Solemnity of All Saints Sunday, 1 st November

Transcription

1 Solemnity of All Saints Sunday, 1 st November

2 FIRST READING: Apocalypse 7: I, John saw another angel rising where the sun rises, carrying the seal of the living God; he called in a powerful voice to the four angels whose duty was to devastate land and sea, Wait before you do any damage on land or at sea or to the trees, until we have put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. Then I heard how many were sealed: a hundred and forty-four thousand, out of all the tribes of Israel. After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. They shouted aloud, Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! And all the angels who were standing in a circle round the throne, surrounding the elders and the four animals, prostrated themselves before the throne, and touched the ground with their foreheads, worshipping God with these words, Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen. One of the elders then spoke, and asked me, Do you know who these people are, dressed in white robes, and where they have come from? I answered him, You can tell me, my lord. Then he said, These are the people who have been through the great persecution, and because they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb. RESPONSORIAL PSALM: Ps 23 Response Such are the men who seek your face, O Lord 1.The Lord s is the earth and its fullness, the world and all its peoples. It is he who set it on the seas; on the waters he made it firm. Response 2. Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? The man with clean hands and pure heart, who desires not worthless things. Response 3. He shall receive blessings from the Lord and reward from the God who saves him. Such are the men who seek him, seek the face of the God of Jacob. Response

3 SECOND READING: 1 John 3:1-3 Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us. My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is. Surely everyone who entertains this hope must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ. Gospel Acclamation Mt 11: 28 Alleluia, Alleluia! Come to me, All you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest, says the Lord. Alleluia GOSPEL: Matthew 5:1-12 Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them: How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy the gentle: they shall have the earth for their heritage. Happy those who mourn: they shall be comforted. Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right: they shall be satisfied. Happy the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them. Happy the pure in heart: they shall see God. Happy the peacemakers: they shall be called sons of God. Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right: theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you

4 THREE TYPES OF SAINTS WE NEED TODAY If I had a wish-list for the church today, it would include a request for three saints of old to re-appear in a new guise. What the church needs today is a new Augustine of Hippo, a new Francis of Assisi, and a new Thomas More. First, we need a new Augustine: St. Augustine was a rare genius, an intellectual, an artist, a brilliant person who, before his conversion to Christianity, looked upon Christianity as a superstition, a naiveté, a gentle myth which, while it sustained his mother whom he loved, lacked the intellectual rigor to be real truth. His original attitude towards Christianity was one of condescension, he saw it as something beneath him, beneath his intellectual and artistic dignity. Slowly, through the very honesty of his own intellectual search, he came to see the truth of Christ. A day came when he dropped to his knees, committed himself to a truth that he had once despised, and then for the rest of his life put his great genius at its service. What he did then was to marry Christian revelation to the experience, language, art, and intellectual life of his time. In terms of an image, he wrote a software for Christianity that has, for the most part, lasted for nearly 17 hundred years. Bill Gates may have given us Windows 98, but Augustine gave us Christianity and Common Sense 400 AD. In the Western world, this software has endured essentially intact down to this very day. Text Box: We need models of non-celibate sanctity. A new Augustine is called for today. What the church would most need is for some young, post-modern genius, an intellectual and an artist, to convert to Christianity and, right by the dynamics of his or her own conversion, show that the enlightenment and what follows from it is not what it espouses itself to be, namely, something intellectually beyond Christianity, but rather that it, in its best expressions, is simply a cousin in truth. We need too for that person to write a new software for Christianity. We need a new Augustine to again make Christianity an intellectual and aesthetic option for a culture that perceives it as lacking in both. Then too we need a new Francis of Assisi: We need someone, man or woman, who can re-inflame the romantic imagination of Christianity. Francis was a saint, but he was more than that. He was also a man of rare imagination. He was someone who, like a great artist, could reshape the collective imagination. What Francis was able to do, among other things of course, was to give to the world a new and a more attractive vision of how Christianity is connected to nature, how a life of simplicity itself can be an aesthetic, and how the altruism which lies at the heart of Jesus message can be more attractively imaged and lived. What he said, did, and founded became, almost instantly, something analogous to a great work of art, it drew people to itself and inflamed their imaginations. Hundreds of years later, it is still doing the same thing. But his images no longer fire the imagination as powerfully as they once did. We need a new Francis, a post-modern man or woman, who can

