A church wedding touches the couple, their families and friends in an especially intimate way,but it also pertains to the local parish and to the larger church. This is what the bishops at the Second Vatican Council meant when they said, "Liturgical services are not private functions but are celebrations of the Church which is 'the sacrament of unity'" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 26). Catholic weddings are parish liturgies and, as such, are often announced in the parish bulletin. Weddings may even be celebrated within a parish Sunday Mass. While one may need an invitation to attend the reception, the wedding liturgy is a celebration of the whole church and is open to all parishioners
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 JULY
a time for weddings!
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.
When a wedding is celebrated in church, there is another level of relation ship beyond family and friends, and that involves God and the church. In their exchange of vows, the couple offers a visible sign of God's presence and love. It is an act of worship that takes place in the midst of a Christian community. In living out their vows, husband and wife share in Christ's paschal mystery by dying to their own desires so as to live for each other and their children. Their marriage reflects Christ's relationship with the church and creates a new family within the community of the church.
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THE WHOLE CHURCH CELEBRATES WITH YOU
"We're getting married!" With these few, simple words, an engaged couple announces the most important decision of their lives. This decision affects not only the couple, but also their families and friends. No longer is John just "our son," "our nephew" or "my college buddy;" no longer is Mary just "my daughter," "our cousin" or "my friend from work." Now they are also partners who have agreed to pledge their lives to each other and form a new family. As they gather around John and Mary at the wedding, these family members and friends celebrate these changes in relationships.
Dates To Remember
3rd July:
Feast of St. Thomas
11th July:
Feast of St. Benedict
15th July:
Feast of St. Bonaventure
16th July:
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
22nd July:
Feast of St. Mary Magdalen
25th July:
Feast of St. James
31st July:
Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola
THOMAS - QUICK ON THE DRAW (July 3rd)
St. Thomas was a dedicated apostle but he was quick-fired and rather impetuous. When Jesus said he was going back to visit his sick friend Lazarus, Thomas immediately whipped up the others to accompany Jesus although it involved certain danger and possible death because of the mounting hostility of the authorities.
At the Last Supper, when Christ told his apostles that he was going to prepare a place for them to which they could come, Thomas complained that they did not understand what he was talking about. His unwillingness to believe that the others had seen their risen Lord on the first Easter Sunday gained him the title of "Doubting Thomas".
Tradition says that when the apostles scattered after Pentecost he was sent to evangelise the Parthians, Medes, and Persians. He eventually reached India, carrying the gospel to the Malabar Coast, which still boasts a large native population calling themselves "Christians of St. Thomas". He is said to have been speared to death at a place called Calamine. His feast day is July 3rd and he is the patron saint of architects.
BENEDICT (July 11th)
St Benedict lived between 480 and 547. He was born in Nursia, Italy, and as a young man he became interested in the monastic tradition that had been going for several centuries, started by monks who went out to live in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Asia Minor, usually alone but sometimes in common. He associated with other monks and learned the life from them and from reading the monastic literature. Eventually he founded a monastery himself, thus earning the title "Founder of Western Monasticism", and he wrote his own Rule, a series of regulations that governed all aspects of life for his fellow monks, the Benedictines. This Rule has become the basis of many communities of monks and nuns that grew up over later centuries and is still used today in convents and monasteries around the world.
These days we are blessed with lots of role models in Europe. But when the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino was being rededicated in 1964 (after being bombed during World War II), Pope Paul VI designated St Benedict as the "principal, heavenly patron of the whole of Europe".
Who was Luke?
It's hard to piece together the jig-saw that is St Luke's life. He does not appear on the scene until long after the time of Jesus and we first come across him not in his own gospel but in the Acts of the Apostles (which he also wrote) around the year 51 at Troas when he joins St Paul on his journeys. In his letter to the Colossians St Paul refers to Luke as "the beloved physician" (Col 4:14). Sometimes slaves were trained in medicine so as to provide an on-the-spot doctor for their master's family and servants, so we cannot be sure whether Luke was a freeman or not. His command of Greek is probably the best of all the gospel writers and this has given rise to the theory that he was an educated Greek and a gentile. According to the early Church historian, Eusebius, Luke was a Syrian who was born in Antioch.
The end of his life, after St Paul's death, is shrouded in conflicting theories. Some people say that he was martyred while others report that he had a long life. There are accounts that he went and preached the gospel in Greece and other records state that he travelled to Gaul. An early tradition says that he died in Boeotia in Greece in the year 84, after settling there to write his gospel. Despite this lack of background information, we have a full programme of teaching in the gospel of Luke and much of it that is found in none of the other three evangelists' work.
Christian tradition has symbolically connected the authors of the four gospels with the four "living creatures" that surround God's throne in the Book of Revelation 4:7, and so Luke is depicted in art as an ox or calf.
Background to his Gospel
Just as Mark wrote his gospel as a result of hearing the preaching and teaching of St Peter, so Luke writes his from his experience of listening to St Paul. Luke appears on the scene in chapter 16 of Acts as Paul is travelling around, and he asks him to go to Macedonia to preach the good news. Much of what Luke has to say in Acts and in his gospel in gleaned from his association with Paul, staying with him right up until his execution. Thus we find a lot of original material in Luke that is not recorded in the other gospels. In fact there are six miracles and eighteen parables that belong to Luke alone. As a non-Jew himself, Luke is particularly anxious to present Jesus's teaching in a way that other gentiles can grasp. His is sometimes called the gospel of social justice and the gospel of the poor. He paints the gentiles in a favourable light and is particularly aware of the role of women in the proclamation of the good news. These aspects are perhaps clearly shown in Mary's statement that God has toppled the rich and powerful and done great things for her, a handmaid, and for those who are poor and oppressed.
What does it say?
Luke wants people to know that Jesus Christ came as the saviour of all people, no matter who they are. He presents the compassion of Jesus for sinners but balances it with the urgency of following him, with the need to give ourselves totally to the demands of the gospel. Much of his writing is intended to show how ordinary people can put the good news into practice, whether they are poor and outcast, rich and powerful, the businessman, the widow, the housewife, the judge etc. It is about perseverance and self-giving, about discipleship.
Luke's gospel begins in Jerusalem and ends there. It is like a travel narrative, going up to Jerusalem's mount, a movement that Christ undertakes from his beginnings in Galilee until his death on Calvary.
The introduction to his gospel lasts for four chapters and tells of Jesus' birth and early life. Chapters five to nine recount the early part of Jesus' ministry in Galilee and conclude with Peter's acceptance of Jesus in his confession of faith. Chapters nine to fifteen begin the narrative of Jesus' journey to death and glory in Jerusalem. Luke is careful to speak about the qualities of those, like the seventy-two, who are to follow him. Within this section comes the "gospel within the gospel", chapter fifteen, which speaks about the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son. The fourth section, from chapters sixteen to twenty, shows us that it is not an easy thing to follow Jesus and there are various parables and stories about the obstacles faced by those who are to be disciples. The final unit is about Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem, his death, resurrection and ascension.
Much of the material in Luke is original, used by him alone. He arranges his material in such a way as to present a universal call to salvation, the grace of a merciful God and the compassionate face of Jesus, who even on the cross is offering forgiveness and paradise to the repentant thief. He then begins the travel narrative again, in the Acts of the Apostles, with the journey starting from Jerusalem to the ends of the known world as the disciples take the good news to the four corners of the globe.