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By Orla Wright - Pastoral Support Each year I am often met with surprise when I tell people that Easter is actually a busier time for the Catholic Church than Christmas.  While most are familiar with the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25, fewer realise that Easter – the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus – is what gives Christmas its true significance.
Without the promise of eternal life through Christ’s resurrection, the birth of Jesus would hold little meaning. It is the Paschal mystery, the death and resurrection, that defines our faith and grants us the gift of eternal life.
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By Orla Wright - Pastoral Support, Community Life & Worship  When I grew up in Ireland, folklore and faith were intertwined in many celebrations.
Our ancestors divided the year into two seasons. Bealtaine, celebrated in May, marks the end of darkness and the arrival of light and new beginnings. Samhain (November) marks the end of the harvest season when darkness returns and life winds down to death. On Oiche Samhain (the eve of Samhain) the veil between the living and the dead was believed to be at its thinnest, allowing the spirits of the dead to walk among us. This belief evolved into our modern Christian ‘All Hallows Eve’ or Halloween, the eve of All Saints, all the holy ones. By Lauren Bierer, Pastoral Support - Community Life & Worship The entrance hymn at Mass starts as the entrance procession begins and continues for as long as needed to allow the congregation to gather and prepare for the celebration (General Instruction of the Roman Missal #47).  Maybe this is a controversial statement, but I’d suggest that the hymn does not need to end as soon as the presider reaches the sanctuary as singing together includes the celebrant in the gathering.
If a hymn is sung during the procession of the gifts, it starts when the preparation of the gifts begins and continues until the altar is prepared and the priest is ready to say ‘Pray, my brothers and sisters, that our sacrifice…’ Similarly, the recessional hymn begins right after the words of dismissal and accompanies the procession out of the church. Logic would suggest that the communion hymn should begin as soon as the celebrant and congregation start receiving communion and continue until everyone has received. However, many parishes do not follow this practice. Why is the pattern for other hymns at Mass not applied to the communion hymn? By Simone Brosig, Pastoral Leader - Community Life & Worship September 14 is the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. This feast is so important that it replaces Sunday when it falls on the Lord’s Day. For those of us baptised in the Catholic faith, our first ritual step into Christianity was the wordless reception of the symbol of the cross when the celebrant claimed us for Christ by tracing the sign on our forehead.
In the ritual for baptising infants, this moment might be overshadowed by the culmination of the three-fold immersion into the waters of eternal life. By contrast, in the preparation of adults for initiation, the first reception of the sign of the cross happens long before the rite of baptism and invites an opportunity for the individual and for all of us to deeply consider its significance. We all start somewhere. Unbaptised adults interested in becoming Catholic Christians are simply inquirers. Once they have connected with a faith community, they begin sharing their story and hearing from us stories of how God is active in our lives. Once they and the community discern that they are prepared to begin a journey of apprenticeship in the Christian life, they enter a period of instruction called “the catechumenate”, after the Greek word for ‘instruction’. This transition is marked by a ritual called the Rite of Acceptance. By Orla Wright, Pastoral Support - Community Life & Worship  A Rite of Election ceremony. Photo: Ben Macmahon Welcoming a new member into the family – whether it is a newborn baby, a newly adopted child, or someone joining through marriage – brings a mix of joy, hope and sometimes apprehension. This addition changes the dynamics of our family life, and we open our hearts, eager to share love, traditions and daily experiences, hoping the new member will fit in and embrace us.
Similarly, as members of the Catholic Church, we have a duty to welcome those on the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) journey into our faith community with open hearts and enthusiasm. Viewing RCIA as merely a program misses the point; it is about each one of us recognising that through our baptism we are called to spread the good news by word and example in our role as brothers and sisters in Christ. By Lauren Bierer, Pastoral Support - Community Life & Worship  As we have been propelled into a digital world over the past 3 decades, many churches around the globe have had to face the debate of screens or no screens. It is a challenging balance to maintain reverence in a place of worship, display hospitality to newcomers by helping the congregation with responses and being able to embrace the introduction of new liturgical music and not be bound to an aging hymnal in the pew. There are valid pros and cons for the use of screens and other worship aids.
In our Diocese here in Adelaide, you may find a church that is using hymnals printed over 40 years ago, which would mean the hymns Open My Eyes, Lord by Jesse Manibusan and Bernadette Farrell’s Christ Be Our Light hadn’t even been written yet. The barrier to updating church hymnals is usually a financial one and we find liturgical music feeling stale if a community has to use the same worship aid for this long. In contrast, another church is using screens and projecting lyrics for a song that was written last year and many Parishes are handing out the Parish newsletter before Mass with the Liturgy of the Word printed in it for people to follow. Their intention is to clearly communicate and increase the potential for participation but it can sometimes be a distraction. By Simone Brosig, Pastoral Leader - Community Life & Worship  Recently I was introduced to the resource centre at Catholic Education, the Catholic Resource and Information Service (CRIS). I picked out one book to take for research towards a workshop. After looking at some others, I exclaimed how many great items there were! The problem is, I’d have to actually read the books.
When it comes to learning or faith formation, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26.41). We often want to learn and grow in faith, but formal study takes the time, focus, and means that we may not have. Just as we could use an app to learn a new language in five minutes a day or might improve our health and fitness by taking the stairs instead of the lift, the Catholic tradition offers us a process that we can use to reach our goals almost effortlessly! It’s called ‘mystagogical reflection’. By Orla Wright, Pastoral Support - Community Life & Worship  The Marian Procession. Picture: Ben MacMahon Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on the second Sunday of May, can evoke a strong and complex range of emotions. For many it’s a day of breakfast in bed, homemade cards, and flowers; a day when family members get together to honour the matriarch of the clan. It’s a day many mothers receive tokens of gratitude in recognition of the love, care and sacrifices they make every day.
However for others, this day can evoke pain: those seeing the empty chair where their mother used to sit, the empty crib of infertility, miscarriage, or the loss of a child. We also need to acknowledge that not all mother/child relationships are joyous. For some, Mother’s Day is a stark reminder of the strain in relationships that sometimes can never be healed. |
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Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide
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