“But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the Law, locked up to wait for the faith which would eventually be revealed to us. So the Law was serving as a slave to look after us, to lead us to Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. But now that faith has come we are no longer under a slave looking after us; for all of you are the children of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus, since everyone of you that has been baptised has been clothed in Christ.”
Galatians 3:23-27
www.therecord.com.au
the Parish. the Nation. the World.
“Be indefatigable in your purpose and with undaunted spirit resist iniquity and try to conquer evil with good, having before your eyes the reward of those who combat for Christ.”
-Bishop Matthew Gibney
Western Australia’s award-winning Catholic newspaper since 1874 - Wednesday November 26 2008 Perth, Western Australia $2
Prelate confronts issue that practising Catholics know is real - but have often been too delicate to mention.
BISHOP Gerard Holohan of Bunbury has called for a radical reconsideration of the age and practice of conferral of the Sacrament of Confirmation at a meeting with the school principals of the Bunbury Diocese.
He said that “in every practical sense, Confirmation had become a ‘Sacrament of Farewell’”.
The Bishop contrasted the gap between the practice of today and the pastoral practice of the Early Church. Most Confirmation candidates today are the children of parents who have little if anything to do with the Christian community.
The early Church conferred the Sacraments of Initiation on the children within families in which they were receiving, and would continue to receive, initiatory catechesis.
The current practice of confirming children from families incapable of giving the necessary catechesis would not have been allowed in the Early Church. Sacraments were seen as sacraments of faith, and would not have been conferred outside a faith context.
The Bishop noted that today, instead of catechesis, we make do with religious education. Initiatory catechesis is an ‘apprenticeship in the faith’, whereas religious education is an educational discipline offering an ‘understanding that leads towards faith’.
Confusing the two, he said, is like confusing an electrical apprenticeship with the TAFE course required to qualify as an electrician.
One reason why the age for Confirmation has to be reconsidered is because of the move towards ‘Middle Schooling’ in Western Australia.
Another reason the Bishop cited is Pope Benedict’s call for a review of pastoral approach to Confirmation in the light of whether it led into the ’community’ where people ‘received formation’ needed to appreciate the Eucharist as ‘the climax and summit’ of the Christian life.
He suggested that the current approach did the reverse. He said a diocesan discus-
Continued on Page 6
Archbishop Barry Hickey has spoken out on why our culture needs a longlost virtue - wisdom - when thinking about sex, gender and relationships.
ONE Archdiocesan outreach organisation is set to mark the birth of Christ by celebrating a year of assistance to and friendship with many battling West Australians at their upcoming
Christmas party. On Saturday December 13, The Shopfront in Maylands will celebrate with the many visitors, volunteers, donors and parishioners who have made a connection with the centre over its six years of operation. Funded by donations made through the Archbishop’s annual Lifelink appeal as well as through private and corporate contributions, the agency assists over 6000 visitors every
The Pope has been speaking out about the importance of charity in the Christian life - and has said some interesting things about capitalism too. Page 8
year through the distribution of food and emergency financial assistance.
Shopfront’s Director, Br Peter Negus CFC, says that the most important aspect of the agency’s life is the friendship between volunteers and visitors; providing a place where people can talk and share their lives with others.
Br Negus says that visitors to The Shopfront come from
Continued on Page 6
Caritas in Perth gathered with other Church representatives to farewell Anne Fairhead who headed this charitable arm of the Church for many years.
We are the servants of God, each with his or her own task. We will be judged good stewards if, at His coming, He finds us ready and conscientiously pursuing the tasks to which we have been called. For further information on how stewardship can build your parish community, call Brian Stephens on 9422 7924.
30 S 1st SUNDAY OF ADVENT (YEAR B)
Vio Isa 63:16-17.64:1.3-8 Our Redeemer
Ps 79:2-3.15-16.18-19 Give us life
1Cor 1:3-9 God is faithful
Mk 13:33-37 Stay awake!
1 M
Vio Isa 2:1-5 Spear into sickles
Ps 121:1-2.4-5.6-9 Go to God’s house
Mt 8:5-11 I am not worthy
2 T
Vio Isa 11:1-10 The root of Jesse
Ps 71:1-2.7-8.12-13.17 The lives of the poor
Lk 10:21-24 I bless you, Father
3 W St Francis Xavier, priest (M)
Wh Isa 25:6-10 He will destroy death
Ps 22:1-6 My cup is overflowing
Mt 15:29-37 The crowds astonished
4 T St John Damascene, priest, doctor of the Church (O)
Vio Isa 26:1-6 Trust in the Lord
Ps 117:1.8-9.19-21.25-27 God’s love unending
Mt 7:21.24-27 House built on rock
5 F
Vio Isa 29:17-24 Stand in awe
Ps 26:1.4.13-14 Hope in God
Mt 9:27-31 Take pity on us
6 S St Nicholas, bishop (O)
Vio Isa 30:19-21.23-26 God will be gracious
Ps 146:1-6 Our Lord is almighty
Mt 9:35-10:1.6-8 Cure the sick
From every walk of life, men come forward to serve as acolytes.■ By Robert Hiini
RESPONDING to the Gospel call of service and witness, 149 men and their families attended the Parish of Saints John and Paul in Willetton for their institution as acolytes in the archdiocese during a Mass celebrated on Thursday November
20. As part of their formation the new acolytes had received a month’s worth of instruction from Sr Marie Therese Ryder OLM, Deacon Damian Goiran and Bishop Donald Sproxton through the Centre for Liturgy in Mirrabooka.
Approximately twenty other men were unable to attend.
During a Mass concelebrated by nearly 30 priests from throughout the archdiocese, the men approached the altar in succession to place their hands on chalices as a symbol of their service.
BishopSproxton thanked the men’s
families for their generosity in allowing them to take up their new roles of service; his homily gave a brief history of the ministry’s development after the Second Vatican Council.
In 1972, he said, the acolytate was “given back” to the laity by Pope Paul VI after many centuries of being exclusively exercised by deacons and priests.
Centre for Liturgy Director, Sr Kerry Willison RSM, thanked all who attended, Parish Priest Greg Donovan and the parish’s choir who provided lively music throughout the Mass.
The World Apostolate of Fatima presents two more evenings on:
THE S CIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AGAINST EVOLUTION at the Catholic Pastoral Centre
Harold St, Highgate on Monday December 1 and 8 at 7.30 pm
Don’t let the evolutionists make a monkey out of you, come and see the facts for yourself.
Nearly 80 years since its last structural addition, St Mary’s Cathedral received a second spire last week.
The second of the spires at the western end of the cathedral was lowered on to the building’s frontage on Wednesday, November 19, as part of the work of the cathedral completion begun last year.
The first spire was added to the original 1865 cathedral in 1905 under the direction of Bishop Gibney.
The St Mary’s Cathedral Appeal, which is funding the project, is still underway with another 1.2 millon dollars to be raised before organisers reach their 25 million dollar target.
These pictures were kindly provided by Emco Building Director, Don Cousens, whose company is undertaking the work.
The Bottom right and Page 1 photos were provided by Father Robert Cross, who has carried out archaeological excavations and studies of the site.
The Record recently received the following correspondence from a reader who was moved by the heartfelt pleas of a mother for her son in a prayer he found.
Ifound this note as I took my morning walk. I was touched by this mother’s faith, concern. I’ve said a prayer for her. I am hoping your readers will respond likewise.
Bob Stanley Kalamunda
Oh my God, please help and be in control of my situation, financially and all will be fine with me.
God you know how much it affects me emotionally my situation with my son. Just be in control God as I really don’t know what the situation [means]. But I hope that my son will think and feel that somehow he has to communicate with me. Lord please watch over him and I pray that he will come to know and love you Lord.
JOHN HUGHES
CHOOSE YOUR DEALER BEFORE YOU CHOOSE YOUR CAR
Is it true that when people come to do business with me, they will be treated with courtesy, sincerity, professionalism and efficiency?
Is it true that “I want your business and I’m prepared to pay for it” and “I stand behind every car I sell”.
Is it true that I have over 40 technicians who are dedicated to getting my used cars in first class condition before sale?
Is it true that most of my sales are not from direct advertising but personal recommendation, repeat business and reputation?
Is it true I have my own finance company to assist good people with poor credit to buy cars from me?
Is it true I sell over 1,300 vehicles every month in Victoria Park and that is the biggest number from any one location in Australia?
Is it true that I have a warehouse selling cars under $10,000 and that I offer a full money back guarantee within one week?
Nearly 80 years since its last structural addition, St Mary’s Cathedral received a second spire last week.
The second of the spires at the western end of the cathedral was lowered on to the building’s frontage on Wednesday, November 19, as part of the work of the cathedral completion begun last year.
The first spire was added to the original 1865 cathedral in 1905 under the direction of Bishop Gibney.
The St Mary’s Cathedral Appeal, which is funding the project, is still underway with another 1.2 millon dollars to be raised before organisers reach their 25 million dollar target.
These pictures were kindly provided by Emco Building Director, Don Cousens, whose company is undertaking the work.
The Bottom right and Page 1 photos were provided by Father Robert Cross, who has carried out archaeological excavations and studies of the site.
