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Author: Jenny O'Brien When a young couple approaches the Church to be married, their intention is to formally ratify the deep love they have for each other in the presence of their family and friends, with the blessing of the Church. It is assumed that they will have some connection with the Church: it may be that they want to be married in the same church in which their parents were married, or in the chapel attached to the school that they attended, or simply because the particular church building is very beautiful.
Author: Jenny O'Brien Early in June we celebrated the feast of Pentecost, often referred to as the “birthday of the Church,” when Peter and the other apostles presented the Good News of Christ to the Jerusalem crowds who heard them speaking in their own language. So we could say that, right from the beginning, the character of the Church has been multicultural!
Today our parishes are more and more made up of people from countries around the globe who have settled in Australia either through normal channels of immigration or because they have fled war or persecution in their home country. And yet, in many instances, long-term Australian residents remain unaware of the many different cultures that are represented in their parish and still see themselves as predominantly Euro-Australian. Since the first characteristic of any Christian community ought to be hospitality, we would do well to reflect on the way we celebrate our Sunday liturgies so that all members of the community feel appreciated and included in the liturgy. What is involved in preparing a “multicultural” liturgy? Author: Jenny O'Brien Every year on Good Friday large numbers of Catholics gather in groups to remember the Passion of Christ by praying the Stations of the Cross. In Adelaide many people attend the Monastery at Glen Osmond or Sacred Heart College, Somerton Park, where the Stations are held outdoors.
The concept of following the steps of our Lord to Calvary arose very early in the Church’s history. There is even a tradition claiming that Mary herself visited the various sites in Jerusalem connected with her Son’s passion. There is written evidence that in the fourth century the most important sites were regularly visited by pilgrims, and as early as the fifth century St Petronius, the Bishop of Bologna in Italy, erected a complex of connected chapels in the Monastery of San Stefano representing these various sites in order to bring closer to home the shrines of Jerusalem. Author: Jenny O'Brien The purpose of any calendar is to help people within a given society to order their lives. Most modern countries use the Gregorian calendar, but in actual fact there are about forty different calendars in use around the world today, particularly for determining religious dates. The Church’s Liturgical Calendar is one of these and is not so much concerned with “counting days” but in setting out guidelines for the celebration of the mystery of Christ over the period of a year.
The Liturgical Year is based on the fact that Sunday is the primary day when Christians gather to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ, with Easter as the most important Sunday of the year. And while Christmas does not necessarily fall on a Sunday, the birth of Christ is the other major feast around which the Church’s year is structured. Author: Jenny O'Brien When we hear the word “apostle” most of us think of the twelve male apostles, perhaps with Peter coming to mind before the others. However, not long ago Pope Francis reminded us that there is indeed a female apostle whose importance to the Church has often “slipped under the radar.” He was referring, of course, to Mary Magdalene, who has often wrongly been portrayed in the annals of Church history and religious art as a prostitute or “fallen woman” despite the fact that no such evidence appears in the Gospels.
Author: Jenny O'Brien The beautiful funeral liturgies that marked the passing to eternal life of Archbishop Leonard Faulkner demonstrated very clearly the important role that our Catholic rituals play within the faith community. The coming together of so many people from throughout our diocese and beyond was “cemented” by the prayers, the readings, the songs and hymns, the actions in which we all joined.
As we sang the antiphon of the Responsorial Psalm at both the Vigil service and the Mass of Christian Burial I was reminded of the power that these short but meaning-filled sentences carry. |
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