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Pastor’s Desk – 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Feeling Peace  – at the centre of the Beatitudes

On one of my first visits to a Jesuit house, I felt a huge peace – maybe the beginning of a vocation. In bereavement there can be a moment of peace, which seems to come from nowhere: peace of being totally loved by a good friend or spouse, peace, just peace with the children.

There is a peace that comes from faith and love and that is prayer: peace that comes from knowing I am heard, understood and loved.

There is a huge need for listening now, for knowing that people care in our world of suicides, addictions to alcohol. We can feel we live in an impersonal world of anxiety and isolation. We need the peace of honest conversation and openness, and the peace of being forgiven.

Peace is not evading difficulty. You are mad worried about  a child – somewhere in the middle, like gold in the mud, you find the peace of knowing God’s love for you and for him or her. That needs time and a bit of prayer.

It is good to sit each day in silence. Allow this peace to get into you. Breathe in and out, just saying the word ‘peace’. That is God’s gift to you.

There is also a peace from God in doing good and doing the right thing. Jesus knew it was the best gift he could give. It comes from love.

Back to my first visit that day – what caused the peace? I don’t know fully. We can be surprised when we will be graced with the peace of Jesus Christ which the world cannot give.

Give each of us O Lord, that peace beyond all understanding.

Donal Neary S.J.

Pastor’s Desk – 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Alive

Peter got great joy out of being a fisherman/ a businessman/ with his business partners. Especially when the catch was good and the money was flowing in from Rome and the cities east and west of Galilee.

Jesus offered more – for then/ for now and for always. Life to the full was to follow, even in suffering/ humiliation and death for Peter.

Christ is alive in love of our family network, in our deep friendships, in our care for the needy and our care for the earth, in our volunteers in the many places they work bringing the fullness of the life of Jesus.

The fish in the story represent all the people who will be found for Christ.  And he said to Peter,’ look at the fish and think of the people and know that I am alive’.

Sharing and educating in faith is bringing Christ to life. The teachers and chaplains, priests, religious, parish personnel,  all educators, all parents, all families in faith are in partnership with the Lord Jesus.

All sincere faith knowledge leads to love of God and each other. Conversion is being in love with God and his creation, with each and with everyone. We want to be in a state of love. Only the one who can love can know God, for God is love. That’s the challenge to all of us in passing on the faith as best we can to another generation. We pass on our faith in love.

It’s not just a catechism but the conviction, belief and joy that Christ is alive. To us Christ would say there will always be fish to be caught and people to be served, the generous gift of God. To us he says I’m calling you, and that call is the generous gift of God.

Lord, help me to find you in all things, and then we can do all for your greater glory

Donal Neary SJ

Pastor’s Desk – The Presentation of the Lord

The feast of the Presentation of the Lord is celebrated forty days after the feast of Christmas, as it was traditionally understood that Jesus was presented in the Temple forty days after his birth. This day is also known as Candlemas, because candles are blessed on this day to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world and the light of our life. This is in keeping with Simeon’s reference to the child Jesus in the gospel reading as a ‘light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of your people Israel’.

Simeon’s prayer beginning, ‘Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace’, has become an integral element of the Night Prayer of the Church. Simeon recognized the true identity of the child that the young couple from Nazareth brought into the Temple. He realized who had just entered the Temple, who had entered his life. Looking at this new born child, he could see the ‘salvation’ that God had been preparing for all the nations to see. Simeon recognized that the light of God’s love was shining through the face of this child, a light that would enlighten the pagans and bring glory to Israel.

The gospel reading suggests that Simeon had this level of insight into the child of Joseph and Mary because the Holy Spirit rested on him and he came to the child prompted by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who allows us to see Jesus as he really is. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, says, ‘No one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God’ and declares, ‘we have received… the Spirit that is from God, so that we can understand the gifts bestowed on us by God’. We need the Holy Spirit to appreciate the gifts that God has given us, especially God’s greatest gift, his beloved Son, who is with us until the end of time. On this feast, we invite the Holy Spirit to rest upon us afresh, as he rested on Simeon, so that, like him, we may recognize the many ways that the risen Lord enters our lives.

Fr Martin Hogan

International Mass

We will be holding our first International Mass in the parish this coming Sunday 2nd February, when some of our parishioners will read the Prayers of the Faithful in their national language.

We hope you can join us in this celebration of the Eucharist together as one Parish Family.

Pastor’s Desk – 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Faith beyond words

Jesus’ religious beliefs grew on the word of God. Through boyhood and family life, visits to the synagogue and prayer, he heard the word of God. Gradually he knew what it meant. Now was his time to speak that word, and to begin his ministry.

For Mary and Joseph this was a proud moment. They had given their time and love to Jesus’ upbringing and now it would bear fruit. Today parents worry about the faith of their children. They see a different attitude to religion, prayer, morality and many other aspects of life. They wonder did they do their job well.

Much of the culture today goes against God and religion.
Parents cannot fight the culture. But they can hand on the best of the gospel by their own faith and by the way they live their lives, by their love and by speaking the truth as they see it. What is handed on in faith is beyond words.

passing the key

Teachers and Chaplains play a big role in handing on our faith. The Church owes a huge gratitude to teachers, chaplains, priest and lay, who have held that role in very difficult times over the last forty years.

We are all part of the ‘faith ministry’ of Jesus. By our own prayer we can help a new generation find their way to faith. We hand over worries to the Lord. Prayer gives us the encouragement to support a younger generation in their ways of faith – meditation groups, prayer groups, folk and gospel music Masses, work for and among the poor. God loves our younger generation more than we do!

Lord may my own faith grow deeper by my relationship with you.
Help those who search for you, especially the young.

Help us all to find your love in our lives, Amen.

Donal Neary SJ