Nepean Times Tribute to Father James Phelan

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
December 30-31 2017: Feast of  the Holy Family

In its Saturday January 15 1898 edition, the Nepean Times newspaper included a tribute to the recently deceased Father Phelan:

“A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN
     It is not often we have to record the death of one who was so deservedly respected as the late Rev James Phelan, whose death was reported in our last issue. 

 

Father Phelan was one of the oldest priests in the diocese, and was the last but two receiving state aid , the other two being the Very Reverend Monsignor Rigney, of Prospect, now 86 years of age, and Arch Priest Sheehy. Father Phelan …was for a long time in charge of the Hartley District. He was afterwards at Braidwood, Subiaco and Penrith. The writer has known the rev. gentleman for upwards of 20 years as a most philanthropic and earnest Christian. His good deeds among the poor of the district and colony generally will never be effaced from memory of our oldest colonists. Many of the poorer families in Penrith and St Marys, it didn’t matter to what denomination they belonged, will miss periodical supplies of necessaries that came to them from an unknown source. For Father Phelan, when he knew of any case deserving, had goods sent to the homes with instructions that the parties were not to be told from whence they came. This happened hundreds of times. Then he gave liberally and unsolicited to both the Nepean Cottage Hospital and St Marys Benevolent Society. He was always of a jovial disposition, was fond of cracking dry jokes, and was known to his personal friends  as being an exceedingly well read man. Although not in charge of any parish particularly, he solemnized Mass at intervals at St Marys, and generally assisted Father Sheridan. When Father Phelan left Penrith he had built for himself a very comfortable  cottage on the Mamre Road, and poor persons who called there were never known to go away hungry. He attended to duties up to within a fortnight of his death, so that he      virtually died in harness at the age of 77. After death he had all the honours that his Church could confer. On Friday a requiem Mass and solemn dirge was held at the R.C. Church, St Marys. Cardinal Moran, Bishop Higgins, and about forty priests took part in the services. The Rev J Sheridan was the celebrant of the Mass, Rev B Baugh deacon, Rev F Martin sub-deacon. The Cardinal gave the Absolutions in the Church, and also officiated at the grave. Among the clergymen present we noticed the Very Rev Dr O’Haran, Rev T O’Reilly,  Rev James Mahoney, Rev B Sheridan, Very Rev Monsignor Rigney. The funeral procession was a very long one, and among those who attended were a very large number of Protestants, including Rev A O Corlette and Rev Alex Smith. On the Sunday evening too, Rev A O Corlette referred to the death of Father Phelan.” 

 

 

Saintly quotes on how to approach the Eucharist with a true ‘Christmas’ spirit

THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD - CHRISTMAS DAY
December 25: The Nativity of the Lord:

While Christmas is principally focused on the birth of Jesus and the mystery of the Incarnation, it also brings up many beautiful connections to a sacrament that Jesus would later establish at the Last Supper. The sacrament of the Eucharist is often directly connected to the birth of Jesus, and the Mass  compared to Christmas day.

Many saints saw these correlations clearly and   expressed it in their writings. Below are five quotes from various holy men and women who teach us how to approach the Eucharist with a true “Christmas” spirit.

Servant of God Chiara Lubich:   When we worship you in the form of bread … we always see you as an adult. But every year at Christmas, you reveal yourself to us as a child born in a crib. We stand in silent amazement … In silent adoration we stand before the mystery, like Mary when the shepherd came and told her what they had seen and heard: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” – 

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross:  Whoever really takes [the Eucharist] as his daily bread, experiences EACH DAY the mystery of Christmas, the Word made flesh. – 

St. Teresa of Calcutta:  The Holy Eucharist is the continuation of Christ’s incarnation on earth. The mystery of the Eucharist gives us the joy of having Christmas every day. When we come to the Blessed Sacrament we come to Bethlehem, a name which means “house of bread.” Jesus chose to be born in Bethlehem because He would dwell with us forever as the “Living Bread” come down from heaven. When the shepherds and Magi came to adore Him, they brought Him so much joy with their humble visit to Bethlehem that their visit has been praised and retold down through the centuries. God has never stopped honoring them for honoring His Son in Bethlehem. So too, your humble visit to Jesus today in the Blessed Sacrament brings Him so much joy that it will be retold for all eternity and bring the world closer to His promise of peace on earth. 

Servant of God John Hardon:  What is the fact of the Eucharist? It is that the same Jesus Who was born on earth not only became man but remains man. He not only came into the world, He is in the world. In a word, He came to stay. The Eucharist is Christmas prolonged, because faith tells us that once God became man, He  decided to remain man. From all the reaches of past eternity, God had only been God. But having once taken on human flesh, into now the future reaches of eternity, God will always remain man. And this God-Man is here; Bethlehem is wherever there is a Catholic Church or chapel in which Christ is present. These are the two facts that we commemorate on Christmas day.  
St. John Paul II:  Bethlehem! The city where Jesus was born in fulfilment of the Scriptures, in Hebrew means “house of bread.” It was there that the Messiah was to be born, the One who would say of himself: “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:35, 48). In Bethehem was born the One who, under the sign of broken bread, would leave us the memorial of his Pasch. On this Holy Night, adoration of the Child Jesus becomes Eucharistic  adoration. We adore you, Lord, truly present in the  Sacrament of the Altar, the living Bread which gives life to humanity. We acknowledge you as our one God, a little Child lying helpless in the manger! 
 

 

 

SAINTLY AUSTRALIAN SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR, Part 4

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
December 16-17 :  3rd  Sunday of Advent


SAINTLY  AUSTRALIAN  SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR  (Part 4). By Anna Krohn

Mary’s parents also gave her a sense that what she did with her life – as with every single life – mattered to the world and to God. It is clear from her writing that her experience of her own serious childhood sickness (diphtheria and rheumatic fever), the loss of a baby brother and sister, and her keen vision of the grief caused by this, formed an indelible channel in her  vocational reflections.
She realised that grief “was a real physical pain” and that losing a precious baby could leave “a void that could not be filled”. She also realised that her family’s tenderness with the dying was not just a social custom but a mission owed to all people.

 

It was this ‘vivid empathy’ that drew Mary away from her deeply loved humanities studies, at which she excelled, to medicine. There was a surprisingly ecumenical encouragement in her vocation, from the Presbyterian town doctor to a Protestant who pointed out Catholic medical principles during a controversial procedure which they both opposed.

