Holy Week
Throughout Holy Week we will be celebrating our whole purpose in living. We will follow the events of Christ's last days and we will make them come alive for us. Refreshed by the food and drink of life we will recommit ourselves to serve as he commanded. We will look upon him on the cross, and we will gather as night falls under the full moon of the spring equinox. The fire and light will celebrate the cosmic renewal that directs history afresh in the memory of Christ. The night will regenerate us in the covenant God has made with us. We will laugh at death in the face as we rise with Christ to be a community gifted with hope. And in the midst of our jubilation we will initiate new members into the new life that makes ultimate sense of our existence.
Bouquets and Flowers For Every Event...
This information is intended for parents of school-age children and teachers who are imparting Religious Education within a Catholic school environment.
PASTORAL NOTES FOR APRIL
The contents of these documents are related to the present day teaching of the Catholic Church in relation to Doctrine, Liturgy and Catholic practices. There are also special sections on Catholic Marriage and arranging a funeral in the Catholic Church.
Sometimes processions leave the church building and take to the streets. The marching season in Northern Ireland sees many Orange marches which are really religious in origin, witnessing to the Protestantism of the participants.Palm Sunday was one of the first days to host a procession. We know that from the fourth century a crowd of people followed the bishop from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem in an act of witness to Christ's entry into Jerusalem and into his Passion.
Some days each year used to be called Rogation Days (days of special prayer) and were accompanied by processions with singing and litanies, and Corpus Christi was celebrated with a procession carrying the Eucharist in a portable container (a monstrance). In recent years there has been a rebirth of Good Friday processions of witness and these have given an ecumenical dimension to the idea of a procession.
So whether a procession is festal or penitential it allows us to witness to what we believe and to proclaim it publicly on our streets. And as we move from one place to the next in prayer and song, it reminds us that our praise and petition is no mere intellectual thing: we worship God with our whole being...body and soul.
Dates To Remember
Good Friday is one of the two days in the year when Catholics are asked to Fast and Abstain from meat.
The other day is Ash Wednesday.
2nd April:
Anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II
25th April:
Feast of St. Mark
29th April:
Feast of St. Catherine of Sienna
PROCESSIONS
Not many years ago it was a common sight to see religious processions passing through the streets of most of our cities. Yet nowadays such occasions are comparatively rare events.
The Mystery Of Mystagogy!!
If you're looking for a word to impress people with, why not try "Mystagogy"? (It's pronounced "mister-goj-ee".) You can guarantee your audience will be impressed, but the problem is that they might not stay long enough to hear your next pronouncement!
Mystagogy is the process of being led deeper and deeper into the mysteries of our faith. Traditionally new Christians entered a period of mystagogy after they were baptised at Easter. And even now the Church has a period of mystagogy between Easter and Pentecost when the scripture readings at the liturgy are geared to exploring some of the core implications of being a Christian.
We expect that someone who has just joined our Church community would be anxious to learn more and more about what they have signed up to, more about the symbols of our faith and what we do when we come together to worship etc. And so faith-sharing meetings come as no great surprise. But what about the rest of us?
Growth in faith is from womb to tomb. You can never get a degree in faith because you need to keep adapting your understanding of faith to your age, your altering circumstances, and your changing capacities and needs.
So we would be pretty feeble in our understanding of faith if we went through life with the same limited grasp about God and Christian life that we took hold of as children. If we never brought our adult minds to bear on the big issues of life and death, then our faith would remain childish. There's nothing wrong with childlike faith, but childish faith is quite another thing.
There's no need to be afraid of exploring areas of faith that we are unsure about. When we start, we'll find that a few cracks will appear in areas that we thought of as secure. But it can't be right not to ask searching adult questions just because we don't know where the answers will lead.
Did you know? Oil
Not very long ago it would have been unusual for people to have fragrant oils in their home. It was perhaps thought to be the domain of the more esoteric. But now our high street shops have more than their fair share of oils, whether intended to make your room smell right for a romantic dinner or to help you relax and shrug off the stress of daily life.
Oils, and the effect on body and spirit, have been in use in the Christian Church since the earliest of times. It had been customary in the Old Testament to anoint certain public figures with oil as a sign of their consecration (kings, priests etc.). A number of prayers make reference to oil of gladness, a festive anointing. So anointing generally indicates a belief that there is a strong link between body and spirit.
Christians were quick to carry on this practice and to use the oil of chrism for baptising, confirming and ordaining. This is basically olive oil with an added ingredient (such as balsam) intended to smell sweetly and give off a pleasant perfume. Its use signifies consecration.
Oil of catechumens, as its name implies, is what is used to anoint those who are about to become Christians. It signifies preparation and fitness. This can be used on adults, particularly during Lent, or on babies towards the start of the baptism ceremony.
Oil of the sick, like that of catechumens, is straightforward olive oil. It is used when a priest or bishop celebrates the sacrament of the sick with someone whose life is seriously affected by illness. It signifies healing.
The three most common oils (chrism, of catechumens and of the sick) are blessed by the bishop at a Mass that usually takes place on Holy Thursday of Holy Week in the Cathedral church when the priests of the diocese are invited to concelebrate with their Bishop and afterwards each parish receives its annual supply of holy oil. In the local parish the priests will use these oils at the Easter Vigil.
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Low Sunday
It's hard to think of a more unflattering name for one of the Church's feasts, isn't it? People often wonder why it has this name, and they presume it must be because its predecessor, Easter Sunday, is such a high day!
In fact, Low Sunday gets its title from the custom of lowering or taking off the white clothes of Easter baptism. Those who had been baptised the week before kept on their white robes (our present day baptism shawls and white garments) for a whole week. On "Low" Sunday they lowered them. In Latin this day was known as "Dominica in albis deponendis" ("Sunday when the white clothes are removed.") Not such a lowly title after all!
