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 LENT
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.
Putting ashes on our heads on Ash Wednesday is meant as a symbol of repentance, a reminder that we are beginning 40 days of renewal in our commitment of faith. By Thursday morning we will have washed the ashes away. They will no longer be visible. But inwardly we carry them around with us for another 39 days as we focus on what we need to do to clear away the obstacles that prevent us from loving God as we know we should. No one else will know that they are there, except us. Just as no one else need know what we are "doing for Lent" except us…and God.
Lent comes every year but there are three cycles. This year we are in the "A" cycle as we take time to reflect on the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection. Every year the first two Sundays of Lent present us with two opposite images of Jesus - his humanity and his divinity. On one Sunday he is grappling with temptation and on the other he is in his glory with Moses and Elijah. The third week of Lent speaks of a wisdom which the world considers foolish; the fourth week invites us to do something which some people would consider stupid: to be born again! The fifth week will challenge us to put ourselves in second place if we want to be first.
The fourth Sunday of Lent is also known as Laetare Sunday because it has an element of rejoicing that Lent is almost over. In many parishes the priest will set aside the purple vestments and wear a gentler shade of rose. (The third Sunday in Advent is somewhat similar in outlook and is called Gaudete Sunday.)
SOME DAYS TO REMEMBER DURING LENT
It is difficult to go anywhere these days without hearing a mobile phone ringing. On the 3rd March 1847 a child called Alexander Graham Bell was born in Scotland. Later he moved to Canada and then America where he established a school to teach deaf students. One day while he was experimenting with electricity he was led to the invention which resulted in the telephone.
Probably very few people have heard the name of Felix Hoffman, but almost everyone has benefited from his work. For generations there had been a medical compound used by the ancient Greeks and Romans to alleviate pain. It was a very primitive drug with a horrible taste, so horrible that people didn't want to take it. On March 6th 1899 Hoffman, a German scientist, patented a variation of this bitter drug which was more palatable but still left a sour taste. He borrowed the Latin word for bitter (asper) and named his drug ASPIRIN.
Frequently, we forget to be grateful for those clever people who have shared their talents with us and helped to make our lives just a little bit better.
SOME FEAST DAYS TO REMEMBER
- Feast of St. Patrick, 17th March, a day on which Irish people celebrate all over the world and also recall the very foundations of their Catholic faith.
- Feast of St. Joseph, 19th March, Spouse of Mary and Guardian of the infant Jesus. A man of honour, a virtue which is to be admired in this age of mankind.
- Feast of the Annunciation, 25th March, takes place nine months before the birth of Jesus. Reminds us how precious is life, especially life in the womb.
THE WEEK THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
Someone once said that every Sunday is a mini-Easter. What they meant to say is that what happened at the first Easter is so momentous that it takes 51 more weeks to try and live with the consequences.Holy Week, from Passion (Palm) Sunday until Easter Sunday, is the climax of the Christian year and the greatest feast in the calendar. It even overshadows Christmas. For Christ was born in order to die and rise.Over the centuries the Church has celebrated these seven days with deep solemnity. They are known as the "Great Week". In fact the three days from Thursday night until Sunday morning are celebrated not simplyas separate days but as one huge feast. In Latin this is called the "Triduum", or the "Three-day Feast".
It's a week that changed the world and can once more change you and me. The drama of our faith unfolds as the week goes on, and we recall our pledge to let the salvation which Christ gained for us on the cross take effect now in our daily lives.
It's something not to be missed, something worth marking down in your diary and participating in as fully as possible. Certainly you would be well repaid if you attended the three sections of the Triduum: the Mass of the Lord's Supper, the Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil.
But all of this is more than a trip down memory lane to the time of Jesus. We do not simply recall a dead hero and his bravery. We ask the Holy Spirit to come upon us so that what Christ won for us in that first Holy Week may be real and effective in our lives. We actuate it. That means we make it really present so that it can take hold of us. We summon up its power. And, if we let it, it can change us.
So what's it all about, and what do we do during this week?
And the second element of our celebration this day is Eucharist celebrated in the evening. We recall that Christ instituted the Eucharist on this day. Strangely enough, the washing of the feet and the breaking of bread are inseparably linked. Only if we agree to serve each other can we share communion. Attending the Mass of the Lord's Supper is an invitation to be nourished by the food of life. But it also involves a commitment to become part of a community that grows by loving.
PASSION (PALM) SUNDAY
The events of the first Palm Sunday are recorded in the gospels. Jesus, by now famous for his preaching and his miracles, was cheered into Jerusalem by crowds who hoped he might lead some sort of uprising against the occupying forces. Children sang and strew branches before him as he rode in on a donkey, fulfilling an ancient prophecy.But we have to do more than remember the events. And although we may have a solemn entrance (with or without donkey!), though we may have a procession with palm leaves and sing "Hosannas" like the young children, we still have to do more.
Through the reading of the Passion we have to be drawn in to the mystery of Christ's suffering. We ask that we too may be prepared to accept our own cross and follow Jesus's example of complete self-giving. We pray for a share in his suffering so that we may also share in his rising.
MAUNDY THURSDAY
We only ever use "Maundy" to refer to this day, and to the money given away today by the Monarch. The word reminds us of one of the two pivots of our celebration tonight. It's from the Latin word for "command", and we recall Christ's command to do what he did at the last supper: he washed the feet of his disciples as a sign of service. If we wash feet in our liturgy it is not just because it provides a welcome diversion from the praying! It's because it's a sign of our commitment to serve all our brothers and sisters as Christ himself did
GOOD FRIDAY
On Good Friday Jesus Christ gave his life. He was an innocent man, yet by allowing himself to be a scapegoat he showed the depth of his love. His example of selfless service becomes ours too.