Dr Mary Glowrey, who would spend herself in the almost impossible task of curing and reverencing the bodies of the newborn, pregnant, plague-ridden and dying people of Guntur, experienced first hand the ‘gnawing disease’ of bone cancer as a final culmination of herself becoming like Christ – a path first shown to her through her family.

Her confidence in saying ‘yes’ to her religious life and heroic mission in India was a joining of smaller dots of light from her early life. This definitive calling, which came after Mary had listened to a Scriptural homily given on Hospital Sunday on 24 October 1915 at St Patrick’s Cathedral, marked the beginning of a health apostolate which would ultimately help countless millions. At the end of her extraordinary life, Mary said ‘yes’ once again and shouldered the Cross of excruciating physical pain and suffering. Mary’s only regret, in her own words:   

‘I have not done enough. I could have done more.’

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“We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world.”     - G.K. Chesterton

 

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“It is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.”    Peter Marshall, US Senate chaplain.

 

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“The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is JOY. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see we have only to look.”       –Fra Angelico, 16th C.

 

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“Live joyfully. Our Lord is looking on you lovingly. His mercy is infinitely greater than our misery.” 

 – St Francis de Sales

 

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SAINTLY AUSTRALIAN SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR, Part 3

December 9-10 :  2nd Sunday of Advent
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

SAINTLY  AUSTRALIAN  SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR     (Part 3), By Anna Krohn

The treasury of her family:

In the town of Watchem [in Victoria’s Western District – Mary was born in Birregurra]  at the age of six, she became entirely capable of a wide range of self-sufficient tasks – “making jam, soap, candles and simple meals.” Making something out of nothing became a miracle she worked in her later medical work.

 

At the same very early age, she also had a powerful insight that formed the rest of her life: “that if I should always do what was well pleasing in God’s sight” then all things would be clear and even sin would be impossible.

Mary was the third of seven children, and was deeply formed by the everyday prayer life of her family and  particularly of her beloved mother and father, Margaret and Edward Glowrey. Regular ‘trimmings’ on the Rosary  included a plea for more priests and doctors. In addition, it was understood through the example of her parents that all the baptised were ‘apostles’, years before this was articulated and confirmed by several 20th-century Popes and Vatican II.

Her mother Margaret was a gifted untrained catechist who ‘met’ children and others at their own pace. Mary called this ‘mother’s apostolate’ and it deeply impressed her. Mary’s mother taught her to wait patiently on God’s will – not as if God was some remote and dictatorial  tyrant but as a loving Father who called us to live in  relationship with Jesus Christ through the very real power of the Holy Spirit. Thus in her remote Australian town, Mary had a true taste of Trinitarian mission. Later her dedication to the Holy Spirit was to play a vital role in her work as a missionary doctor.
The call of the culture of life

In a very moving letter to her family from India, on her father’s death, Mary wrote that the guileless disciple of Jesus, Nathaniel, reminded her of her father Edward Glowrey: “Dada’s goodness was that of that unobtrusive, self-forgetting kind, which is so precious and so rare.”
It was Edward who gave Mary the strongest encouragement in the apostolate of medical studies, particularly supporting her against the common view that medicine was an unfeminine vocation. With Mary’s mother, he opened her mind to offering hospitality and social justice to a group of travelling Indians who would regularly stay on their property and were nursed back to health by the family. “My father’s kindness to this group of Indians was not an isolated instance. He was kind to everybody …  His solicitude extended to the spiritual as well as the temporal welfare of those he met,” writes Mary.

(concluded next week)

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"Hear and let it penetrate into  your heart, my dear little son: let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let     nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Also, do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection ? Am I not your fountain of life ? Are you not in the crossing of my arms ?"
   The Blessed Virgin  speaking to St Juan Diego,  on  Tepeyac Hill, Mexico City (December 1531)

[Dec 12: Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe]

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SAINTLY AUSTRALIAN SR. MARY GLOWREY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR, Part 2

December 2-3 :  1st Sunday of Advent

SAINTLY  AUSTRALIAN  SR. MARY GLOWREY- MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR     (Part 2), By Anna Krohn

Her firsts continued. She may have been the first lay Catholic bioethicist (although this term had not been invented in her time) to write and research the social, theological and moral issues of medical procedures as early as 1907, when she penned a booklet against infanticide in the name of Archbishop Thomas Carr of Melbourne. She continued to intervene from India, contributing academic papers resisting the rise of eugenics, euthanasia and coercive population control in the European medical culture throughout the 1930s and ’40s.

She was the world’s first religious sister to be permitted to practise medicine, she established the first ward for incurables in India and she inspired the building of India’s first Catholic medical college. During the famine, violence and disruption of World War II, she founded the first Indian Catholic Health Association in 1943.

As her Indian biographer, Florence Swaminkannu writes, Mary was a pioneer of “tremendous zeal and ‘fight’ as   opposed to passivity” and had from her earliest professional years a “forthright” though “unassuming candour and  practicality”.  Holiness typically unifies paradoxical  opposites creating a new and marvellous whole.

How did an intelligent but reticent young woman born into a simple but devoted Victorian Western District Irish Catholic family (on 23 June 1887) – at a time when Catholics and women had to struggle – find the way to such an extraordinary life and how did she understand her vocation?
Perhaps the most powerful insights into this come from Mary’s own simple reflections related on the type-written sheets of her incomplete autobiographical sketch, which she entitled: God’s Good for Nothing.

Listening in on her thoughts, we can see how God called her to his love through what Blessed Edith Stein describes as a woman’s holiness (the feminine genius): “a vivid empathy” for both the goodness of all created life and a burning desire to “want to be there for another human being”.     

 

(to be continued)
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SAINTLY SR. MARY GLOWREY- MISSIONARY - MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR, Part 1

November 26-27, 2017

SAINTLY SR. MARY GLOWREY-  MISSIONARY- MEDICAL DOCTOR
Part 1, By Anna Krohn

“In the course of my lifetime I have been called by many names – ‘good-for-nothing’, ‘slow coach’ and ‘dreamer’ – all names that are easily understood and perfectly applicable.” 

(The Horizon, 1 January 1932)

It is not too difficult to imagine a slight smile on the face of the truly remarkable but characteristically self-effacing Australian Catholic woman as she penned the above words. Her name was Dr Sr Mary Glowrey JMJ of the Dutch missionary order of the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, whose cause for  canonisation by the Church was begun in India in 2010. There has been much excitement spreading about her life. She is noted on the University of Melbourne website and in newspapers and newsfeeds in countries as far apart as Vietnam, Canada, Poland and Italy. And with good reason!