The Record recently received the following correspondence from a reader who was moved by the heartfelt pleas of a mother for her son in a prayer he found.
Ifound this note as I took my morning walk. I was touched by this mother’s faith, concern. I’ve said a prayer for her. I am hoping your readers will respond likewise.
Bob Stanley Kalamunda
Oh my God, please help and be in control of my situation, financially and all will be fine with me.
God you know how much it affects me emotionally my situation with my son. Just be in control God as I really don’t know what the situation [means]. But I hope that my son will think and feel that somehow he has to communicate with me. Lord please watch over him and I pray that he will come to know and love you Lord.
JOHN HUGHES
CHOOSE YOUR DEALER BEFORE YOU CHOOSE YOUR CAR
Is it true that when people come to do business with me, they will be treated with courtesy, sincerity, professionalism and efficiency?
Is it true that “I want your business and I’m prepared to pay for it” and “I stand behind every car I sell”.
Is it true that I have over 40 technicians who are dedicated to getting my used cars in first class condition before sale?
Is it true that most of my sales are not from direct advertising but personal recommendation, repeat business and reputation?
Is it true I have my own finance company to assist good people with poor credit to buy cars from me?
Is it true I sell over 1,300 vehicles every month in Victoria Park and that is the biggest number from any one location in Australia?
Is it true that I have a warehouse selling cars under $10,000 and that I offer a full money back guarantee within one week?
AS the 2008 school year draws to a close the Corpus Christi College community look back over a year during which tragedy took our Christian belief to new heights. The evening of August 29, when three of our students were killed in a car accident is etched into the hearts and minds of so many people, but it was the events of the next few weeks that became our Faith experience.
So often we bandy about the phrase College Community. It slips so glibly off the tongue that is has been all but relegated to the level of cliché. The events of 2008 dispelled our cynicism and lifted the concept to a level almost tactile.
On the Saturday morning (August 30) as the ripples of modern technology sent the news of tragedy state-wide, the community began to drift and formed their own waves of compassion on the lawns outside our college chapel. Staff teachers, parents and students gathered in supportive groups.
Over the weekend senior staff together with the College Chaplain Father Terry visited each of the bereaved families. Several times prayers were shared, the most poignant being at the site of the crash.
The Monday morning began with a gathering for the Year 12 cohort. After many beautiful prayers and words and songs the bereaved families were invited to retreat to the staff room for a quiet morning tea. Instead they moved with the Year 12’s to their locker area. Here each family opened their circle of grief and invited the friends and peers of the lost loved ones to come inside and share. Tears and laughter filled the air mixed with an abundance of love.
St Thomas More Bateman, our local parish was quick to open its heart and doors. The school memorial service and two funerals conducted there were testimony to the role of the parish in our College Faith Community. Father Michael added that special personal touch as he recalled the Sacraments that he had bestowed on our sadly missed friends.
The whole school united with the families in preparing readings, music and testimonials. Students composed songs as a means of sharing their grief and passing on their condolences.
We welcomed from outside the immediate College Community groups such as the Fremantle Surf Life Savers, who formed a bright red and gold guard of honour for James Klessens. Rosy White’s full life was witnessed by the Rangers who formed her guard of honour (although they were nearly upstaged by the Corpus Year 12 girls who attended in their ball gowns). At Brayden de la Nougerede’s farewell the feature was the singing of the cast of “Fiddler on the Roof,” our award winning musical in which Brayden played a leading role.
Sadly it took this tragedy to make us aware of the parish, parents staff and student bonds which make us a Catholic Faith Community.
This week Simon Keane was invited to the parish to introduce twelve of our Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist. As Father Michael welcomed them into the parish we were reminded of the flow of Faith that permeates the block of land shared by St Thomas More, Corpus Christi College and Yidarra.
In times of tragedy we need to call on our Faith. We give thanks for the great Faith of the families of Rosy, Brayden and James. We give thanks for our parish and we give thanks to Corpus Christi College.
The Catholic Faith Community dwells quietly amongst us and is ever ready to be there for us in times of need.
Caritas celebrates contribution of outgoing director
■ By Robert HiiniTHE work of outgoing Caritas Director, Ann Fairhead has been honoured at a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Barry Hickey and attended by her colleagues, family and many friends.
The Mass took place on Wednesday, November 19 at the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Highgate, where Caritas’s Western Australian office is located.
Mrs Fairhead has been the diocesan director for the global Catholic charity since 2000, orchestrating the annual Project Compassion appeal and many special projects such as the Tsunami Appeal in 2004.
In his homily the Archbishop spoke of the inseparable commandments to love God and to love one’s neighbour, remarking that “Ann is one of those who’s listened to that.”
“Today we thank almighty God for the work that Ann has done and the inspiration she has been to us,” Archbishop Hickey said.
Attendees prayed for Mrs Fairhead in her future endeavours, for her family and those workers and volunteers who have helped Ann throughout her time as director. After the Mass, Liz Stone from the organisation’s national office,
recounted meeting Ann for the first time in an excursion they both made to Ethiopia and paid tribute to her feisty advocacy and effectiveness.
“Ann was very good at getting us in national office to listen,” Ms Stone remarked to bouts of laughter, thanking Ann for giving them the feedback and advice they needed.
Ms Stone also took the opportunity to announce the appointment of Mrs Fairhead’s successor, Elsa Cornejo, a theology and social justice graduate of Notre Dame University, Fremantle, and a former worker at Catholic Mission.
In her address, Ann thanked God and her family as the two bedrocks of her work at Caritas. She also thanked her volunteers, her administrative assistant Claire, the priests of the archdiocese and Archbishop Hickey for “being the best bishop a diocesan director
could have,” in his support and receptiveness to requests for help.
She described her own development at Caritas “from thinking I can change the world to thinking I can do a little bit and I can get others to help me,” remembering the individuals and conditions she encountered on her trips to Acheh, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.
Although her time as director has come to an end, she says she intends to remain a volunteer.
“As I look around the room I see all of the wonderful people I have met on my journey at Caritas,” Mrs Fairhead said.
The agency’s new director, Elsa Cornejo takes up the reins on December 1 while continuing her PhD in human rights at Curtin University, paying tribute to her predecessor: “I think it will be difficult to walk in Ann’s footsteps but I am very ecxited about it,” Ms Cornejo said.
JESUIT Volunteers Australia - an initiative of the Australian Jesuits, under the auspices of Jesuit Social Services – is calling for volunteers in Perth. JVA Australia involves women and men with the maturity and capacity to regularly engage with people who live in marginalised circumstances, and commit to a process of reflection on that experience.
Jesuit Social Services (JSS) is a highly respected agency which has been operating in Victoria for 30 years and delivers successful programs and services for young people who are making the transition from prison back into the community, and/or who have problems related to mental health or substance abuse.
Represented in WA by Ron Raymond at ALLEN DIGITAL COMPUTER ORGAN STUDIOS
www.allenorganswa.com
It also helps people in distress and disadvantaged communities, including refugees and new immigrants. In 2007 JSS took on the management of Jesuit Volunteers Australia and in 2008 it established an office in Mt Druitt, NSW.
Many of us cannot comprehend what it’s like to grow up without what we think are the ‘basics’ of a good life – a caring family, good health, a safe place to live, and role models who gave us a good foundation to make our own decisions. This start in life helps us to contribute to and participate in our society. And these basics create the expectation that our individual values, dignity and rights will always be respected. The reality is that many people grow up, for a variety of reasons, without some of the ‘basics’ and some of these people need support to get through the day.
“Jesuit Social Services relies on many people – including volunteers and donors – who share our belief that creating a just society starts in our own backyard” said Julie Edwards, CEO of Jesuit Social
Services. “The work we do is based on relationships. We greatly value the importance of the relationships between our JVA volunteers and those with whom they work in their community”.
“Volunteers who become part of the JVA program will have the opportunity to give support to people who need it”, said Kevin Wringe, voluntary Perth Coordinator of JVA since late 2006. “I have the privilege of interacting with generous people who give their time to support others.
They have enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on their volunteering experience, in light of Gospel values. This reflective process adds value to the volunteers experience and their contribution; this is a unique aspect of JVA”.
Kevin Wringe has been involved professionally in the community services sector for many years, including several years as Archbishop Hickey’s deputy for community care and justice. He has been a member of an Ignatian based CLC group (Christian Life
Community) since 1985, which meets fortnightly.
JVA volunteers come from all walks of life and may volunteer in a range of services with Jesuit and non-Jesuit Ministries. These include: drop-in centres for the homeless, advocacy centres, services for refugees, aged care, palliative care centres and other agencies. All JVA volunteers work in established agencies.
Under the Jesuit Volunteers Australia program, volunteers are asked to spend approximately four hours a week (depending on local needs) engaged in service to marginalised and disadvantaged people.
If you are interested in becoming a Jesuit Volunteer or if you are already volunteering with marginalised people and would like the opportunity to reflect upon your experience, please consider joining Jesuit Volunteers Australia.
If so, please contact Kevin Wringe on (08) 9316 3469 or kwringe@iinet.net.au
For further information go to www.jss.org.au
A RETREAT centre in Safety Bay, which has seen its fair share of changes over the years, is set to continue as a place of refuge and contemplation after 50 years of operation.