5 again inflame the romantic imagination of world in the same way that Francis once did. This is badly needed in an age that all but militates against simplicity, altruism, and nature. In a time of morally-authorized greed, where celebrity is divinity, and where restlessness and grandiosity have been taken to new levels, in a world of highrise living, some great artist must again show us that what we really want is to live simply, altruistically, and in harmony with nature. Finally, we need a new Thomas More: We need someone, woman or man, who is a top-level lawyer, a politician, a great humanist, a lover of the arts, fully immersed in the affairs of culture, and yet is able to combine all of these involvements, and such a love of the world, with a simple faith, an uncompromising integrity, human attractiveness, an enviable wit, and a capacity for moral martyrdom. This woman or man too, unlike Augustine and Francis, needs to be married, with children, not a monk, priest, or nun. We need models of non-celibate sanctity. Thomas More was driven by two great loves and two great loyalties love of the world and loyalty to it and love of God and loyalty to God. His life that of a great humanist and a great Christian continually radiated both those loves and both those loyalties. In the end, of course, they weren t equal. God was given a certain priority, but, even then, love for the world was never denigrated. He loved both, God and the world, solidly to the end, modelling what a healthy, full, joy filled and faith filled life can look like. We need a new Thomas More today. And so the want-ads are out: Wanted A new Augustine of Hippo. Wanted A new Francis of Assisi. Wanted A new Thomas More. Applications anyone? We pray for those who have died recently Dean King and those whose anniversaries occur about this time Ella Massey, Jan Toogood, Joan Green, Bridget Cody, Allen O Connor, Mary Speirs, Bill Elligate, Greg Thomas, Dean Platt Prayers: Please remember to keep the following people and their families in your prayers.. Val Boothey, Valda Hogan, Maurie Smith, Chrissa Dickinson, John McIlvenna, Lillian Stewart, Flo O Hara. Julian Insall, Sr Joyce Stewart, Celestine Ressia, Terence Rahill, Janet Dent, Klara (1 year old suffering from Leukemia), Nicki Fabro, Peter Woods, Marj Bateson, Michael Pucella

6 During the months of May, June, July and September, 2016, our church will be undergoing renovations. Currently there is a total of $90, towards the cost of these renovations being done. As most of you can imagine and see, there is quite a bit of work to be done to renew the beauty of our Church. If anyone wishes to donate towards this fund please speak with Fr. Julian mob: Church Building an Renovation Fund Donations Sister Eugenia Pisconeri Trust $79, Andrew Sibley Estate $1,000 Helen Nolan Estate... $10,000 Sacrament of Confirmation Sts Peter and Paul s Wednesday, 11 th November 7.00pm

7 OPEN HOUSE STS PETER AND PAUL S Open House provides hospitality, food parcels, counselling, and meals for all in need. Nestled at the back of Sts Peter and Paul's Parish House/Capuchin Friary in South Melbourne, meals are provided throughout the week and the space is open for all to drop in for a coffee and a chat. Volunteers assist in the running of Open House. A team of volunteers is involved in our meal services, with the collecting and supply of food, packing food parcels to give away and is ready to chat with the guests who drop in at Open House between the hours of 11:00 am and 3:00 pm Monday to Friday. The funding provided to Open House by Emerald Hill Mission and The Capuchin Friars Outreach allows for various activities targeted particularly at disadvantaged families and older single people, e.g. weekly barbeques, counselling for drug and alcohol problems, assistance with job seeking and the like. Volunteers are currently needed especially for Tuesday 11.30am to 1.00pm and also for the Friday lunch 12.00pm to 1.30pm. For Information please call Donations of non-perishables accepted and cream, soup, pasta sauce etc. canned protein foods, fish, meat, ham, vegetables, cereals, rice, sugar, UHT milk Emerald Hill Mission Food Van Six nights a week the Emerald Hill Mission food bus is out in the streets of the City of Port Phillip (..South Melbourne, Port Melbourne St Kilda) nourishing the hungriest and neediest in our community, providing all kinds of nourishment, from hot meals, drinks and snacks but also offering companionship. Edmond Rice volunteers, Capuchin Friars young adults and a coalition of other volunteers take out the Food Bus helping to break through the barriers of loneliness and isolation that many living on the fringe of society suffer. We can provide a meal, blankets, snacks, hot beverages and most importantly, companionship. The Emerald Hill Mission food bus operate where the need is greatest. We do so with the generous support of our many volunteers, sponsors, donors and suppliers.