Mary Glowrey combines the determination and shining person -to-person charity of Mother Teresa with the organisational genius of great Australian medical innovators such as the Rev. Dr John Flynn of the Flying Doctor Service and Fred Hollows but in some ways raised to the power of 10.
At school and university she felt “like a fledgling just dropped from the nest”, an ugly duckling whose peers called her a ‘timid mouse’. But her shyness was transformed into contemplative attention. Her self-effacing care made her a ‘first’ in a whole string of outstanding achievements.

Mary was one of the first women in Victoria to achieve a doctorate in medicine in 1919, having previously obtained out-standing results in specialist studies in opthamology, gynaecology and obstetrics. She was also the first general president of the first Catholic women’s organisation in Victoria – the Catholic Women’s Social Guild (now known as the Catholic Women’s League of Victoria and Wagga Wagga) – in October 1916.

Many secular feminists might consider her silent decision to walk away from a successful private medical practice, from her leadership of a large women’s activist group, from personal possessions and her chances of any intimate family or maternal relationship to be totally misguided – in effect ‘good-for-nothing’. Yet they would surely admire the scope of her mission to the planet’s neediest sick people. She began   her work in India as a sole medical practitioner with one room and one rudimentary medical cabinet. After 36 years, she had founded and led a hospital, nursing service and training centre that cared in one year for 45,728 inpatients, 562,454 outpatients, 6628 domiciliary nursing cases and more.   

(to be continued)

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“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” -St. Augustine
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Benedict XVI’s teaching on purgatory (2)

November 18-19 :  33rd    Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Benedict XVI’s teaching on purgatory (2)
  (Emphasis added)

47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the interrelation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves.

The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. 
The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ[39]. The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace. If it were merely grace, making all earthly things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the question about justice—the crucial question that we ask of   history and of God. If it were merely justice, in the end it could bring only fear to us all. The incarnation of God in Christ has so closely linked the two together—judgement and grace—that justice is firmly established: we all work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or parakletos 
(cf. 1 Jn 2:1).

48. A further point must be mentioned here, because it is important for the practice of Christian hope. Early Jewish thought includes the idea that one can help the deceased in their intermediate state through prayer (see for example 2 Macc 12:38-45; first century BC). The equivalent practice was readily adopted by Christians and is common to the Eastern and Western Church. The East does not recognize the purifying and   expiatory suffering of souls in the afterlife, but it does acknowledge various levels of beatitude and of suffering in the intermediate state. The souls of the departed can, however, receive “solace and refreshment” through the Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving. The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon? Now a further question arises: if “Purgatory” is simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Saviour, how can a third person intervene, even if he or she is particularly close to the other? When we ask such a question, we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, some-thing external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God’s time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too [40]. As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.                         

Aleteia | Nov 02, 2017

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“My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation        
excellent. I shall attack.”  Marshall Ferdinand Foch, French   
military theorist, WW I Supreme Allied Commander.
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Benedict XVI’s teaching on purgatory (1)

Nov 11-12 :  32nd   Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Benedict XVI’s teaching on purgatory (1)
This month we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of the release of Benedict XVI’s profound encyclical  Spe Salvi, on hope.
Spe Salvi includes eight paragraphs on the theme of our  judgment, “as a setting for learning and practicing hope.”
Part of what the German pontiff illustrates in that section is purgatory. He says, “The judgement of God is hope, both  because it is justice and because it is grace.”

Here is a four-paragraph excerpt of the section. The  emphasis in bold are our own.
Spe Salvi  paragraph 45. This early Jewish idea of an interme-diate state includes the view that these souls are not simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable of the rich man illustrates, are already being punished or are experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea that this state can involve purification and healing which mature the soul for communion with God. The early Church took up these concepts, and in the Western Church they gradually developed into the doctrine of Purgatory. We do not need to examine here the complex historical paths of this development; it is enough to ask what it actually means. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within them-selves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell[37]. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are[38].

46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God’s judgement according to each person’s particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast.

Aleteia | Nov 02, 2017

5 Ways to pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory (1)

October 28-29, 2017. 30th  Sunday in Ordinary Time.

From Rosary Crusade Australia:
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 8, 7pm
NATIONAL ROSARY CRUSADE
Australia ! It’s time to unite our voices in prayer
Join us for the ROSARY CRUSADE
In light of current events in Australia, the call to unite our voices, hearts and spirits in PRAYER has never been more important. Christians are facing persecution and threats to our religious freedom like no other time in the history of  this great nation.
We will pray the Rosary for these specific intentions:

he attack on marriage and the family.
the push for the legalisation of euthanasia; and the push for the legalisation of abortion.

 

“ Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.”   -   Blessed Pope Pius IX

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Praying for the souls of those who have died is an  ancient practice of the Church -- here's how to do it this November. by Philip Kosloski 

November is dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory and the faithful are encouraged not only to remember the passing of relatives and friends, but most importantly to pray for the souls of the deceased. Praying for the souls of those who have died is an ancient practice of the Church, one that is based on the Catholic teaching regarding Purgatory.
   
The Catechism offers a brief explanation regarding this state in the afterlife: “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect… As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that  certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come” (CCC 1031).
   
“[E]very sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory” (CCC 1472).
    
On account of this reality, the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy explains, “Hence derives the pious custom of suffrage for the souls of the faithful departed, which is an   urgent supplication of God to have mercy on the souls of the dead, to purify them by the fire of His charity, and to bring them to His kingdom of light and life. This suffrage is a cultic expression of faith in the communion of saints. Indeed, ‘the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honoured with great respect the memory of the dead; and “because it is a holy and a whole-some thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins” (2 Mac 12, 46) she offers her suffrages for them.’” 
   
It is a Spiritual Work of Mercy to pray for the souls of the faithful departed, imploring God to purify the souls of the dead “by the fire of His charity” and to bring them at last to their Heavenly Home.

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Why the Morning Offering is a good habit.

October 21-22:  29th  Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Why the Morning Offering is a good habit.
Patty Knap, Aleteia

This one prayer dedicates our entire day and our entire self to God in that day ahead
The Morning Offering is an ancient prayer. A few years ago for Lent, a friend emailed me some prayers. I read that the Morning Offering is a way of giving to God the entire day ahead — the good and the bad, the trials and sacrifices, as well as the joys and blessings. I started reading it every morning and soon I had it memorized.