The 50 year milestone was marked by a Mass, celebrated on November 18 by Rockingham Parish Priest, Fr Michael Separovich, Assistant Priest Fr Vittorio Riccardi and Jesuit Father, John Prendiville.
The Provincial Leader, Sr Pauline O’Connor SJG, addressed the 64 guests including sisters as well as current and former staff of the centre, recounting the site’s development and significance.
The St John of God Retreat and Conference Centre, as it is now known, originally opened as a holiday house in 1958 for sisters of the order of St John of God in what was then an isolated recreational outpost.
The location of the appropriately named Safety Bay was chosen after tragedy struck the order when a sister and a man who tried to rescue her drowned at their previous holiday house in Trigg Island – a site that, up until that point, had served the order for 40 years.
Sr O’Connor said that the centre has played an important role from the very early days of their involvement in caring for the sick in Subiaco in helping sisters keep a balance between work and relaxation:
“Many sisters have said that Safety Bay was a God-send when in need of rest or a place to convalesce,” Sr O’Connor said in her address. She also chronicled the evolution of the centre from a holiday house to a retreat centre with renovations taking place in the late 1970s and the mid 1990s. “A spiritual retreat, as distinct from a holiday retreat, is where the person comes to seek God. It is also where God seeks the person,” Sr O’Connor remarked.
“So, this is a meeting place between God and each individual person. It is then a sacred space.” Fourteen years ago, under the supervision of Sr Catherine McGuane SJG who contin-
ues to administer the site, the centre opened its doors to retreat-goers from outside the order.
Sr McGuane says that the centre is an extremely popular site for retreats amongst religious and clergy throughout Perth, Bunbury and Geraldton as well as lay groups and groups from other Christian denominations.
According to one St John of God sister, recent rumours of the site’s closure for renovations have generated some disappointment amongst many priests throughout the diocese who are fond of the centre’s contemplative atmosphere.
Sr McGuane says that while renovations will take place in the short term the centre will not be closed while they are being undertaken. Although tucked away in a cove opposite idyl-
lic coastline and several islands, the sand dunes and empty land that once surrounded the original house are now replete with residential homes in what has been one of Australia’s fastest growing cities.
In her closing remarks, Provincial Leader, Sr Pauline O’Connor said that after 50 years of development it was an appropriate time to reminisce but also to look to the future.
“It is only right and fitting that we take time out today to give thanks for all that Safety Bay has meant to us over the years,” she said.
“So let us pray that this place will continue to welcome all guests in true John of God spirit. May Safety Bay continue to be a hospitable environment that nurtures the mind, body and spirit of all who come here.”
rchbishop Hickey has criticised the decision by Family Planning WA to distribute so-called “safe sex” packs to teenagers at end-of-school celebrations.
The packs contain the usual condoms that appear to be the only public response to anything to do with teenage promiscuity.
In a comment to the Sunday Times last weekend (which went largely unpublished) Archbishop Hickey said: “It is irresponsible to be issuing packs that endorse and promote casual and predatory sex among teenagers.
“These organisations obviously have no confidence that young people can control themselves or that they have a sense of right and wrong about sex.
“This policy will spell disaster for many young people taken in by it.
“It will also lead to abortions and desperate cries for help to our pro-life agencies in about February 2009.
“Sexuality is a deep part of human nature which finds its fulfilment in marriage and family life, but it is also a part of our nature in which people can be deeply wounded.
“Public organisations should have the courage and wisdom to tell teenagers the real meaning of their sexuality and encourage them to respect themselves and others in this important part of life.”
Archbishop Hickey has repeatedly appealed to public bodies, including the Health and Education Departments, to take a deeper and more truly human approach to teaching the young about their sexuality.
Films, television, and trashy magazines present random sexuality as a lifestyle deserving adulation and emulation, but the community should demand that its representative organisations do better.
Government bodies and the community at large seldom acknowledge the connection between sexual attitudes and behaviour and the high levels of sexual diseases, abortion, depression, suicide, self-harm, and incapacity among so many young adults to establish and maintain marriage and family life.
Such problems have always existed, but the rates at which they occur are a modern phenomenon that deserves more serious attention from those who claim to believe in ‘evidence-based’ education.
Ultimately, sexual freedom is the capacity to exercise self-control based on deep respect for the role sexuality plays in human life.
Hugh Ryan
TOWARDS the end of the 2008 WAFL season, Kade Lang, player group representative from the Perth Football Club contacted Catholic Mission to explore ways the Club’s player group could support the Children’s Mission Partner program and raise awareness of the plight of children in poverty around the world.
As a result of the discussions, the Club’s player group visited the coastal village of Phuket in Thailand in October 2008 to see for themselves the work of various organisations addressing the problem of child poverty in that country. During their visit they delivered educational and recreational material supplied by Catholic Mission to help children from poor families in the area, and provided a physical education clinic for kids at the local school.
The player group also donated $575 towards the Children’s Mission Partner program which annually funds over 2,700 orphanage projects, kindergardens, primary schools and child health programs in over 160 developing countries world-wide.
It is hoped that this initiative of the player group of the Perth Football Club to support the Children’s Mission Partner program by fundraising and visiting poor children in developing countries will raise community awareness of the global problem of child poverty. Catholic Mission looks forward to continuing this relationship with the Perth Football Club into the 2009 season and beyond.
Catholic Mission congratulates the Perth Football Club and their player group for their humanitarian foresight and concern for children in poverty. The children they have helped through their generosity and compassion will be praying for them to make it to the finals in 2009 and win the WAFL premiership. Go the Demons!
Catholic Mission is working with other sporting clubs to help their players develop a heart for the world.
Contact the Catholic Mission Office in Perth on (08) 9422 7933 for more information.
A RETREAT centre in Safety Bay, which has seen its fair share of changes over the years, is set to continue as a place of refuge and contemplation after 50 years of operation.
The 50 year milestone was marked by a Mass, celebrated on November 18 by Rockingham Parish Priest, Fr Michael Separovich, Assistant Priest Fr Vittorio Riccardi and Jesuit Father, John Prendiville.
The Provincial Leader, Sr Pauline O’Connor SJG, addressed the 64 guests including sisters as well as current and former staff of the centre, recounting the site’s development and significance.
The St John of God Retreat and Conference Centre, as it is now known, originally opened as a holiday house in 1958 for sisters of the order of St John of God in what was then an isolated recreational outpost.
The location of the appropriately named Safety Bay was chosen after tragedy struck the order when a sister and a man who tried to rescue her drowned at their previous holiday house in Trigg Island – a site that, up until that point, had served the order for 40 years.
Sr O’Connor said that the centre has played an important role from the very early days of their involvement in caring for the sick in Subiaco in helping sisters keep a balance between work and relaxation:
“Many sisters have said that Safety Bay was a God-send when in need of rest or a place to convalesce,” Sr O’Connor said in her address. She also chronicled the evolution of the centre from a holiday house to a retreat centre with renovations taking place in the late 1970s and the mid 1990s. “A spiritual retreat, as distinct from a holiday retreat, is where the person comes to seek God. It is also where God seeks the person,” Sr O’Connor remarked.
“So, this is a meeting place between God and each individual person. It is then a sacred space.” Fourteen years ago, under the supervision of Sr Catherine McGuane SJG who contin-
ues to administer the site, the centre opened its doors to retreat-goers from outside the order.
Sr McGuane says that the centre is an extremely popular site for retreats amongst religious and clergy throughout Perth, Bunbury and Geraldton as well as lay groups and groups from other Christian denominations.
According to one St John of God sister, recent rumours of the site’s closure for renovations have generated some disappointment amongst many priests throughout the diocese who are fond of the centre’s contemplative atmosphere.
Sr McGuane says that while renovations will take place in the short term the centre will not be closed while they are being undertaken. Although tucked away in a cove opposite idyl-
lic coastline and several islands, the sand dunes and empty land that once surrounded the original house are now replete with residential homes in what has been one of Australia’s fastest growing cities.
In her closing remarks, Provincial Leader, Sr Pauline O’Connor said that after 50 years of development it was an appropriate time to reminisce but also to look to the future.
“It is only right and fitting that we take time out today to give thanks for all that Safety Bay has meant to us over the years,” she said.
“So let us pray that this place will continue to welcome all guests in true John of God spirit. May Safety Bay continue to be a hospitable environment that nurtures the mind, body and spirit of all who come here.”
rchbishop Hickey has criticised the decision by Family Planning WA to distribute so-called “safe sex” packs to teenagers at end-of-school celebrations.
The packs contain the usual condoms that appear to be the only public response to anything to do with teenage promiscuity.
In a comment to the Sunday Times last weekend (which went largely unpublished) Archbishop Hickey said: “It is irresponsible to be issuing packs that endorse and promote casual and predatory sex among teenagers.
“These organisations obviously have no confidence that young people can control themselves or that they have a sense of right and wrong about sex.
“This policy will spell disaster for many young people taken in by it.
“It will also lead to abortions and desperate cries for help to our pro-life agencies in about February 2009.
