John XXIII College Newsletter

Liturgy

Community Mass

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Sacred Heart. Thank you to the pilgrimage students, who prepared Community Mass this morning. Thank you also to Father Tony Lusvardi SJ, who has given us permission to print his homily. See below. 

 

Next week, for the feast of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, the liturgy will be prepared by students in Saint Louis House. After Mass, people are welcome for coffee, before heading off to work and other commitments. 

 

Community Mass details:

  • College Chapel
  • Fridays in term time
  • Starts: 8:00am and concludes 8:30am

Congratulations

Congratulations to these Year 4 students who made their First Holy Communion last Sunday and celebrated with their families in the parishes of Saint Kieran’s and Our Lady of Lourdes.

 

Thea Barboutis

Baxter Butler

Giselle D’Souza

Luella Fennessy

Hal Hedley

Charles Hulme

Ryan Kelly

Annabelle Knox

Annabelle McGregor

Claudia Milligan

Cecilia Natale

Naomi Nikoloski

Thomas Tandy

Axl White

Henry Wysocki

Olivia Young

 

 

Information from parishes regarding sacraments is available on the College website. If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to ask! 

Good News for the Feast of the Sacred Heart

 

Sometimes certain people get on my nerves, and it’s hard to love them.  Sometimes people behave badly toward others, and it’s hard to love them, too. Sometimes people have hurt me; it’s hard enough to forgive them and even harder to love them. 

The first letter of John tells us that God is love, and remaining in his love means loving others as he does.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands us to love our enemies, just as our heavenly Father loves them.  From the cross, he even prays for the forgiveness of those who crucified him. 

 

But it’s hard to love those who irritate me or who’ve hurt me or who behave obnoxiously or cruelly.  With effort, I succeed in being kind and fair to them maybe 75% of the time, though that percentage falls quickly if I’m tired or hungry or disappointed.  Sometimes I want to say to Jesus, “This yoke doesn’t seem easy to me.” 

 

I know I’m not the only person to feel this way, but that doesn’t help.  Jesus doesn’t say, “Love each other just like most people do” but “Love one another as I have loved you.”  And that’s why this feast day, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is so important.

Salvation, as I’ve said before, means union with God, which means, before everything else, loving as he loves.  But we all have human hearts, which are limited, weak, impatient, impetuous, a little bit selfish, sometimes rebellious.  Only Jesus has a heart which is both human and divine. 

 

This doesn’t mean that there’s no hope for us; but it does mean that loving like Jesus loves is something beyond our natural abilities, something supernatural.  So we need to pray to have the heart of Jesus.  Today’s feast day is a reminder and an opportunity to do just that. We might pray today at Mass, “Jesus, give me your heart.” 

 

You know that Ignatian prayer often involves using your imagination, so when I find someone difficult to love, I sometimes ask the Lord: “Jesus, how do you see this person?”  Or I pray, “Jesus, give me your eyes so that I can see this person as you do.”  Sometimes it helps to try to imagine what Jesus sees.  What we’re really asking for is a heart that loves like Jesus’ heart.

 

Once a good priest gave me some good advice in confession.

Jesus tells us to pray even for our enemies. Usually, we pray that they change—that’s not wrong, it’s not a bad prayer.  But if we want to have the heart of Jesus, this priest told me, “Don’t just pray they become easier for you.  Pray for their unrestricted good.”

With years of effort, maybe I’m up to 76% of the time being decent to my enemies.  But at least I’ve come to realize that, even if it’s a supernatural goal and requires supernatural help, even if every step of progress makes us realise just how much more we have to go, it’s always worth the effort to seek the heart of Jesus.

 

© Tony Lusvardi

 

The reflection for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is from Jesuit, Father Tony Lusvardi. Father Tony grew up in the USA and has taught English for the US Peace Corps in Kazakhstan and administered three small parishes on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. For the past six years he has lived in Rome, firstly completing his licence and doctorate in sacramental theology, and now, teaching sacramental theology at the Gregorian University. 

 

Fr Tony is with us in the College for one more week.