 

Like many Catholics I was in the habit of throwing out   individual offerings here and there during the day: 

“Okay, God, I offer up this total hassle to you…” Whether it was waiting two hours in a doctor’s office, or my son’s abandonment of his faith, or a medical problem, I’d try to remember to put the trial to good use for any number of intentions. With the Morning Offering, the whole day is “covered” in advance.

We can’t pray constantly, yet we can turn our entire day into one continuous offering through this simple prayer, starting our day by giving it to God, through His Blessed Mother. It dedicates our entire day and our entire self to God in that day ahead. We join all our efforts for God’s purpose with the Sacrifice of the Mass for the con-version of sinners, reparation for our own sins, and the souls in Purgatory. It acknowledges that each day is a gift, and expresses gratitude for our blessings and joys … all this in under three minutes! Now I’m in the habit of saying it every morning. If I’m not reading it in my daily prayer email, I can say it from memory, or even offer my own abbreviated version.
For centuries people have prayed variations of the Morning Offering. Probably one of the best known versions today is this one, composed by Father Francois Xavier Gaulrelet in 1844 for his Apostleship of Prayer ministry, which he founded that year.
        

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father this month. Amen.

Pope John Paul II once said that the practice of praying the Morning Offering is “of fundamental importance in the life of each and every one of the faithful.” It is a daily reminder to make our entire day, our whole life “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). 

 

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Pope Francis and the Rosary:

“I want to give you some advice: Never abandon the  rosary. Never abandon the rosary. Pray the rosary, as she asked.”

These were the words of Pope Francis in a video message to the people of Portugal for the closing of the centennial of the Marian apparitions at Fatima.  The pope warmly thanked the Portuguese for their response to his trip to Portugal last May 13, and assured them that the Christian who stays close to the Virgin Mary is “like a child near his mother,” who should never be afraid. 

 

“The nation doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are.” -St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein)
 

“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”  -St. Augustine

October 13, 1917 Sixth Apparition of Our Lady (4) - Dr. Jose Maria de Almeida Garrett

October 13, 1917  Sixth Apparition of Our Lady (4)
More eye-witness accounts:
Source: Paul Kengor, A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century (ISI Books, Delaware, 2017)

 

Dr. Jose Maria de Almeida Garrett

 

“One witness was Dr. Jose Maria de Almeida Garrett, a professor in the Faculty of Sciences at the prestigious University of Coimbra, the oldest institution on higher education in Portugal. Dr Garrett had gone to Fatima a skeptic, but what he witnessed changed his outlook. He recounted: ‘It must have been 1:30pm... The sky, which had been overcast all day, suddenly cleared; the rain stopped and it looked as if the sun were about to fill with light the countryside that the wintery morning had made so gloomy... The sun, a few moments before, had broken through the thick layer of clouds which hid it and now shone clearly and intensely.

  ‘Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw a whole multitude spread out in that vast space at my feet... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations had been focused, and look at the sun on the other side.’
With all the spectators shifting their gaze, Dr Garrett did the same. He was amazed at what he watched unfold:

‘I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight. It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled nor dim... The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes or damaging the retina. The sun’s disc did not remain immobile, it had a giddy motion, not like the twinkling of a star in all its brilliance for it spun round upon itself in a mad whirl.

 

During the solar phenomenon which I have just de-scribed, there were also changes of colour in the atmosphere. Looking at the sun, I noticed that everything was becoming darkened. I looked first at the nearest objects and then extended my glance further afield as far as the horizon. I saw everything had assumed an amethyst col-our. Objects around me, the sky and the atmosphere, were of the same colour....

Then, suddenly, one heard a clamour, a cry of anguish breaking from all the people. The sun, whirling wildly, seemed all at once to loosen itself from the firmament and, blood red, advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge and fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was truly terrible.”
    

From Fr Andrew Apostoli CFR, Fatima for Today: the urgent Marian message of hope (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2010)

October 13 1917 Sixth Apparition of Our Lady (3), Two Simultaneous Apparitions

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
October 7-8:  27th  Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Lucia described in her memoirs what happened next, when our Lady was about to leave.
“Then, opening her hands, she made them reflect on the sun, and as she  ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun   itself. Here…is the reason why I cried out to the people to look at the sun, because I was not even aware of their presence. I was moved to do so under the guidance of an  interior impulse.’

Once the October apparition began, the three children were oblivious of everything around them, even the great crowd of people. They were no doubt in a kind of ecstatic state resulting from their being in the presence of the Mother of God, as they had experienced on previous occasions. Lucia’s spontaneous words to the people made the great crowd turn their attention to the sun, and they witnessed the great miracle of the sun dancing at Fatima. What the three little visionaries saw was quite a different apparition:
‘After Our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands. When a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Dolours [Sorrows]. Our Lord appeared to  bless the world in the same manner as St Joseph had done. This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Mount Carmel.’

Eye-witness accounts:
Many people who saw the great miracle have shared what they experienced. One witness, Mary

Allen, gives her testimony:
 “As we approached the hillside upon which the appearances were supposed to have taken place, I saw a sea of people. (Some newspapers said there were 70,000 people there.) I didn’t count, but it was more people than I have ever seen in my life, even to this day… We had just arrived there when suddenly my attention was drawn by a sudden bright light from the heavens, lighting up the whole countryside. Suddenly the rain ceased, the clouds separated and I saw a large sun, brighter than the sun, yet I could look at it without hurting my eyes, as if it were only the moon.  This sun began to get larger and larger, brighter and brighter until the whole heavens seemed more brilliantly lighted than I have ever seen it. Then the sun started spinning and shooting streams of light, which changed it to all colours of the rainbow… At the same time, it started getting bigger and bigger in the sky as though it were headed directly for us, as though it were falling on the earth. Everyone was frightened. We all thought it was the end of the world. Everyone threw themselves on their knees praying and screaming the Act of Contrition. Suddenly the sun stopped spinning and returned to its place in the sky. Everyone started shouting: ‘Miracle! This is a miracle!’ Just then I noticed that both the ground and my clothes were bone dry. Everyone seemed to rush forward to see the children. Unfortunately I was only able to see them at a distance.”