“Sexuality is a deep part of human nature which finds its fulfilment in marriage and family life, but it is also a part of our nature in which people can be deeply wounded.
“Public organisations should have the courage and wisdom to tell teenagers the real meaning of their sexuality and encourage them to respect themselves and others in this important part of life.”
Archbishop Hickey has repeatedly appealed to public bodies, including the Health and Education Departments, to take a deeper and more truly human approach to teaching the young about their sexuality.
Films, television, and trashy magazines present random sexuality as a lifestyle deserving adulation and emulation, but the community should demand that its representative organisations do better.
Government bodies and the community at large seldom acknowledge the connection between sexual attitudes and behaviour and the high levels of sexual diseases, abortion, depression, suicide, self-harm, and incapacity among so many young adults to establish and maintain marriage and family life.
Such problems have always existed, but the rates at which they occur are a modern phenomenon that deserves more serious attention from those who claim to believe in ‘evidence-based’ education.
Ultimately, sexual freedom is the capacity to exercise self-control based on deep respect for the role sexuality plays in human life.
Hugh Ryan
TOWARDS the end of the 2008 WAFL season, Kade Lang, player group representative from the Perth Football Club contacted Catholic Mission to explore ways the Club’s player group could support the Children’s Mission Partner program and raise awareness of the plight of children in poverty around the world.
As a result of the discussions, the Club’s player group visited the coastal village of Phuket in Thailand in October 2008 to see for themselves the work of various organisations addressing the problem of child poverty in that country. During their visit they delivered educational and recreational material supplied by Catholic Mission to help children from poor families in the area, and provided a physical education clinic for kids at the local school.
The player group also donated $575 towards the Children’s Mission Partner program which annually funds over 2,700 orphanage projects, kindergardens, primary schools and child health programs in over 160 developing countries world-wide.
It is hoped that this initiative of the player group of the Perth Football Club to support the Children’s Mission Partner program by fundraising and visiting poor children in developing countries will raise community awareness of the global problem of child poverty. Catholic Mission looks forward to continuing this relationship with the Perth Football Club into the 2009 season and beyond.
Catholic Mission congratulates the Perth Football Club and their player group for their humanitarian foresight and concern for children in poverty. The children they have helped through their generosity and compassion will be praying for them to make it to the finals in 2009 and win the WAFL premiership. Go the Demons!
Catholic Mission is working with other sporting clubs to help their players develop a heart for the world.
Contact the Catholic Mission Office in Perth on (08) 9422 7933 for more information.
NEW CANEY, Texas, (Zenit. org).- St Thérèse wrote that she wanted to be a missionary on every continent simultaneously and reach the most remote islands - now her dream has extended to space flight.
The Carmelite community of New Caney, Texas, enjoys the friendship of Colonel Ron Garan, who was on the May 31-June 14 Discovery shuttle mission.
Before heading into space, Garan had called the women religious to request their prayer for the voyage, and he told them he could take some small item into space on behalf of the community.
The sisters reported that the words of St Thérèse came to mind: "I have the vocation of an
apostle. I would like to travel over the whole earth to preach your name and to plant your glorious cross on infidel soil. But oh, my beloved, one mission would not be enough for me, I would want to preach the Gospel on all five continents simultaneously and even to the most remote isles. I would be a missionary, not for a few years but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages."
The Carmelites gave the astronaut a relic of St Thérèse for his flight.
Now, they report, she has travelled 5,735,643 miles around the earth for 14 days at 17,057 miles an hour. Meanwhile, the sisters commended the world to her intercession.
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-sion is needed on the current approach to Confirmation.
He suggested that among future possibilities was the one of “not completing Christian initiation until young people received adequate initiatory catechesis”.
Practical implications of this approach included a new and focussed catechesis program, a
new level of parish and school collaboration, a catechesis strategy that draws in parents and even other family members so that families can offer catechesis and the raising of the Confirmation age.
The Bishop said the he wondered about the wisdom of reversing the order of First Holy Communion and Confirmation in the current pastoral situation.
ALL Catholics seek to follow Christ and become more like Him, Archbishop Barry Hickey told the family and friends of Orial Khalife, who had gathered to witness her, consecrate her life as an Oblate of the Holy Spirit, but only a few, he said, take the deeper step of seeking an intimate relationship with God every minute of the day.
In a ceremony at the Notre Dame Parish in Cloverdale on October 28, Mrs Khalife, under the guidance of the Archbishop, made vows of obedience, chastity and poverty within the Holy Spirit of Freedom (HSOF) Community, of which she has been a member for the past fourteen years and has also made a lifetime commitment.
Mrs Khalife, who will now be known as Sr Mary of the Holy Spirit, presented herself before the Archbishop in the habit and veil that will now be her daily dress and professed to live an ascetic lifestyle, centered around daily Mass, Adoration, the Divine Office, the Rosary and spiritual contemplation.
Sr Mary, in what she described as a “call within a call”, will also continue to be active within the HSOF Community’s outreach to those who are caught up in addictions, homelessness and mental illness on the streets of Perth, as well as visitations to jails and hospitals.
In an interview with The Record, Sr Mary said that she believed that her vows were the culmination of many years of abandoning herself to the Lord and believed that God had been specifically preparing her over the past three years to live a life of daily prayer and contemplation within a formalised commitment.
Having raised two boys as a single mother and worked with those living on the streets in Perth and the Philippines, Sr Mary is well aware of the practical challenges and hardships that life can present, and this has made her more passionate to live her life on a foundation of prayer.
Raised in Kalgoorlie, Sr Mary believes that her love for the Church and Adoration was the fruit of her education under the Mercy Sisters at St Michael’s Primary and
Secondary schools. Her desire to reach out to others, she says, was founded on the love of her parents, who were “role models of faith” and whose house was always one of hospitality and open to those in need. “A heart for the poor”, she says, “is in my genes”.
It could also be said that there are “spiritual genes” in Sr Mary’s ancestral lines as her mother, Sadie Bowron, is related to Saint Charbel, a 19th century Lebanese mystic and hermit. Sr Mary’s spiritual life has been nurtured within the Legion of Mary, the Little Sisters of Carmel, the Wandering Family, of which she was a member for 22 years and in her many years as a Catechist, before her call to the HSOF Community in 1994.
Josephine Bendotti, a member of the HSOF’s leadership body said that the Community was excited by Sr Mary’s consecration, which follows the vows made by Robert McLernon in January this year.
“There is a branch of consecrated life emerging within our
Community, which was envisioned by our Founder, Reverend Frank Feain, many years ago”, Mrs Bendotti said. “We are very grateful to God and are hopeful that consecrations such as Sr Mary’s will open the Community and the wider Church to many blessings”.
The call to support those who have dedicated themselves to a life of prayer was addressed by Pope Benedict XVI earlier this month when he pointed out that November 21 was the feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, a day dedicated to, “those who pray”.
“Let us thank the Lord for the sisters and brothers who have embraced this mission, dedicating themselves completely to prayer and living off what Providence gives them”, the Pontiff said. “(Your) presence in the Church and the world is indispensable.”
Those who witnessed Sr Mary’s radiant smile as she professed her own vows would be well aware that the feeling is mutual.
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all walks of life, with families, single men and women, homeless, home-owners and renters making up the agency’s extended family.
The founding of The Shopfront was the result of private representations made to Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey by Julie Williams, the site manager of the what were then the Archdiocese’ agency offices on Hay Street.
Ms Williams, who Br Negus dubs “the mother of Shopfront,” was concerned that she was unable to assist the many people who would come to the Hay Street site seeking emotional solace and practical assistance.
The Archbishop pledged his support to Ms Williams’ vision of setting up a shopfront in the inner-city, asking her to seek out volunteers and a building in the Maylands area near the train station.
He also requested that she find Religious brothers and sisters to manage the agency – a request that is a reality today with the involvement of four Christian Brothers and eight sisters from various orders throughout Perth.
Several of Shopfront’s own visitors donate their time in managing important areas of the agency’s business including its clothing distribution and recreational space.
Other volunteers include parishioners and lay Catholics in business, students from
Catholic High Schools throughout Perth, members of the Young Christian Workers and four seminarians from St Charles Seminary.
Ms Williams says that they need all the help they can get with crises in housing affordability, emergency accomodation,
mental health and homelessness continuing to escalate.
Br Negus concurred saying that last month, The Shopfront broke the 1000 visitor mark for the first time with 1012 people coming through their doors in October.
“If it wasn’t for the church groups across the denominations, Western Australia would be in a much more extreme crisis than we are now,” Ms Williams said.
“We’re finding a growing demand for services, in spite of the state’s recent prosperity.”
Thankfully, says Br Negus, many additional offers of help have been made with volunteer numbers rising from 30 in February of this year to 77 in October.
The Shopfront has also been in receipt of donations of goods and money from Rotary, members of the Catenian men’s association in Dianella, Bayswater Shire, Catholic high schools and many of their Catholic sisterorganisations in the community sector.
Even the meat that revelers will eat at The Shopfront Christmas party has been donated – given by Northside Meats in Malaga - while entertainment will be provided by the Youth Choir of Sacred Heart Parish in Thornlie.
