Liturgy

Community Liturgy

Next Friday’s Community Mass will be prepared by students in Year 7, and family and friends are very welcome to celebrate with the students.

At Friday’s Mass we will also remember much loved former John XXIII College teacher, Sr Mary Murray ibvm. Former students who knew Sr Mary Murray are warmly invited to attend this community Mass.

The Friday community liturgies are open to all. They are usually prepared by a year group or a House group, and if you would like advance notice, the roster is on the website.

As always, all parents and friends of all year groups are welcome every week, regardless of who is preparing the liturgy.

When: Fridays in Term Time

Time: 8:00-8:30am

Where: College Chapel

If you have any queries about Community Liturgy, please contact Mary-Anne Lumley:

Lumley.mary-anne@cewa.edu.au or 9383 0513.

Sacrament program

CONGATULATIONS

Congratulations to the Year 3 students who have made their First Reconciliation and to the Year 4 students who will make their First Communion this weekend.

Let us hold in our hearts and in our prayer at this special time all our students who are preparing with their families for Sacraments this year.

Do you have a child in Year 3, 4 or 6 and have not yet enrolled in the Sacrament program in your ‘home’ parish?

Contact your Parish Priest or Sacrament Coordinator.
Contact Mary-Anne Lumley, Parish Liaison lumley.mary-anne@johnxxiii.edu.au or 9383 0513.
Locate information from your parish on the archdiocesan website:
Use the College website to find information, including diary dates, supplied by some local parishes

GOOD NEWS for the Feast of Corpus Christi

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

This is my body. This is my blood.

The reflection for this Sunday’s Gospel is part of a homily by Jesuit priest, Fr Richard Leonard. This article has featured previously in the College newsletter and is worth reprinting for the feast of Corpus Christi, as Eucharist is a pivotal celebration for Catholics.

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.

…As Catholics we believe that Jesus is really and personally present to us in the broken bread and shared cup of the Eucharist. And although we believe that Christ is present in the Scriptures, the assembly and the ministers of the Church, we hold that Christ's presence under the form of bread and wine is one filled with the greatest intimacy and uniqueness.

The Eucharist is not intimate and unique because it is magic. It's not intimate and unique because we gaze upon the elements. The Eucharist is intimate and unique because earthly signs are transformed by God's love, and are consumed in faith. As we eat and drink these elements Christ becomes part of us, and we come alive in Christ.

In the fifth century Saint Augustine taught his people that if they truly loved the Eucharist they would become what they eat. The same is true for us today. By receiving into our hands the bread – blessed and broken, the cup – poured and shared, we say ‘Amen’ to becoming the same in Christ: blessed, broken, poured out and shared in love. We commune with God and God with us in the Eucharist so that just as earthly gifts are transformed into Christ so through us will be the entire world, and all things in it.

There is a huge and important difference between grace and magic. One is a trick for show. The other is the power of love, which expresses itself in faith, hope and service.

In a profound poem French Jesuit Didier Rimaud challenges those of us who love the Eucharist to see it linked to the liberation begun in the Exodus, consummated in the Resurrection and working in our world today.

In remembrance of you,

We take the bread of Easter in our hands,

This Bread do we consume:

It does no longer taste of bitter herbs,

nor of unleavened bread.

It is the bread of a land promised us

where we shall be set free.

In remembrance of you,

We take the wine of Easter at our feast,

This wine do we hold dear.

It does no longer taste of bitter springs,

nor of dark salty pools.

It is the wine of land promised us

where we shall be made whole.

In remembrance of you,

From exile we return.

In remembrance of you,

We walk across the sea!

No wonder the early Christians called the Body and Blood of Christ, ‘food for the journey’. May [the] Eucharist strengthen and embolden us to help God liberate and transform the world through how we spend our lives.