From Fr Andrew Apostoli CFR, Fatima for Today: the urgent Marian message of hope (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2010)

October 13 1917 Sixth Apparition of Our Lady (2), The Day Long-Awaited Finally Came

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
Sept 30-Oct 1:  26th  Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Crowds of people had been coming for days to the Cova da Iria to witness a spectacular miracle. They would not be disappointed. Estimates of the crowd ranged from forty thousand to eighty thousand in the Cova itself. Another twenty thousand were watching from about twenty-five miles around. The rain had been coming down for more than a day, and everyone was drenched. There was mud all over. The rain would continue right up to the moment the apparition began. Here is how Lucia described the beginning of the events of that day:
‘We left home quite early, expecting that we would be delayed along the way. Masses of people thronged the roads. The rain fell in torrents… On the way, the scenes of the previous month, still more numerous and  moving, were repeated. Not even the muddy roads could prevent these people from kneeling in the most humble and suppliant of attitudes. We reached the holmoak in the Cova da Iria. Once there, moved by an  interior impulse, I asked the people to shut their umbrellas and say the Rosary.’
Lucia’s Conversation with Our Lady.
At last the children say the flash of light, and our Lady appeared on the holmoak. Lucia then began her conversation in this last apparition with our Lady with her usual question: “What do you want of me?” Our Lady’s response gave a couple of specific answers to questions that Lucia had been asking all along:
“I want to tell you that a chapel is to be built here in my     honour. I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes.”
Once again Lucia placed before our Lady petitions for the sick, and once again our Lady said that those who seek blessings from God must ask for forgiveness for their sins and reform their lives. … During the miracle of the sun many people did experience miraculous healings of various kinds. There were the blind who received their sight, the crippled who were able to walk and  many others who received  blessings, both   physical and spiritual.
While touching on the need for repentance for those who seek God’s blessings, our Lady expressed what might be her most heartfelt plea:
‘Looking very sad, Our Lady said: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.”  
From Fr Andrew Apostoli CFR, Fatima for Today: the urgent Marian message of hope (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2010)

October 13 1917 Sixth Apparition of Our Lady (1)

2017: Fatima Centenary Year

September 23-24:  25th    Sunday in Ordinary Time.

At Aljustrel where the children lived, the majority of their neighbours were skeptical about the apparitions and hostile toward the children and their families. Other people, including priests and family members, were trying to persuade the children to admit that they had made up the whole story about the apparitions of our Lady. Still others were threatening the children, saying: “If the children have lied and nothing happens at the Cova, then….”  A devout woman named Dona Maria lo Carmo Menezes had taken the three children to her home to give them a rest. When she saw the number of people who came looking for them, she was overwhelmed and remarked: “My children, if the    miracle that you predict does not take place, these people are capable of burning you alive.”  With great confidence in our Lady’s love and promise, the children responded: “We are not afraid, because our Lady does not deceive us. She told us that there would be a great  miracle so that everyone would have to believe.”

 

Harder by far to deal with was the continuing disbelief and criticism coming from Lucia’s own family  members,     especially her mother. Her negative attitude toward the   apparitions had turned the whole family against young    Lucia. The mother was already angry over the damage done at the Cova by the crowds who were continuously trampling over this plot of land used to grow crops for the family and to graze their flock of sheep. Furthermore, the family was concerned about the disgrace they would suffer if every-one’s expectations were left unfulfilled. Though disbelieving, Lucia’s mother was prepared to suffer  her daughter’s fate if the people turned against her. On October 12, Maria Rosa,   Lucia’s mother, jumped out of bed and went to wake her daughter, saying,

 

‘Lucia, we had better go to confession. Everyone says that we shall probably be killed tomorrow at the Cova da Iria. If the lady doesn’t do the miracle the    people will attack us, so we had better go to confession and be properly prepared for death.”

Lucia was willing to go with her mother to confession, but not because she was afraid of dying. “I’m absolutely certain that the Lady will do all that she promised,” she said. The next day, Lucia’s mother went with her daughter to the place of the apparitions, saying, “If my child is going to  die, I want to die with her!” 

 

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5th Fatima Apparition , September 13 1917:

September 16-17:  24th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The children’s imprisonment in August  cre ated such a stir that interest in the   events at the Cova da Iria increased  tremendously. As a result, an estimated   twenty five thousand people arrived there on September 13 for Our Lady’s apparition. The crowd was so thick it was difficult for the children to make their way to the Cova. 

The children finally reached the Cova at the spot where Our Lady had been appearing. They began to pray the Rosary with the people when suddenly they saw the flash of light that always preceded our Lady’s coming. Then she appeared above the holmoak tree. The brief conversation between our Lady and the visionaries  began with Lucia’s usual question. “What do you want of me?” Our Lady then gave her usual response: “Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war!”
During her September apparition, Our Lady foretold a sequence of appearances that the children would see in October along with the promised miracle that would convince the people that Our Lady had been appearing at the Cova.

“In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Dolours [Sorrows] and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus to bless the world.”

Like the good and kind mother she is, Our Lady gave the children words of praise and encouragement about their penances. But she also added a word of caution so that the children would not hurt themselves:  “God is pleased with your sacrifices. He does not want you to sleep with the rope on [tied around your waist], but only to wear it during the daytime.”
The conversation with our Lady ended like it had    during other apparitions, with Lucia offering petitions to our Lady.

As our Lady departed, Lucia cried out in great simplicity: ‘If you want to see our Lady, look there!’ She pointed toward the east. Many people later testified that they had seen something like a luminous cloud moving toward the east. Most were convinced that they  had not seen our Lady herself, but perhaps a kind of  ‘vehicle’ which brought our Lady from heaven and returned her there again after the apparition.

With the ending of the September 13 apparition, the stage was set for October and the promised miracle that would convince the multitudes that our Lady was truly appearing at the Cova and giving a message of great importance for the world. 

(From Fr Andrew Apostoli CFR, Fatima for Today: the urgent Marian message of hope (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2010)

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2017: Fatima Centenary Year

 
 
 2017: Fatima Centenary Year
September 9-10:  23rd   Sunday in Ordinary Time.

“ Give thanks to the Lord for the Lord is good.”

“ L – O – V – E.”

“It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead.

 

If we pray for them, they will pray for us in our turn.”

- Father Jerry.

 

 

Fatima

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
September 2-3:  22nd  Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Fatima:    The August Apparition, delayed – August 19: On August 13 1917 Ourem city council Administrator Arturo de Oliveira Santos kidnapped and imprisoned the children, threatening them with death if they did not denounce their story as a hoax. To terrorise the children as much as he could, Santos locked the children up in the jail with a group of prisoners who were thieves. In spite of their intense feelings of fear and abandonment, the children showed tremendous courage. The presence of the innocent children must have softened the hearts of some of the men, for they joined in praying the Rosary:

Lucia later writes:
“Jacinta took off a medal that she was wearing around her neck, and asked a prisoner to hang it up for her on a nail in the wall. Kneeling before this medal, we began to pray. The prisoners prayed with us, that is, if they knew how to pray, but at least they were down on their knees... While we were saying the Rosary in prison, Francisco noticed that one of the prisoners was on his knees with  his cap still on his head.   Franciso went up to  him and said,  “If you wish to pray, you should take your cap off.” Right away the poor man handed it to him and he went over and put it on the bench on top of his own.”