Both Br Negus and Ms Williams agree that the agency is far from being a standard service delivery outfit with the volunteers and themselves experiencing a lot of joy in their friendship with Shopfront visitors.
As Br Negus remarks: “Quite apart from the practical side of things we are simply a presence to the visitors and we are blessed with their presence in return.”
Br Negus is also featured this week in Debbie Warriers column How I Pray - Vista 4
Sant’Egidio Community favours universal moratorium on UN death penalty vote.
ROME - The Community of Sant'Egidio praised a UN committee's call for a global moratorium on the death penalty as a "change of sensitivity" in the international community.
The UN Human Rights Committee adopted for the second year in a row a global moratorium on executions. The measure is expected to pass a vote in the organisation's plenary assembly next month.
Sant'Egidio praised the move, and affirmed that it will continue its efforts so that the moratorium is definitively approved by the plenary assembly.
The Catholic lay community also noted that more countries are welcoming the moratorium: "Over the past two years, many African and Central Asian countries have played a part in this battle for a more human justice."
It cited among them "many that have suffered the terrible experience of genocide and apartheid, and have given up the death penalty as an instrument of justice," as is the case of Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and South Africa.
It is necessary to continue working to "spread this culture of life that de-legitimises the death pen-
alty and encourages a reduction of violence and the undertaking of paths of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence," the community stated.
Sant'Egidio said the death penalty "is not only an internal question in each country, but today is officially a question that has to
do with the international community."
The community will sponsor, along with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, the event "Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty," which will in most countries be observed on November 30.
Moved by the desperate plight of Christians in the Holy Land and throughout the Middle East, the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has been supporting the country’s beleaguered Christian population.
Sadly, due to ongoing violence and oppression, the proportion of Christians in the Holy Land has plummeted from 20 percent to as little as 1.4 percent in the last 40 years.
ACN is helping to keep faith and hope alive throughout the region by providing urgent aid to priests, religious and lay people, offering subsistence help to refugees and building and repairing churches and convents. Please help us strengthen and rebuild the Church in the land of Christ’s birth.
A beautiful, handcrafted crib, made of olive wood in Bethlehem, will be sent to all those who give a donation of $20.00 or more to help this campaign.
NICOSIA, Cyprus - To speak of the global need for dialogue, peace and simple human kindness when the world economy is in crisis may seem ridiculous, but a lack of humanity and solidarity are what triggered the crisis in the first place, said the founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio.
Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Rome-based lay movement, spoke at the November 18 closing ceremony of the annual interreligious gathering for peace organised by Sant'Egidio.
"Today, in the midst of a global crisis of great proportions, one for which all the consequences cannot be seen, we feel a need to affirm that the economy and finance are not everything," Riccardi said.
"Too much has been overlooked: all that regards the human person and the spirit," he said. "In order to build a world of well-being for a few, we have given growth to a world of pain for many."
Asking for a renewed commitment to dialogue and to care for those who are hurting "is not something too simple, ingenuous and ridiculous in the face of the complex machinery of the economy or the mechanisms of a politics that is weary in many parts of the world," he said. "It is what has been missing - the essential simplicity of being true, human, brothers and sisters, peaceful."
alleviate poverty and human suffering.
In their final statement, the leaders said: "We are at a difficult point in history. Many certainties are shaken by the economic crisis that has seized our world. Many people are pessimistic about the future."
And, they said, while "richer countries focus on protecting their own citizens, a very high price for the crisis will be paid by the poorest of the world. We are deeply concerned about the millions of old and new poor people, victims of a market thought of as almighty."
A religious reaction to the crisis cannot be based on pessimism and self-protection, the leaders said. Instead, it is time to pay greater attention to those who suffer and make a renewed commitment to laying "the foundation of a new world order of peace."
"The quest for justice, the use of dialogue and respect for the weak are the tools we need to build this new world order," they said. "We need a surplus of spirit and a greater sense of humanity."
Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told the gathering that the economic crisis threatens peace and the global battle against poverty.
While the world's richest countries struggle to come up with the $50 billion needed to keep their Millennium Development Goals' commitments for reducing poverty, the United States has found $700 billion to bail out failing financial institutions, the cardinal said.
Please tick the box below if you would like to receive the little olive wood crib*.
Send To: Aid to the Church in Need, PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148
Phone/Fax No: (02) 9679-1929 E-mail: info@aidtochurch.org Web: www.aidtochurch.org
I/We enclose $................ to help keep Christianity alive in the Holy Land and Middle East.
0Yes please send me the little olive wood crib*
Hundreds of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh and other religious leaders gathered on November 16-18 in Nicosia to promote interreligious dialogue, the peaceful resolution of conflicts and joint action to
World leaders must recognie that the crisis can have a serious impact on peace and stability in the world's poorest nations, so programs to alleviate the crisis must include "a new global social and ethical pact," one that would stimulate businesses, strengthen regulation and promote solidarity, he said. CNS
PG: 517
Made of olive wood from the Holy Land, this delightful little crib scene is powerfully evocative of Christ’s birthplace.
The cribs are lovingly, handcrafted by poverty stricken families in Bethlehem and your donation helps them survive.
(Size:10.5 cm x 10.5 cm x 5.5 cm)
AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED ... A Catholic charity dependent on the Holy See, providing pastoral relief to needy and oppressed Churches.
CHRIS Callus (pictured right), the Head of Religious Education at Sacred Heart College, Sorrento, picked up an Outstanding Service Award from the Australian Association for Religious Education at their national conference in Melbourne held September 30 - October 1.
The non-denominational organisation provides professional development to religious educators throughout Australia and also conducts research into the sector.
Mr Callus has been teaching religious education since 1981 and has taught at a number of Catholic Highschools in Western Australia including La Salle College and the Christian Brothers Agricultural School in Tardun.
Mr Callus was also the inaugural Head of Religious Education at the Anglican Guildford Grammar School for five years in the 1990s, an experience that he says enrinched his love and knowledge of Scripture.
'Love in Truth': Honing the idea that charity is litmus test of faith
■ By John ThavisVATICAN CITY - With his first social encyclical still waiting in the wings, Pope Benedict XVI has been honing his argument that the practice of realworld charity is a litmus test of Christian faith.
To three very different audiences in November - diplomats, health care specialists and the Catholic faithful - the pope emphasized the indispensable connection between the Gospel and social justice.
At his general audience November 19, he envisioned God as the judge whose "single criterion is love."
"What he asks is only this: Did you visit me when I was sick? When I was in prison? Did you feed me when I was hungry, and did you clothe me when I was naked? And so, justice is decided by charity," he said.
The pope began working on his third encyclical, tentatively titled "Love in Truth," in 2007, and a draft has been circulating quietly for months among high-echelon consultants. It was expected to be published sometime in 2008, but informed sources now say next year looks more likely.
Although no one at the Vatican was talking about the encyclical's content, a sneak preview of its basic themes was offered by Ignatius Press, the Englishlanguage publisher of the pope's writings.
"Love in Truth" applies the teachings of the pope's first two encyclicals (on love and on
Barnabas went searching for Paul. He found him in Tarsus. Barnabas took Paul north to the church in Antioch. They taught and preached there together for twelve months
During this time some disciples with the power of prophecy arrived from Jerusalem. During a church gathering one of these prophets stood up and made a prediction. Famine was coming that would affect the whole empire. This prophecy came true before the reign of the emperor of that day had ended. The disciples passed the hat around and giving generously, sent a collection to the church in the Holy Land. Barnabas and Paul were chosen to take the cash to Jerusalem. A note in the text informs us that it was here at Antioch the disciples were first called “Christians”. Also is still calling Paul Saul at this stage.
Ref. Acts: 11:25-30
Next: A miracle backfires
The author is a priest of the Archdiocese of Perth.
hope), to the major social issues of today's world, the publisher said.
The first part of the new encyclical examines the contributions of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II to Catholic social teaching, in particular their rejection of simplistic conservative-liberal categories and their insistence on the importance of natural moral law, it said.
The encyclical's second part outlines moral principles needed to confront contemporary social issues, including assaults on human dignity and human life, poverty, war and peace, terrorism, globalization and environmental concerns, it said.
From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Benedict has aimed to revive the roots of the faith. He has made clear that this is not a theoretical faith built solely on theological arguments, but a faith lived in the real world among those who suffer, and based on the dual commandment to love God and one's neighbour.
Speaking to the new Lithuanian ambassador to the Vatican in early November, the pope eloquently summarized his essential message in a few quick strokes, and in the process critiqued the consumer society.
"Since love of God leads to participation in the justice and generosity of God toward others,
the practice of Christianity leads naturally to solidarity with one's fellow citizens and indeed with the whole of the human family," he said.
"It leads to a determination to serve the common good and to take responsibility for the weaker members of society, and it curbs the desire to amass wealth for oneself alone.
Our society needs to rise above the allure of material goods and to focus instead upon values that truly promote the good of the human person," he said.
A few days later, the pope addressed a Vatican health care conference on the treatment of sick children. He noted that each year 4 million children die in the first 26 days of life, many of them as a result of poverty, drought and hunger.
"The church does not forget her smallest children," he said. He pointed to the Gospel account of Jesus' concern for the youngest ones and said this must be the model for how today's Christians react when children are suffering.