But if we did nothing more than reflect in sadness that our sin put him on the cross, then we would be missing the point. Good Friday is no mere breast-beating day. On Good Friday we acknowledge our sinfulness, but we also glory in the victory that Christ won over sin and death. We are not playacting and we know that Christ rose from the dead. So even on Good Friday we rejoice in the triumph over evil.
As we gather to hear the long and solemn proclamation of the Passion according to St John, we prepare ourselves to pray for people of every place throughout our world who are victims of sin and evil.
We venerate the cross, the instrument of death that became the means to life.
We join together in communion as a community of believers whose only boast can be about Christ's victory on that tree.
Far from simply looking back on a sad day, we ask God to bring it alive once more in our minds and hearts.
.
JESUS AND THE DESERT
The desert is always a dramatic place to visit, and very different from what you might expect.
The fierceness of the sun, vastness of it and the vastness and clarity of the evening and night skies above itimmediately fill you with a sense of transcendence and a kind of clean purity. It does not surprise you that people go into the desert to find God.
What does surprise you and disconcert you is the desert's constant movement, shifting colours and shapes and eerie sounds.
.
EASTER VIGIL
The Easter Vigil takes place after dark on Saturday night and before dawn on the Sunday morning. This, above all others, is the time for our recommitment and re-dedication in faith.
Our Easter fire is lit and in turn lights up the surroundings, providing a flame for the Easter Candle which is solemnly carried into church as the sign of the Light of Christ which has overcome darkness.
The story of God's dealings with us from the dawn of creation until these days is proclaimed in the scriptures. The whole community renews its faith alongside any new members who are to be baptised or received into the Church. And with the promises of baptism ringing in our ears we go forward together to share in the food and drink of Life.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LENT
Lent as we know it was not observed in the Church before the Council of Nicaea. During the first three centuries there was a good deal of controversy both about the right date for celebrating Easter and the length and kind of fast which should be kept before it. Eusebius, for example, quotes St Irenaeus (in a letter written to Pope Victor in 190): "...some think they ought to fast for one day, others two days, and others even for several, while others reckon forty hours both of day and night to their fast." He also says that such a variety of custom is of ancient origin. Tertullian a few years later refers to the then current Catholic practice of fasting during the Thursday and Friday of Holy Week,'the days on which the bridegroom was taken away.' We hear of no forty day period of fasting before the Council of Nicaea (325).
The Church in the Apostolic age commemorated the death and resurrection of Christ not by an annual, but by a weekly celebration with a Friday fast commemorating the crucifixion and death of Christ and the Sunday liturgy celebrating his resurrection. This explains why such wide differences arose in the 2nd century both about the date of Easter and the form of the paschal fast preceding it (which was not originally longer than Holy Week, but was exceptionally severe in form).
The Lent of 40 days followed the example of Jesus (as well as of course Moses and Elijah), and was intended originally for the spiritual preparation and catechism of new converts, who were then baptised very early in the small hours of Easter Sunday. Public penitents were also reconciled.
Though Lent lasted six weeks there were originally in Rome only three weeks of actual fasting (the first, fourth and sixth - always excluding Saturdays and Sundays). As the catechumenate (preparation for Easter baptism) fell into disuse, the whole period of Lenten weekdays became one extended penitential fast for sins committed since baptism - at first formally imposed on the public penitents who had confessed very serious sins, but then adopted as a formal devotional practice by everybody (after confession in Shrovetide).
Fasting was also observed in different ways in different places, sometimes with dangerous rigour. The rule became one meal on weekdays, originally not to be eaten before 3 pm, then later, before noon. The eventual law of abstinence followed the rule of Pope St Gregory written to St Augustine of Canterbury: "We abstain from flesh meat and all things that come from flesh, such as milk, cheese, and eggs" But dispensations were given from the beginning, including minor refreshments allowed for pious works (e.g. building churches - which is how a steeple of Rouen Cathedral came by the name of the Butter Tower).
In the time of Jesus, people saw the desert as filled with demons, probably because it was so easy to lose your way in the shifting shapes and colours of the sands that you felt you were being constantly tricked and led into perilous danger. The wind so often howled and shrieked with such spine-chilling sounds that it was easy to believe its voices were being directed specifically at you. Yet the spiritual memory of the Jews was that of a desert people being led by God, and so Jesus probably did not go into the desert only to meet the forces of evil, but through them to meet with God. It is very easy to overlook the end of the Gospel narrative: 'Then the devil left him and the angels came and cared for him'. So like any religious contemplative or retreatant Jesus encountered the bad spirits and the good spirits. In the desert human choices are starker and simpler, like the landscape itself, and it sets our own lives free to be seen in different and much sharper perspectives.
It is interesting to note that the actual temptations Jesus experienced were thoroughly worldly in spite of his bleak environment: materialism, fame, and worldly success. What form they took is hard to judge from the text which sounds like his own simplified parable picture language for his disciples, but they seem very like fantasies, with 'the parapet of the temple' and the 'high mountain' and 'all the kingdoms of the world'. Is it possible that these temptations did not leave him until his death on the cross itself? What is very clear is that Jesus' preoccupation in the desert; the focus of his prayer to his Father was on the nature of his future public ministry 'in the world'.
.