In an attempt to weaken their resolve, Santos questioned each child separately, beginning with the youngest, Jacinta. He demanded she reveal the secret and when she refused, he called over one of the guards and asked if the cauldron of oil was boiling. The guard answered it was ready and led little Jacinta out of the room, apparently to her death as a martyr. Then Santos tried to intimidate Francisco, and when he chose martyrdom rather than reveal Our Lady’s secret, he was led out of the room. Finally, Lucia, all alone, was questioned whether she would reveal the secret. When she steadfastly refused and desired rather to die and go to heaven, she too was led away. To their surprise, the three children met together, alive and well.

Santos released the children on August 15.

Our Lady appeared on August 19 while the children were tending their flocks at Valinhos. She again asked them to return on the 13th of the month, to pray the Rosary daily, and that she would perform a miracle ‘so that all may believe.’ Lucia asked Our Lady to heal some people. “Some I will cure during the year… Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them.”

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” St. Augustine said: “Bad times! Troublesome times! This is what people are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times. 
Such as we are, such are the times.”
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Fatima: August 13.

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 26-27:  21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.

An unusual, unprecedented type of apparition 

The fourth apparition apparition of Our Lady in Fatima, Portugal, on August 13, 1917, is less well known than those of July 13th and October 13th. Yet it deserves to be, for it is completely atypical and unique in the history of apparitions.  First, because of the vast number of witnesses. Already, on July 13th, the number had reached an exceptional figure of about 5,000 people. On the 13th of August, there were 18 to 20,000 people in attendance—an astounding figure. In com-parison, the affluence in Lourdes peaked at only about 8,000, on March 4, 1858. 

But what sets this apparition apart is that it took place without the seers. This had never happened in the history of  recorded apparitions. On that day the young seers were   absent, for they were locked up in a jail by the civil authorities! Yet the thousands of people present witnessed all the external signs seen in the previous apparitions: the flash of lightning, accompanied by two formidable claps of thunder, then the apparition of a small cloud on the green oak with a noticeable change in the natural light around. 

These external signs seen by thousands of people without the presence of the seers is a unique event.

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” St. Augustine said: “Bad times! Troublesome times! This is what people are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times. Such as we are, such are the times.”
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2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 19-20:  20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

 

“A friend of mine was a student in France in 1967-68 at the Catholic University of the West. And one day her class visited a chateau in the Loire Valley. The teacher took them into a room with an enormous stretch of hanging fabric, many yards across from one wall to the other. And on the fabric were hundreds of ugly knots and tangles of stray thread in a chaos of confused shapes that made very little sense. And the teacher said, “This is what the artist saw as he worked.”
 

Then she led my friend and her class around to the front of the fabric. And what they saw is the great Tapestry of the Apocalypse of St. John, the story of the Book of Revelation in 90 immense panels. Created between 1377 and 1382, it’s one of the most stunning and beautiful expressions of medieval civilization, and among the greatest artistic achievements of the European heritage.
 

Here’s the point. We don’t see the full effects of the good we do in this life. So much of what we do seems a tangle of frustrations and failures. We don’t see — on this side of the tapestry — the pattern of meaning that our faith weaves. But one day we’ll stand on the other side. And on that day, we’ll see the beauty that God has allowed us to add to the great story of his creation, the revelation of his love that goes from age to age no matter how good or bad the times. And this is why our lives matter

 

So have faith. Trust in the Lord. And believe in his love.”

 

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. July 27, 2017

 

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St. Augustine said: “Bad times! Troublesome times! This is what people are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times. Such as we are, such are the times.”

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August 9: Feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein:

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 12-13:  19th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Polish-born Jewess Edith Stein, one of the Twentieth Century’s leading philosophers, embraced the Catholic faith in 1931. Because of her Jewish origin, she was interned by the Nazi regime in Auschwitz concentration camp, and martyred on August 9, 1942.  Her biographer, Freda Mary Oben , writes:

“I have always felt deeply the pain of the human condition; before my conversion [Oben converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1960; and learned German to read Stein in the original], however, I did not know how to confront it. Through Stein’s life and her writings, I recognize the unique redemptive role of woman. Stein believes that God combats evil through the power of woman’s maternal love. That power exists independently of woman’s marital status and should be extended to all persons with whom she comes in contact. Everywhere, there is a need for such love, and it is essential to woman’s nature that she give it. Just as the Mother of Christ appeared publicly at the crucifixion, so, too, a woman must be involved today in the struggle between good and evil.”       

Edith Stein, in a lecture in Zurich, 1932,  “Challenges Facing Swiss Catholic Academic Women”:
“Academics and Public Life:  I have reached the core of a burning question, one on which Swiss academics differ. I do not want to impose my opinion here. Permit me only to pose a question and cite a quotation.
  

Question: Are we familiar with the work of the adversary? In the mine fields of today’s society, can we justify looking back-wards continuously while our adversary wages war against our views?

 

A quotation: A prince of the Church can answer this question better than I can. In Cardinal Faulhaber’s commentary on the vesper psalms, he explains the middle verse of the “Magnificat.” He writes:
       

‘Who still dares to say that politics has nothing to do with religion and that souls directed towards God, especially women, should stay far from public life?  If the quiet virgin of Nazareth, her soul resting completely in God her saviour,   could be concerned with the happenings on the world scene (middle verse of the Magnificat), then religious people, including women of course, dare not indifferent as to whether the arm of God is seen in world events. They must not be unconcerned as to whether the God-willed spiritual, political, and economic order is established. Nor may they be unconcerned when dogmatic intellectuals confuse people with their knowledge when political leaders strike out God’s  name from public life, or when capitalistic exploiters are upsetting the economic order…’  

The example of Mary is relevant here. She is the ideal type of woman who knew how to unite tenderness with power. She stood under the cross. She had previously concerned herself about the human condition, observed it, understood it! In her son’s tragic hour she appeared publicly. Perhaps the moment has almost come for the Catholic women also to stand with Mary and with the Church under the cross! ”

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St. Augustine said: “Bad times! Troublesome times! This is what people are saying. Let our lives be good, and the times will be good. We make our times. Such as we are, such are the times.”