By providing medical and spiritual care to the neediest children, Catholic health care facilities and associations are following the example of Jesus, the good Samaritan, he said.
But, typically for the German pope, he broadened the argument
beyond Catholic teaching. He cited the Roman poet Juvenal's dictum, "A child is owed the greatest respect," to illustrate that "the ancients already recognized the importance of respecting the child, a precious gift for society."
On the broader economic front, the pope forcefully has encouraged countries to implement the aid quotas of the Millennium Development Goals, a plan that aims to cut global poverty in half by 2015.
He has repeatedly warned that market forces motivated solely by profit-seeking can never lead to justice.
The pope's interest in economic mechanisms is not new. In an article presented in a symposium in 1985, he criticized the idea that market laws alone represent the best guarantee of progress and justice.
Ethics, sustained by strong religious convictions, must be brought to bear on the market system, he said, and "the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse."
Those words have a prophetic ring today. Certainly the current global financial crisis could merit its own chapter in the upcoming encyclical, and some believe that's one reason it remains a work in progress. CNS
THIS week’s CNS Vatican Letter focuses on some of Pope Benedict’s recent comments regarding the Gospel and social justice. As the world waits for the pope’s first social encyclical, it might be instructive to read what he wrote in a 1985 presentation to a Rome symposium, later published in Communio magazine. It’s been posted on the Web site of the Acton Institute.
In his 1985 text, Market Economy and Ethics, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger takes a dim view of the argument that the free market produces distributive justice best when it’s allowed to operate solely according to the laws of the market, without interference from morality.
He frames the question this way:
“Here, however, we must face the objection raised especially after the Second Vatican Council, that the autonomy of specialized realms is to be respected above all. Such an objection holds that the economy ought to play by its own rules and not according to moral considerations imposed on it from without. Following the tradition inaugurated by Adam Smith, this position holds that the market is incompatible with ethics because voluntary ‘moral’ actions contradict market rules and drive the moralizing entrepreneur out of the game. For a long time, then, business ethics rang like hollow metal because the economy was held to work on efficiency and not on morality. The market’s inner logic should free us precisely from the necessity of having to depend on the morality of its participants. The true play of market laws best guarantees progress and even distributive justice.”
But the pope sees this as a form of determinism — that “man is completely controlled by the binding laws of the market while believing he acts in freedom from them” — and also rejects the supposition that the natural laws of the market are in essence good. The problems of the global economy demonstrate otherwise, he says. He concludes that ethics must have a place in any economy:
“It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse.”
Interesting reading, and remember, this was 1985.
VATICAN CITY, - The Vatican opened a third bookstore Tuesday, with a ceremony presided over by the Pope's secretary of state.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone inaugurated the store, situated in the Pius XII Plaza between the end of Via della Conciliazione and St.Peter's Square. The store is dedicated to Benedict XVI.
It offers both a stamp and a medal collection, including a new stamp printed for the occasion of the opening.
The store also has a branch of L'Osservatore Romano's photos, so that pilgrims seeking images from papal audiences or other events no longer need to visit the Vatican daily's offices beyond the Santa Ana gate.
"This new bookstore," Cardinal Bertone said, "is offered as a place of evangelization and authentic human promotion, providing texts and publications that respond to the expectations, demands and challenges of contemporary culture. This is what makes the required
economic and human investment worth it - with the sole intention of rendering an eminently pastoral
service, in close and convinced collaboration with the ministry of Peter." In this regard, the opening date had symbolic significance, falling on the feast of the dedication of the Basilicas of St Peter and St Paul.
The cardinal said the bookstore can serve as a "sounding board for the divine Word - effective, creative and saving" so as to "amplify the magisterium of Peter's successor and the bishops" and to give voice to "Catholic culture so that it can influence the fabric of today's humanity."
"In constructing cathedrals and basilicas, our fathers wanted to transmit the faith they had received," Cardinal Bertone added.
"Today, along with places of worship, it is good that places to spread the truth are also developed, spaces of seeking and going deeper into the Christian message incarnated in society so that it is spread and penetrates the world."
A powerful spiritual memoir by the author of Interview with the Vampire about her return to Catholicism.
Called Out of Darkness, by Anne Rice
Anne Rice is the highly successful author of the Vampire Chronicles; beginning with Interview with the Vampire they have bought her fame, fortune and a cult following. I must confess that I had not heard of her or her writings until this autobiographical volume, subtitled “A Spiritual Confession” appeared on my desk.
I do not think this is a disadvantage to understanding her story, which is told with painful and painstaking honesty; yet such is the power of her narrative that I think I will make a retrospective journey into the art to discover for myself the link between it and her life, which she describes so well.
She was born in 1941 into the colourful Catholic world of New Orleans. I say “colourful” but this hardly does justice to the vivid and sensuous landscape of her childhood, evoked with reverent intensity. Unlike Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood or Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, to mention two famous books in this genre, Rice does not recall her Catholic childhood with scorn.
What she remembers is beauty: the beauty of the lavishly ornate churches where her family worshipped, the beauty of a child’s trusting belief in the presence of Christ in the tabernacle, the beauty of processions, feasts, carnivals, statues and saints.
“We lived and breathed our religion and our religion was interesting and vast and immensely satisfying.”
Yet, like Mary McCarthy, her childhood was unhappy in certain respects; her mother was an alcoholic who drank herself to death as Rice entered her teens and the family was
“There was no God and in the imaginary supernatural universe of her Vampire series Rice “poured out the darkness and despair of an atheist struggling to establish...hope in a godless world.”
also somewhat bohemian, which created its own tensions. Rice was given the name “Howard” (which she quickly changed to “Anne” on arrival in primary school), fed a diet of poetry and never treated as a child; consequently, despite the loving nuns who educated her, she found school excruciatingly boring and was never able to fit in with her peers.
Going to college in Texas in the early 1960s Rice left the safe and comprehensive world of her childhood faith and was pitched into the modern, secular world. She read Camus and found the secular humanism of writers like him “vigorous and brave”; for the first time she also met good people outside the Church, people who strove for justice without the need for faith; and there was the problem of the Church’s strict teaching on sexuality, which no one around her took seriously.
Yet it was the modern world itself, more than sexuality, which “eventually caused me to leave the church.” She quit for the next 38 years.
The second part of the book describes how she came out of the “darkness” of unbelief. Easily as absorbing as the first part and told with honesty and irony, it will be familiar to all those who have made a similar spiritual journey.
Atheism became an alternative religion, to which she adhered rigorously. There was no God and in the imaginary supernatural universe of her Vampire series Rice “poured out the darkness and despair of an atheist struggling to establish...hope in a godless world.”
The good and evil of her childhood faith was carried over into a bleak milieu in which she secretly mourned what she had lost but could see no way back. During those years of “catastrophe of the mind and heart” she clung to two films, “Scrooge” (with Alastair Sim) and “It’s a Wonderful Life”; shown every Christmas, which had been emptied for Rice of its theological significance, they came to seem as good fairy-tales that nourished her starved imagination. Then, after
a long period in which Rice went through the motions of being a conscientious atheist, drinking heavily and suffering the death of her young daughter, she “began losing my faith in the non-existence of God”. She finally came back to the Catholic Church in 1998.
Returning to live in New Orleans helped, as did the loving acceptance of her numerous Catholic relations, who had never attempted to argue her out of her devout disbelief.
A trip to Rio de Janeiro and seeing the colossal statue of Christ above the bay with his arms outstretched was a further precipitating experience. Christ, she realised, was Love – and Love was God.
There were struggles: how to go back to a religion that her sophisticated friends “despised and denigrated and regarded with blatant contempt” and how to respond to the contemporary scandals, divisions and arguments within the Church.
The only possibility was to stop asking questions and to surrender that same mind and heart which she had carried away with her in youth; here Francis Thompson’s famous poem of flight and pursuit, “The Hound of Heaven”, is often quoted. Finally, “broken, flawed, committed”, Rice stopped writing about vampires and put her considerable gift for writing at the service of God.
This is in no way a sentimental journey or a surrender to simple nostalgia; though intensely personal it will strike a chord with anyone born in the same era whose faith was wrecked in a like fashion, yet for whom the person of Christ, refusing to be submerged, still rises above the reefs.
The questions Rice raises about the human hunger for beauty, for potent symbols, for hope, for consolation, for truth, refuse to be dismissed; and atheism, for her at least, has been a thin and impoverished substitute. MERCATORNET
Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered during the November 19 general audience in St Peter’s Square.The Holy Father continued the cycle of catecheses dedicated to the thought of St Paul, this time on justification.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On the journey we have undertaken under the guidance of St Paul, we now wish to reflect on a topic that is at the center of the controversies of the century of the Reformation: the issue of justification. How is a man just in the eyes of God? When Paul met the Risen One on the road to Damascus he was a fulfilled man: irreproachable in regard to justice derived from the law (cf. Philippians 3:6); he surpassed many of his contemporaries in the observance of the Mosaic prescriptions and was zealous in upholding the traditions of his forefathers (cf. Galatians 1:14).
