John XXIII College Newsletter

Liturgy

Community Mass

Thank you to students from St Louis House for preparing today’s Eucharist. Next week’s Community Mass will be prepared by Magis students. We look forward to having Magis families as well as other families come together to give thanks for another term.

 

The College community today also farewelled Fr Tony Lusvardi SJ. Over the past six weeks, Fr Tony has warmly engaged with students, staff and families, and he will be gratefully remembered for his guidance, thought-provoking homilies, willingness to meet people where they are and his joyful presence. 

 

A small group of parents and staff was blessed to have the opportunity of doing an Ignatian ‘Retreat in Daily Life’, offered by Fr Tony. The retreat supported participants in taking time each day to reflect on the love in their lives, to express the gratitude in their hears, to have some meaningful quiet time and to engage more deeply with God through Scripture and reflection. 

 

Fr Tony will spend another month in Melbourne, completing his Australian ‘Tertianship’ program, and will then return to Rome to resume teaching at the Gregorian University in the autumn term.

 

Community Mass details:

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

Sacrements in Parishes

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 Saint Aloysius

 

The readings for our celebration of the life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga tell us to show our love for God by keeping his commandments. Sometimes people talk about love and the commandments as if there were a contradiction between the two, but Jesus teaches us otherwise. 

 

For Jesus, love isn’t a feeling.  Don’t confuse love with romance, which can be produced with mood lighting and champagne.  For Jesus, love is life-giving.  God, the creator, first shows his love for us by giving us life.  And Jesus, the Son of God, shows the power and depth of his love by giving up his own life so that we might have eternal life.

 

But life is a delicate thing.  If you plant a garden, you have to know the right amount of water to give the seeds—too much and they’ll rot, too little and they’ll dry up. I’ve killed a few houseplants learning this lesson.  If you just leave your garden alone to do whatever it wants, it will soon choke with weeds and die.  Keeping plants alive sometimes requires trimming them.  Nurturing life requires rules.

 

It’s the same with the commandments.  These provide the direction necessary to live together as Christians over the long term.  Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for being selective in which of the commandments they follow.  They noisily follow those rules that are of benefit to them, but when it comes time to sacrifice for others, they find a loophole.  They don’t put their whole selves into the love of God, which is Jesus’ most fundamental command: “love the Lord your God will all your heart with all soul and with all your mind.”  And love your neighbor as yourself.  No room for loopholes. No minimalism.

 

St. Aloysius Gonzaga, the patron of one of the schools that became John XXIII, followed these commands of Jesus to the very end.  Aloysius was the son of a wealthy and powerful Italian duke, who wanted him to become a soldier and even gave him a set of pistols to play with as a child.  Aloysius rebelled and entered the Jesuits, giving up his family’s wealth and power. He dreamed of being a missionary, but he had to give up that dream, too.  Aloysius was less than 23 years old and had only been a Jesuit for a few years when the plague hit Rome.  He wasn’t even ordained yet, but he set aside his studies and went out to Rome’s hospitals to care for poor plague victims who had no one else to care for them.  He caught the plague himself and died.         

 

 

But God gives life even after death.  One of the schools that became John XXIII College was named for St. Aloysius Gonzaga.  In a way that he himself would not even have thought possible, Aloysius did become a missionary, inspiring a school on a continent he never knew existed and watching over it with his patronage and prayers.  He gave up his life, and but he gave life, too, life that continues to flourish in each of you to this day.  Because if we give our lives to God—loving him with our all—there’s no limit to the life that he will give to us.

 

© Tony Lusvardi 

 

The reflection for the memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga 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.