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Mother Teresa of Kolkata and Pope John Paul II

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
August 5-6:  Transfiguration of the Lord

Mother Teresa of Kolkata: 
“Perpetual adoration with exposition needs a great push. .. People ask me: ‘What will convert America and save the world?’ My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer.”

Pope John Paul II:

“The worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church... It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple ...and to feel the  infinite love present in his heart...St Alphonsus wrote: “Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the  one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us.”

Holy Family Adoration Chapel blessing and opening:

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
July 29-30:  Ordinary Time 17th Sunday

Holy Family Adoration Chapel blessing and opening:

This coming Saturday evening, August 5, we cele-brate liturgically the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.  It is indeed a  fitting feast day to inaugurate our new Adoration Chapel.
  

Bishop Vincent will celebrate our 6pm parish Mass, and the Mass will conclude with the transfer of the Blessed Sacrament, in procession, to the new chapel. The final blessing of the Mass will be given after the placing of the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel taberna-cle.
  

People will be free to pray in the chapel after the blessing and final dismissal.
  

There will also be light refreshments and some formalities in the hall immediately after the final     dismissal. All parishioners are welcome to share in the celebration in the hall.
  

If you would like to bring a plate to share, please bring it to the hall before Mass if you can. 

 

The chapel and surrounds are substantially complete. There are gates and a small fence to be inserted in the garden area in the next few weeks, and a couple of    minor furnishings yet to come for the chapel.

When you come to the hall, feel free to enjoy the supper on entry. Shortly after we enter, we shall have some formalities:

1. Bishop Vincent: an opportunity to address us.
2. Fr Brendan: A word of thanks.
3. Mr Paul Newton, artist, will speak about his art works which adorn the chapel walls (Early Catholics of Sydney, Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, and Father John Joseph Therry)
4. Mr M Seecy, project supervisor.
5. A musical feature.

William Davis, priestless Sydney 1818-1820,

the Blessed Sacrament and St Patrick’s Church, The Rocks

 

First Catholics of  Sydney, circa 1818
Artist: Paul Newton

From May 1818 until 1820 there was no Catholic priest in Sydney. Each Sunday the Catholics gathered at the home of William Davis at The Rocks, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament left behind by Fa-ther Jeremiah O’Flynn before his deportation in 1818. There the little community recited the Mass prayers and prayed the rosary.

Built in the early 1840s, St Patrick’s stands in Syd-ney’s historic Rocks area, with a history reaching back to the very beginnings of Catholic life in Australia. In-separably linked with St Patrick’s history is the name of William Davis, an Irishman transported for his part in anti-British uprisings in Ireland in 1798. Davis ob-tained land in The Rocks in 1809, and in the early years of the colony, when there was no resident priest in Sydney, his home became a centre of Catholic prayer.

In 1840 William Davis donated the land on which St Patrick’s is built, gifting that section of his 1809 grant bounded by Gloucester and Grosvenor Streets. The foundation stone was blessed on 25 August 1840, and the now elderly Davis astonished everyone when he came forward and placed a cheque for £1000 on the stone, an incredible sum in those days. Davis had pros-pered over the years through his business ventures, which included interests in grazing and licensed prem-ises. Davis’ donation was matched by an equal grant from the colonial government.

Third Fatima Apparition: July 13 1917 [Part 2]

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
July 22-23:  Ordinary Time 16th Sunday

Third Fatima Apparition: July 13 1917  (Part 2)
In her memoirs, Lucia described the July message from Our Lady in three parts, three ‘secrets’...

2. World War II foretold: Our Lady told the children:
“If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI.

When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.”      

(Jan 25-216 1938:  an extraordinary aurora borealis that   illuminated the night skies of Europe and parts of America for almost five hours. Lucia, a nun at the time, regarded it as the God-given sign that the next world war was near.   Germany annexed and occupied Austria on March 12 1938.) 
3 a)   The spread of Communism and an age of martyrs. “I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the

First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be   converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecu-tions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be   annihilated.
1 The Bolsheviks took power in October 1917, bringing the rule of Communism.  During the first fifty years of Commu-nist ascendancy, there were more Christian martyrs than there were in all the previous years of Christian history combined. (Communist revolutions and rule have caused an estimated 100 million casualties.)
Ultimate triumph:  “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.”

3 b)    The intervention of Our Lady and the shooting of Pope John Paul II: 
Our Lady did not speak. The children saw a series of     images, a ‘prophetic vision’, unfolding before them.
The Angel with the flaming sword… Our Lady intervenes.   
    
Lucia’s memoirs: “At the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance,   Penance, Penance!’ ”
(Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2000 commentary, when the ‘third  secret’ was released:
     
“The future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the children was is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed. Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed    future.  Its meaning is the exact opposite: it is meant to   mobilise the forces of change in the right direction.

“… a Bishop dressed in white… killed by a group of soldiers….”

Cardinal Ratzinger’s commentary: “In the vision, the Pope too is killed along with the martyrs. When, after the attempted  assassination on May 13 1981, the Holy Father had the text of the third part of the ‘secret’ brought to him, was it not inevitable that he should see in it his own fate? He had been very close to death, and he himself explained his survival in the following words: “…it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (13 May 1994)  . That here a ‘mother’s hand’ had  deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets, and faith more powerful than armies.”

 

From Fr Andrew Apostoli CFR, Fatima for Today: the urgent Marian message of hope,  (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2010)

Third Apparition at Fatima: July 13 1917 [Part 1]

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
July 15-16:  Ordinary Time 15th Sunday

The appearances of Our Lady in July  and October of 1917 were the most  powerful and important of all the  Fatima apparitions.

By the time Our Lady appeared on July 13, word of the apparitions had spread throughout Portugal. About four thousand people attended the July 13 apparition at the she can help you.”
Lucia asks: “I would like to ask you to tell us who you are, and to work a miracle so that everybody will believe that you are appearing to us.”
Our Lady promised to reveal her identity and perform a miracle in October.
In her memoirs, Lucia described the July message from Our Lady in three parts, three ‘secrets’.

1. A vision of hell.

Our Lady said to the children: “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make any sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins   committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
     
She then opened her hands as she had done in her two previous apparitions. Rays of light once again came from her hands, but what the children saw was far different from what they had seen the first two times.    
      
The children were given a vision of hell, later described by Lucia. Lucia later said that if our Lady had not already told them that they were going to heaven, they might have died of fright. Witnesses at the Cova at the time, though not knowing what the children saw, said that after the July apparitions their faces showed signs of fear, terror and shock. 