The illumination of Damascus changed his life radically: He began to regard all his merits, achievements of a most honest religious career, as "loss" in face of the sublimity of knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. Philippians 3:8). The Letter to the Philippians gives us a moving testimony of Paul's turning from a justice based on the law and achieved by observance of the prescribed works, to a justice based on faith in Christ: He understood all that up to now had seemed a gain to him was in fact a loss before God, and because of this decided to dedicate his whole life to Jesus Christ (cf. Philippians 3:7). The treasure hidden in the field, and the precious pearl in whose possession he invests everything, were no longer the works of the law, but Jesus Christ, his Lord.
The relationship between Paul and the Risen One is so profound that it impels him to affirm that Christ was not only his life, but his living, to the point that to be able to reach him, even death was a gain (cf. Philippians 1:21). It was not because he did not appreciate life, but because
he understood that for him, living no longer had another objective; therefore, he no longer had a desire other than to reach Christ, as in an athletic competition, to be with him always.
The Risen One had become the beginning and end of his existence, the reason and goal of his running.
Only concern for the growth in faith of those he had evangelized and solicitude for all the Churches he had founded (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:28), induced him to slow down the run toward his only Lord, to wait for his disciples, so that they would be able to run to the goal with him. If in the previous observance of the law he had nothing to reproach himself from the point of view of moral integrity, once overtaken by Christ he preferred not to judge himself (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:3-4), but limited himself to run to conquer the one who had conquered him (cf. Philippians 3:12).
It is precisely because of this personal experience of the relationship with Jesus that Paul places at the center of his Gospel an irreducible opposition between two alternative paths to justice: one based on the works of the law, the other founded on the grace of faith in ChriSt
The alternative between justice through the
Being saved by faith in Christ alone and not by works does not mean that people can do whatever they want as long as they recognize Christ as their savior, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Faith in Christ "necessarily means conforming oneself to Christ" and being like him, especially in loving and helping others.
With an estimated 15,000 people gathered in the square, Pope Benedict continued his audience talks about the life and teaching of St. Paul, focusing on the apostle's teaching about how people become justified or made righteous in the eyes of God.
A dispute over what St. Paul meant when he wrote that people are justified by "faith alone" was at the centre of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, the pope said, but while people are justified by faith alone, true faith always translates into love for God and for one's neighbour.
works of the law and justice through faith in Christ thus becomes one of the dominant themes that runs through his letters: "We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, in order to be
justified by faith in Christ, and the law, because by works of the be justified" (Galatians 2:15-16).
And, he reaffirms to the Ch that "all have sinned and fall sh of God, they are justified by hi through the redemption which i (Romans 3:23-24). And he add that a man is justified by faith a of law" (Ibid. 28). Luther transla "justified by faith alone." I will the end of the catechesis.
First, we must clarify what i which we have been freed and "works of the law" that do not ju the community of Corinth there which will return many times i consisted in thinking that it was moral law, and that Christian fr therefore in being free from ethi "panta mou estin" (everything circulated in Corinth. It is obvio pretation is erroneous: Christia libertinism; the freedom of whic is not freedom from doing good Therefore, what is the meanin which we have been freed and th For St Paul, as well as for all h ies, the word law meant the Tor namely, the five books of Moses
In the Pharisaic interpreta implied what Paul had studied own, a collection of behaviors an ethical foundation to the rit observances that substantially identity of the just man - partic sion, the observance regarding general ritual purity, the rules r ance of the Sabbath, etc. These appear in the debates between Je temporaries. All these observanc social, cultural and religious iden be singularly important at the ti culture, beginning in the 3rd cen
This culture, which had beco culture of the time, was a see culture, an apparently tolerant p which constituted a strong pres tural uniformity and thus threat of Israel, which was politically into this common identity of H with the consequent loss of its o hence also of the precious inheri of their Fathers, of faith in the God's promises. Against this cultural pressure threatened Jewish identity but one God and his promises, i to create a wall of distinction, that would protect the preciou the faith; this wall would con the Jewish observances and pre who had learned these obser in their defensive function of of the inheritance of the faith i
Communication critical: Want to help your children navigate a sex-saturated culture? They’ll need to learn your beliefs - not those all around them.
For a generation, conservatives have discussed the dramatic and oftentimes negative effects of cultural changes on our kids. In
So Sexy So Soon, liberals join in and
talk about the pernicious effects of the “new morality” on children from the perspective of the other end of the political spectrum. Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College, and Jean Kilbourne, a senior scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women, highlight the gravity of a hypersexual consumer culture: the insidious way in which advertisers and the media use sex to drive a wedge between children and parents, to create demand among children for provocative toys and clothes, and to redefine even kindergarten to include “sexiness.”
The authors describe a six-year-old,
who asks his parents about pornography seen at a friend’s house, and a sevenyear-old who cries in the bath because she thinks her body isn’t skinny or sexy enough.
Issues that previously surfaced in adolescence are percolating down to kindergarten, and Levin and Kilbourne place the blame for this phenomenon squarely upon mass consumer culture.
Their response is a call for expanded government regulation and more time spent on “media awareness” at school. They also suggest scripts for opening conversations about how to enlist teachers and principals in the effort to keep
classrooms and playgro ual innuendo. Readers every suggestion, but can be found with th good parenting and go tion with kids.
Few parents are pr appropriately to fairly tions about sexuality fr grade school—or youn response is crucial.
Parents, horrified to five-year-old told a frie have sex with her, (when said he thought that ha same as giving a hug),
not by works of law shall no one ristians of Rome hort of the glory is grace as a gift, is in Christ Jesus" ds: "For we hold apart from works ated this point as return to this at is the "law" from d what are those ustify. Already in was the opinion, in history, which a question of the reedom consisted ics. So, the words is licit for me) us that this interan liberty is not ch St Paul speaks d. ng of the law from hat does not save? his contemporarrah in its totality, ation, the Torah d and made his extending from tual and cultural determined the cularly circumcig pure food and egarding observbehaviors often esus and his conces that express a ntity had come to me of Hellenistic ntury B.C. ome the universal emingly rational polytheist culture, ssure toward cultened the identity obliged to enter Hellenistic culture own identity, loss itance of the faith one God and in e, which not only also faith in the it was necessary a defense shield us inheritance of nsist precisely of escriptions. Paul, rvances precisely the gift of God, in only one God,
saw this identity threatened by the freedom of Christians: That is why he persecuted them. At the moment of his encounter with the Risen One he understood that with Christ's resurrection the situation had changed radically. With Christ, the God of Israel, the only true God became the God of all peoples.
all his doctrine on justification; he speaks of faith that operates through charity (cf. Galatians 5:14).
Ebenezer Scrooge can teach us that our best behaviour isn’t only for special occasions.
WIn the early Christian community at Corinth, "there existed the opinion, which has kept returning throughout history," that following the law referred specifically to obeying moral precepts and that the freedom promised to Christians was a freedom from following the moral law.
"So, in Corinth, the idea circulated that everything is licit. It is obvious that this interpretation is wrong. Christian freedom is not libertinism. The freedom that St. Paul talks about is not freedom from doing good," he said.
"To believe means to conform oneself to Christ, to enter into his love," Pope Benedict said. "We are justified in communion with Christ, who is love."
The Gospel in Latin-rite Catholic churches November 23, the feast of Christ the King, demonstrates how God will judge people on the basis of the love they have shown others, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting prisoners, the Pope said.
"On the basis of this Gospel, we can say “only love, only charity” is the same thing as St Paul's insistence on "only faith" as that which makes a person just in the eyes of God, he said.
"There is no contradiction between this Gospel passage and St. Paul," the pope said, because people are justified only by their unity with Christ and that unity is expressed in love.
The wall - so says the Letter to the Ephesians - between Israel and the pagans was no longer necessary: It is Christ who protects us against polytheism and all its deviations; it is Christ who unites us with and in the one God; it is Christ who guarantees our true identity in the diversity of cultures; and it is he who makes us juSt To be just means simply to be with Christ and in ChriSt And this suffices. Other observances are no longer necessary.
That is why Luther's expression "sola fide" is true if faith is not opposed to charity, to love. Faith is to look at Christ, to entrust oneself to Christ, to be united to Christ, to be conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence, to believe is to be conformed to Christ and to enter into his love. That is why, in the Letter to the Galatians, St Paul develops above
ounds free of sexwon’t agree with common ground heir emphasis on ood communicarepared to react y explicit quesrom their kids in nger. But parental o hear that their end he wanted to n asked, the child aving sex was the should use this
as a springboard to a calm and loving discussion—one that builds the kind of relationship that will help transmit values.
If parents erupt in anger, children will still have the same questions and instead go looking to find explanations on TV and in the playground, the very places that presented poor information in the first place. Respectful but firm discussions with parents of children’s friends about media exposure for younger children during play dates and parental supervision at parties when children are older are also important.
Even the most cloistered upbringing
Paul knows that in the double love of God and neighbor the whole law is fulfilled. Thus the whole law is observed in communion with Christ, in faith that creates charity. We are just when we enter into communion with Christ, who is love. We see the same in next Sunday's Gospel for the solemnity of Christ the King.
