Liturgy

Community Mass

Next weekend marks the beginning of the Church season of Advent, and this will be reflected in our liturgical celebrations.

Community Mass on Friday will be prepared by students in Year 8. It would be lovely to see Year 8 families, especially. However, all families are warmly invited to our Friday morning Eucharist.

Community Mass details

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

Do you have a child in Year 2, 3 or 5?

Parishes have begun enrolling for their 2023 Sacrament Programs and parents are encouraged to enrol their child in their ‘home’ parish.

Please see the College website for enrolment information received from City Beach and Subiaco parishes.

Parents often have questions about the Sacrament program, so don’t be afraid to ask. The program is family-focused, parish-based, Catholic school-supported. This means that parents are respected as first educators in the faith of their children. The family is supported by the College Religious Education program. In Year 3, students are taught the content for First Reconciliation; in year 4 ,the content for First Holy Communion and in Year 6, the content for Confirmation. Students celebrate these sacraments in their parish. Parish Sacrament programs usually involve enrolling your child, attending a workshop or commitment Mass and attending a rehearsal.

If you would like further information about the Sacrament Program please contact:

Your parish priest or Sacrament Coordinator
The Archdiocesan website;
Mary-Anne Lumley mary-anne.lumley@cew.edu.au 08 9383 0513

Good News for the Feast of Christ the Universal King

‘Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom’

Luke 23:35-43

Memory is an awesomely powerful phenomenon. A passing comment or even aroma can lead to the vivid recall of some event, some person, and we can still feel the joy or sorrow, the happiness or trauma.

But it can decline. One of the sadnesses about a person suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease is that one cannot be sure that one’s dearly loved father or mother really remembers you, and you desperately want to be ‘brought to mind’.

Again, if you memorise something, you are said to ‘know it by heart’. That is why we want to be remembered by someone important to us: we want that person to ‘know us by heart’.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that God always remembers you, remembers me, that we are always ‘in mind’, that God ‘knows us by heart’. That would be a powerful remembering.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, amidst all the scoffing and jeering and the taunting of Our Lord: ‘If you be the king of the Jews…’, one of the criminals crucified with Jesus simply pleads:

‘Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.’

‘Jesus’. Surprisingly, this is one of only two instances in the Gospels where Jesus is addressed by his name. ‘Jesus’ is a short form of the Jewish name ‘Joshua’ which means ‘Yahweh helps’ or ‘may Yahweh help’.

The poor tortured criminal recognised in his fellow crucified someone who embodied the power of God to save him – to save him from the realm of everlasting death and to transfer him to the divine realm of everlasting life. Unlike the jeering and taunting leaders, he saw the truth of the inscription: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ He was invoking the Kingly power – the power of absolute pardon responding to a petition for mercy.

But he does not plead for mercy in so many words. He simply pleads: ‘Remember me’. It was enough for him if this Jesus would ‘bring him to mind’, would ‘know him by heart’.

It was enough for him to be imprinted on Jesus’ memory, and saving consequences would follow. Even after the dissolution of the body in death, he could be remembered in heavenly glory.

This is an exercise of sovereignty which befits ‘Christ the King’… the true sovereignty of Jesus Christ is perfectly shown in this little episode in his dying moments on the throne of the cross: ‘Today, you will be with me in Paradise.’

Jesus demonstrates all the kingly power you or I will ever need and he shows that he will do so not by lording it over us, but, as with the criminal on Calvary, being close enough to really gaze at us so that we are imprinted on his mind.

‘Jesus, remember me, know me by heart.’

And he will, and when he does, that is our salvation — that is to be in Paradise.

The reflection for this Sunday’s Gospel is from Father Michael Tate and is used with permission. Rev. Prof. Michael Tate was a Senator for Tasmania from 1978-93 and Ambassador to The Hague and the Holy See from 1993-96. He is currently Vicar-General in the Archdiocese of Hobart and is an Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Tasmania where he lectures in International Humanitarian Law.