Why did Jesus and Mary allow such a terrifying vision of hell? She came to lead men back to God, who has been so grievously offended by their sins. The children did not need to see the vision of hell for their own sakes; they  had already been assured by our Lady that they would be going to heaven and they were living  good and holy lives pleasing to God. They were given the vision of hell to remind us that hell is real.

That in turn reminds us that we must live our lives in such a way that we stay close to God. We must make our salvation our main purpose in life.
      
Lucia wrote that the vision of hell profoundly affected all three of the visionaries, but that Jacinta, the youngest of them, seemed to be especially moved.
      
“The vision of hell filled her with horror to such a degree, that every penance and mortification was nothing in her eyes, if it could only prevent souls from going there.”
     
The vision of hell had such an impact on Jacinta that she wished everyone could see it and be persuaded to stop sinning. Though so young, Jacinta showed an ardent love for souls and a tremendous capacity for sacrificing for others. For example, she often gave up food for those who ate too much. Even when sick, she went to a week-day Mass for those who failed to go on Sunday.
 
The final and most telling example of little Jacinta’s zeal for souls came at the end of her brief life on earth. Our Lady appeared to her and her brother when they were suffering from influenza. Our Lady told her she would take Francisco to heaven soon, but asked her if she wanted to remain longer on earth to convert more sinners. Jacinta agreed to stay and suffer longer. Francisco died on April 4, 1919, six months after he and his sister fell ill. Jacinta lingered until February 20, 1920, when she died in a Lisbon hospital.

2. World War II foretold:
Our Lady told the children:

July 4: Feast of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati [Part 2]

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
July 8-9:  Ordinary Time 14th Sunday

July 4: Feast of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati
April 6 1901- July 4 1925) Part 2

Mountain climbing was one of his favourite sports. Outings in the mountains, which he organized with his friends, also served as opportunities for his apostolic work. He never lost the chance to lead his friends to Mass, to the reading of Scripture, and to praying the rosary.
    
He often went to the theatre, to the opera, and to museums. He loved art and music, and could quote whole passages of the poet Dante.
    
Fondness for the epistles of St. Paul sparked his zeal for fraternal charity, and the fiery sermons of the Renaissance preacher and reformer Girolamo Savonarola and the writings of St. Catherine impelled him in 1922 to join the Lay Dominicans (Third Order of St. Dominic). He chose the name Girolamo after his personal hero, Savonarola. “I am a fervent admirer of this friar, who died as a saint at the stake," he wrote to a friend.

Like his father, he was strongly anti-Fascist and did nothing to hide his political views. He physically de-fended the faith at times involved in fights, first with anticlerical Communists and later with Fascists. Participating in a Church-organized demonstration in Rome on one occasion, he stood up to police violence and rallied the other young people by grabbing the group’s banner, which the royal guards had knocked out of another student’s hands. Pier Giorgio held it even higher, while using the banner’s pole to fend off the blows of the guards.

Just before receiving his university degree, Pier Giorgio contracted poliomyelitis, which doctors later speculated he caught from the sick whom he tended. Neglecting his own health because his grandmother was dying, after six days of terrible suffering Pier Giorgio died at the age of 24 on July 4, 1925.
    
His last preoccupation was for the poor. On the eve of his death, with a paralyzed hand he scribbled a message to a friend, asking him to take the medicine needed for injections to be given to Converso, a poor sick man he had been visiting.
    
Pier Giorgio’s funeral was a triumph. The streets of the city were lined with a multitude of mourners who were unknown to his family -- the poor and the needy whom he had served so unselfishly for seven years. Many of these people, in turn, were surprised to learn that the saintly young man they knew had actually been the heir of the influential Frassati family.
   
Pope John Paul II, after visiting his original tomb in the family plot in Pollone, said in 1989: “I wanted to pay homage to a young man who was able to witness to Christ with singular effectiveness in this century of ours. When I was a young man, I, too, felt the beneficial influence of his example and, as a student, I was impressed by the force of his testimony."
    
On May 20, 1990, in St. Peter’s Square which was filled with thousands of people, the Pope beatified Pier Giorgio Frassati, calling him the “Man of the Eight Beatitudes.”
    
His mortal remains, found completely intact and    incorrupt upon their exhumation on March 31, 1981, were transferred from the family tomb in Pollone to the cathedral in Turin. Many pilgrims, especially students and the young, come to the tomb of Blessed Frassati to seek favours and the courage to follow his example.

July 4: Feast of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati [Part 1]

2017: Fatima Centenary Year
July 1-2:  Ordinary Time 13th Sunday

Pier Giorgio Michelangelo Frassati was born in Turin, Italy on April 6, 1901.

His mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a painter. His father Alfredo, was the founder and director of the newspaper, “La Stampa," and was influential in Italian politics, holding positions as an Italian Senator and Ambassador to Germany. 
    
At an early age, Pier Giorgio joined the Marian Sodality and the Apostleship of Prayer, and obtained per-mission to receive daily Communion (which was rare at that time).
    
He developed a deep spiritual life which he never hesitated to share with his friends. The Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin were the two poles of his world of prayer. At the age of 17, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society and dedicated much of his spare time to serving the sick and the needy, caring for orphans, and assisting the demobilized servicemen returning from World War I. 

He decided to become a mining engineer, studying at the Royal Polytechnic University of Turin, so he could “serve Christ better among the miners," as he told a friend. 

Although he considered his studies his first duty, they did not keep him from social and political activism. In 1919, he joined the Catholic Student Foundation and the organization known as Catholic Action. He became         a very active member of the People’s Party, which promoted the Catholic Church’s social teaching based on the principles of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical letter, Rerum Novarum.
    
What little he did have, Pier Giorgio gave to help the poor, even using his bus fare for charity and then running home to be on time for meals. The poor and the suffering were his masters, and he was literally their servant, which he considered a privilege. His charity did not simply involve giving something to others, but giving completely of himself. This was fed by daily communion with Christ in the Holy Eucharist and by frequent nocturnal adoration, by meditation on St. Paul’s “Hymn of Charity” (I Corinthians 13), and by the writings of St. Catherine of Siena. He often sacrificed vacations at the Frassati summer home in Pollone (outside of Turin) because, as he said, “If everybody leaves Turin, who will take care of the poor?”
     



In 1921, he was a central figure in Ravenna, enthusiastically helping to organize the first convention of Pax Romana, an association which had as its purpose the   unification of all Catholic students throughout the world for the purpose of working together for universal peace.

(To be continued)