SACRED HEART (June 3rd)
Father of all good things, we receive blessings untold from the heart of your Son. Our sinfulness wounds the very heart that brings us forgiveness. Help us to prove our love and to make amends for our sins by dedicating our lives to making Jesus' name known and by love-filled service to our brothers and sisters. Amen.
What's it all about?
Older Catholics will remember that June is the month traditionally dedicated to devotion to the Sacred Heart. They will remember novenas that used to be held, the practice of the nine First Fridays, family consecration to the Sacred Heart and the statue or little shrine that was found in many a home.
Most of this has now gone. Yet the most common statue of Jesus is surely still the one that portrays him with his heart exposed and burning with flames. Where did this devotion come from? What does it mean and is it still relevant today?
It may surprise you to learn that it is a relatively modern devotion, dating from the seventeenth century. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun, entered the Visitation Convent in 1671 and six years later Christ appeared to her in a vision in which "I could plainly see his heart, pierced and bleeding, yet there were flames, too, coming from it and a crown of thorns around it. He told me to behold his heart which so loved humanity. Then he seemed to take my very heart from me and place it there in his heart. In return he gave me back part of his flaming heart."
Like many other devotions, devotion to the Sacred Heart suffers from being a product of its time. The prayers and practices are from another age, a more overtly Christian era, and can often seem to have no relevance for us in the twenty-first century. But it's easy to throw the baby out with the bath water, and yet if we look closely at its meaning we will find that it is so central to Christianity that it is perennial.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the love of God made visible in the human person of Jesus. We speak of the heart as the seat of emotion, the place of love. We speak about having a special place in our heart for those we love. The heart of Jesus, however strangely depicted in paintings and statues, represents the love that God has for each of us and that God wants all people to experience.
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 JUNE
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.
What is collected is deposited with the president, who helps the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.
We recall that God created us solely because he wanted to be known as a God of love. We exist to reflect that love and to extend it by the way we co-operate with God's grace in loving others. But we also admit that so often we fall short of that love and live ungrateful lives which pretend to be self-sufficient and fail to acknowledge how much God has done and still doing for us in our daily lives. The devotion to the Sacred Heart encourages us to become more aware of God's surrounding love and to ask forgiveness for our part in clouding over that love. Our desire to positively counteract the ignorance of the world about God's love is called reparation, and reparation forms a major part of the devotion. For this reason the devotion centres around the fullness of God's love which we experience at the deepest level in the eucharist. That's why the feast of the Sacred Heart always falls on the Friday of the week following Corpus Christi.
For More Information Contact : tjc.chambers@gmail.com
NEW YET OLD (June 1st)
Justin the Martyr lived in the second century. He wrote an important work called the Apology, a treatise defending the true teaching of Christianity. In these pages we find a fascinating account of how the Eucharist was celebrated about a hundred years after Christ's death. It might come as a surprise to find that the "new" liturgy that we celebrate today is a close match to what was going on in his day. This is what he tells us: And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has finished, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts people to imitate these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we said earlier, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen. And there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And those who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit.
The Christian Vote?
"Within the restlessness, fragmentation, moral confusion, and preoccupation with celebrity that are features of modern culture, the lives of many people are still guided by faith and hope in the mystery of God.
We expect politicians to be committed to the common good, but we too have a responsibility to be involved in the democratic process. As followers of Christ, we are called to personal conversion through prayer and the sacramental life of the Church. We are also called to work for social transformation through love, compassion, peace, and justice, in our homes, work places, parishes and the wider human family of God.It is most important that we vote when the opportunity and need arises. It is a duty that springs from the privilege of living in a democratic society. In deciding how we will cast that vote, the question for each of us is: How, in the light of the Gospel, can my vote best serve the common good?"
MOHAMMED (June 8th)
Mohammed, the founder of Islam, was born in 570 and died on this day in 632. He was born into an Arabian tribe called the Quarysh who controlled the city of Mecca, which was an important city economically and religiously. It contained the Ka'bah, a sort of temple that contained the deities of all the surrounding tribes who came on pilgrimage there. Following revelations from the Angel Gabriel (later compiled into the Qu'ran) Mohammed began to preach against polytheism and incurred the wrath of the authorities. After many battles and skirmishes Mohammed prevailed and managed to unify the tribes under the one religion of Islam. Lord of all nations, enable those who seek you to find the truth as they walk before you in sincerity of heart. Help Christians and Muslims to grow in love for one another, to grasp more fully the mystery of your godhead, and so to become more perfect witnesses of your lovein the sight of all peoples.
BARNABAS (June 11th)
Barnabas, a Cypriot, lived with the Christians in Jerusalem after selling his estate and giving the money to the apostles. When Paul came to Jerusalem after his conversion, it was Barnabas who convinced the apostles to trust their old enemy. He and Paul then did missionary work together. At Iconium, the capital of Lycaonia, they narrowly escaped stoning at the hands of the mob whom the rulers had stirred up against them. A miraculous cure wrought by St Paul upon a cripple at Lystra led the pagan inhabitants to conclude that the gods had come amongst them. They hailed Paul as Hermes or Mercury because he was the chief speaker, and Barnabas as Zeus or Jupiter and were with difficulty restrained from offering sacrifices to them. But they soon rushed to the other extreme and stoned St Paul, severely wounding him.
FATHER'S DAY (Date varies)
Sonora Dodd, of Washington USA, first had the idea of a "Father's Day". She thought of it while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.
Sonora wanted a special day to honour her father, William Smart. Smart, who was an American Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. He was left to raise the newborn baby and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington State.
After Sonora became an adult she realised the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on June 19th 1910.
President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Then in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson officially declared the third Sunday of June as Father's Day. In the meantime it had spread throughout much of the world to become the annual celebration that it is today
PETER AND PAUL (June 29th)
The pages of the four gospels clearly show Peter to be the leader of the apostles, chosen by Jesus to have a special relationship with him. With James and John he was privileged to witness events like the Transfiguration and the agony in Gethsemane. His mother-in-law was cured by Jesus. He was sent with John to prepare for the last Passover before Jesus' death. His name is first on every list of apostles.
But the Gospels also include some unflattering details about Peter. He clearly was no public relations person. It's a great comfort for us ordinary mortals to know that Peter also has his human weakness, even in the presence of Jesus.
Paul converted to Christianity after being its persecutor. His central conviction was simple and absolute: only God can save humanity. No human effort-even the most scrupulous observance of law-can create a human good which we can bring to God as reparation for sin or payment for grace. To be saved from itself, from sin, from the devil and from death, humanity must open itself completely to the saving power of Jesus.
Today we celebrate the feast of Peter, our leader in the faith, and of Paul, its fearless preacher.
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW?
1. Where was St Paul from?
2. According to tradition what was the name of the Virgin Mary's father?
3. Who became the thirteenth apostle?
4. Who helped Jesus to carry his cross?
5. On what mountain is the Transfiguration said to have taken place?
6. What was James's brother called?
7. How many books does the New Testament contain?
8. Jesus raised a widow's son from the dead in which town?
9. Who was the high priest who tried Jesus?
10. Where was Peter's house?
Score: 9-10 = A place is reserved for you in heaven! 5-8 = You should have phoned a friend! 0-4 = Go and buy a bible!
(Answers in reverse order to help you not to cheat: Capernaum, Caiaphas, Naim, Twenty-seven, Andrew, Tabor, Simon of Cyrene, Matthias, Joachim, Tarsus)
