). The College celebrations of the Eucharist align with Archdiocesan guidelines, prepared in accordance with the State Government Roadmap.
Next Friday, 3 July, the liturgy will be prepared by Year 11 students who are looking ahead to their 2021 Indigenous immersion in Arnhem Land. Coincidentally, next Friday’s liturgy will be a prelude to the Church celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday on 5 July.
SACRAMENT PROGRAM
Phase-3 – Important update for students in Years 3 and 4
Good news! The Archbishop has advised that “the celebration of First Reconciliation (school-aged children) and First Holy Communion (school-aged children) may recommence.”
What does this mean for my child in Year 3 or 4?
The students have completed the required units of work in the Religion curriculum, and will be receiving a certificate from the College. Parents need to enroll their children in their parish Sacrament Program, as soon as possible.
I thought the parish program was only for students in non-Catholic schools?
All parishes require parents to enroll their children to celebrate the sacraments of First Reconciliation or First communion.
So I need to enroll in the parish even if my child is not attending classes?
Yes, that is correct.
What will I need when I enroll?
You will need the Baptism certificate of your child. You will also need the certification from the College that your child has completed the required unit of work in the Religion curriculum.
I have a child in Year 6: will there be Confirmation this year?
The Archbishop has advised “Confirmation (school-aged children) remains temporarily suspended.” We will advise parents as updates become available. In the meantime, you are advised to enroll in your parish.
I need more information; where can I get it?
- See below for updates provided by some of our ‘local’ parishes;
- If your nearest parish is not listed, search the Archdiocesan website;
- Check the information available on the College website
- Contact Mary-Anne Lumley mary-anne.lumley@cew.edu.au 08 9383 0513
Updates from local parishes
STAR OF THE SEA, COTTESLOE
First Communion 2 August 10:00am
Contact: cottesloe@perthcatholic.org.au
SAINT THOMAS APOSTLE, CLAREMONT
The Sacraments of Reconciliation and First Communion will take place at dates to be decided in terms 4 and 3 respectively. The Parish is waiting for Government restrictions to be further lifted (Stages 4 and 5) so that more people can be included in the ceremonies.
Contact: silvia.kinder@cewa.edu.au
OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY, DOUBLEVIEW
Reconciliation 24 October
First Communion 19 September
Contact: Kaye Shervington, doubleview@perthcatholic.org.au
OUR LADY OF GRACE, NORTH BEACH
Reconciliation 27 October
Contact: Sheralee Allen, north.beach@perthcatholic.org.au
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY, SCARBOROUGH
Reconciliation To be advised
First Communion 23 August
Contact: Fr Grant Goddard, scarborough@perthcatholic.org.au 08 9341 1124
SAINT CECILIA, FLOREAT
Contact: Rita Morgan, floreat@perthcatholic.org.au
ST JOSEPH, SUBIACO
Contact: sacraments@stjosephssubiaco.org.au
HOLY SPIRIT, CITY BEACH
Contact: delattrecn@yahoo.fr or phone Parish Priest, Fr Emmanual-tv Dimobi, 08 93413131.
Good News as we celebrate St Louis House Day –
‘Love in an unlovely world’
This year St Aloysius (aka St Louis) seems to have stepped out from a stage showing a historical drama into the dress and the language of our own world. As we become accustomed to the splitting of a globalised order into a more self-centred and divided world, we can identify with the violent and unpredictable society in which Aloysius grew up and with his search for something more than wealth and success. His is not merely a story told about another age but a life with which we can engage.
We now realise, too, that Aloysius’ young death from plague was not something that could happen only in a lost past before modern medicine, but something that could happen to any of us. We can also feel the force of the questions he had to ask about how to live during the plague. Should he protect his own health and those of his companions as his Jesuit superiors wanted, or should he volunteer to nurse victims of plague and of other diseases in Rome, as he successfully pressed his superiors to permit him to do?
Similar questions have engaged many people during the coronavirus and the Black Lives Matter campaign. We can now also appreciate better the encouragement that volunteers like Aloysius were able to give to people in Rome, having seen the effect of their ordinary heroism during the time of isolation in Australia.
Many people have been put off St Aloysius by his apparent rigidity and by the paintings that portray him with lily, finely tailored clerical dress, crucifix and skull. In our changed world he appears in a much more human light. He faced the difficulties encountered by anyone born out of his time and place.
His times were marked by the arrogance of inherited wealth, violence as the preferred way of resolving disputes, and by exploitative, sexualised relationships with women. We have come to recognise how deeply ingrained these attitudes are in our own society and how easily they can dominate relationships between different groups and nations.
If Aloysius wanted something more than what he inherited, found it as a child in an inner life of prayer, and had to express it in the world of the family castle and royal courts, he could not but seem odd and respond in angular ways to invitations to share fully in an ethos he hated. He had to hack his way through virgin forest without a guide.
His last days showed him to be a person of strong feelings, but not dominated by them. He was revolted by the dirt, stink, and nakedness involved in washing the plague-stricken. But in this, as in so much else, he hung in. Ultimately his life was less about leaving an unlovely world but of finding an attractive one in the following of Jesus.
© Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ.
Father Andy is a Jesuit, a theologian, a writer and, among his many other roles, the Media Officer for Jesuit Social Services.