It is the Gospel of the judge whose sole criterion is love. What I ask is only this: Did you visit me when I was sick? When I was in prison? Did you feed me when I was hungry, clothe me when I was naked? So justice is decided in charity. Thus, at the end of this Gospel, we can say: love alone, charity alone. However, there is no contradiction between this Gospel and St Paul. It is the same vision, the one according to which communion with Christ, faith in Christ, creates charity. And charity is the realization of communion with ChriSt Thus, being united to him we are just, and in no other way.
At the end, we can only pray to the Lord so that he will help us to believe. To really believe; belief thus becomes life, unity with Christ, the transformation of our life. And thus, transformed by his love, by love of God and neighbor, we can really be just in the eyes of God.
TRANSLATION BY ZENIT
cannot fully prevent exposure to popular culture. In fact, especially as children grow up, Levin and Kilbourne argue that this isn’t even really desirable, since young adults can only navigate successfully on their own if they have internalized their family’s values about sex, sexuality and moral behaviour.
Children raised in a home with no television or internet connection are part of the broader, and increasingly vulgar culture. Billboards and ads on buses are sexually suggestive when they are not actually explicit, as are magazines in grocery stores.
Children internalize values more read-
hen I was a girl, we drove up north every summer to spend a long vacation on my grandparents’ farm. It seemed to take forever to get there (it was really only a fourhour trip) and I would pass the time by noting all the familiar sights along the way. The billboard for Santa’s Village (where you could visit Santa all year round) was near the halfway mark of our journey, so I was always pleased to see it though it struck even my ten year-old self as a silly business idea. These days we’ve all seen the “Christmas in July” marketing concept used to promote everything from parties to clearance sales.
What crass commercialism! How terribly secular! Tsk tsk–they’ve entirely missed the reason for the season. And yet, even though we’d never be so naive as to think that a retail advertising campaign was launched for altruistic reasons, could we learn something from the phrase “Christmas in July?”
My second oldest daughter looooves Christmas so much that as soon as Halloween is finished she starts playing Christmas music, just as they do at the local mall. As she was updating her playlist the other day, I asked her why she loves the Christmas season so. She said it was because people were nicer at Christmas time, and you see things during the season that you don’t see the rest of the year, like the young mum waiting at a bus stop last December who sang carols unselfconsciously to her baby. She went on: the food is good, people dress up, there’s a lot of visiting and the house is cleaner than ever.
Though I was pleased to note that none of her reasons revolved around shopping, I must admit I felt a little sheepish hearing her list. As I looked at my untidy living room and faded jeans, thought of the unspectacular dinner planned for that evening and tried to recall the last time we had company I began to feel we could use a little Christmas in July– and November, and April...
As for the “everyone’s nicer at Christmas” part, let’s look to Ebenezer Scrooge to learn that our best behaviour isn’t only for special occasions. It’s evident that in learning how to keep Christmas properly, he also learned to keep the other 364 days of the year well. We know from Dickens’ description of his most famous character’s conversion that “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”
How do we bring that spirit of Christmas every day into our own homes? Of course it doesn’t mean serving stuffed turkey and four different vegetables on a school night any more than Scrooge’s change of heart meant that he sent the biggest turkey in the shop over to the Cratchit house daily (what an inconvenience that would pose for Mrs Cratchit on a regular working day). But we can take a little extra care over the preparation of a weeknight meal, make sure everyone sticks to their manners, and invite someone to join us at table a little more often.
We can smile more, and sing to our little ones, even in public, even in February! We can phone and talk to family and friends, or send a handwritten note. We can make sure we don’t forget about the local food bank outside of holidays. We can set time aside to pray with our children and talk to them about Jesus every day, even after the nativity set has been packed away again.
In short, we can live our day-to-day lives with the serenity of those who know why Christmas is important– that it celebrates the Incarnation of Our Lord, who won for us salvation. Then we will truly bring joy to the world– all year round.
Michelle Martin writes from Hamilton, Ontario. - Mercatornet
ily from their peers than from their families, and new research shows how powerfully media acts as a “superpeer,” shaping attitudes and behaviour among teens. Levin and Kilbourne attribute weakening parental influence in part to the thorny nature of most discussions of sex and sexuality between parents and children.
Levin and Kilbourne are certainly liberal—they point approvingly to parents who take their daughter to a same-sex commitment ceremony as an example of open-minded parenting, for example. But as such, they are carrying a message to those who most need to hear it, those who have outright dismissed cul-
tural concerns, pretending they are part of some conservative conspiracy. In the end, an increasingly sexual world affects all of us.
“Culture warriors” must partner with liberals in order to effect change, whether in private life or public policy. So Sexy So Soon highlights some of the elements of the culture wars in which traditionalists and liberals can partner for the benefit of our kids.
Rebecca Walberg is a Winnipeg-based writer and policy analyst. She wrote this review for The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada. Courtesy of Mercatornet
Available by order from The Record Bookshop $38.95
Br Peter Negus
We have formal prayer in our Christian Brother community. There are six of us at West Court which is right on the edge of the Aquinas College property. It’s a beautiful site to be able to pray. From Monday to Friday we say the Office of the Church at 7am and share prayer. That’s followed by Mass in our chapel.
On Thursdays we meditate from 6.40am to 7.20am. The weekend is for personal prayer. Usually on Saturdays I go for a walk along the river. That’s a special prayer time for me. Every night after the evening meal we have a prayer and share what happened during the day. Then I spend 10-15 minutes in the chapel meditating on the Gospel readings for the next day.
with Debbie Warrier
I am an identical twin and I have closeness with my brother Laurie that can never be broken. You know that you are loved for who you are. That love probably existed before birth. When I joined the Christian Brothers, Laurie was going out with a number of girls. I must admit his choices were very good! Then Laurie got engaged to a nurse called Jan after going out with her for a year.
When Laurie told me of the engagement I said, “You don’t seem so totally rapt.” We know each other backwards. He was uncertain if he had made the right decision. My response was probably the work of the Spirit. I said, “Well, it’s not too late to join the Christian Brothers.” He went back to Jan and told her that they had made a mistake. He said that was one of the most difficult things that he had to do. Then he joined the Brothers too. I think he saw how happy I was as a Brother and a teacher.
Since February this year I have been working as Director of The Shopfront. The Shopfront is situated at 170 Whatley Crescent, Maylands. It provides a place of fellowship and food for the destitute. People who are homeless, lonely, addicted to drugs and alcohol or subject to violence are welcome here. We also provide assistance with obtaining emergency accommodation, network with other agencies on their behalf and give interview times to people who want to discuss their problems. There is even a shower on the premises.
Julie Williams is the manager of the Pastoral Care Centre at Highgate and was responsible for the establishment of Shopfront with the assistance of Archbishop Barry Hickey. There are about 40-50 people here on the weekdays. We have 70 volunteers. Opening hours are Monday to Friday between 1pm – 4pm. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays it is also open between 6pm – 8:30pm. To contact us you can call 9371 9109 or 9422 7901.
Our opening prayer here is: “O God, we acknowledge your presence amongst us as we gather at Shopfront today. Help us to create here a place where we respect the equal dignity of every person we meet. May Shopfront be a homely and relaxed place where all people feel welcome. Mary our Mother, watch over us and be a mother to all who come here today. We ask this through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.”
One of the Bible quotes that inspire me in my work is: “If anyone loves me he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14: 23) That’s talking to each of us.
debwarrier@hotmail.com
By Mark Reidy
During the production of an African wildlife documentary, a huge lion spotted the two filmmakers and began to sprint toward them.
As the ferocious beast bore down on them the man in front turned desperately to his colleague only to find him crouching down tying up his running shoes. “There’s no use trying”, the first man stammered, “You’ll never outrun a lion”. “I know”, said the other as he took off at great speed, “… but I can outrun you!”
When confronted with difficult circumstances, it seems that our inherent response will be to automatically switch into self-preservation mode. Our reaction to the current global economic meltdown is indicative of such behaviour.
During the boom time over the last few years, contributions to charities both here and overseas were at record levels. Many people were living comfortably and were able to extend their thoughts and their wealth beyond their own parameters.
How quickly circumstances have changed. Welfare agencies and charities are now crying out as sources of donations rapidly run dry. Not surprisingly, as people are squeezed financially they tend to become more introspective and consequently less mindful of what is occurring in the world around them.
It is human instinct to respond to
external threats by turning in on ourselves, but, as Christians, should our behaviour and perspective on life be determined by our circumstances?
Jesus did not have much to say about share portfolios, mortgages, superannuation funds or unemployment, but he was very clear in His instruction to firmly fix our eyes on God, no matter what is going on around us. Do not let your minds be anxious He tells us, for God knows what we need and these things will be given to us if we seek first the Kingdom of God (Luke 12:29-31).
It is this trust in God that should separate Christians from the fear and anxiety that is currently gripping our planet. It does not mean that we should be imprudent or irresponsible with what we have been given, whether it be great or small, but it does mean that we should always be guided by God, and
not our instincts, as how to best utilise these resources.
Whether it is money, job or material possessions, we must not consider ourselves owners, but rather stewards of these assets.
In this way we will not become fearful or possessive if they are taken from us, as we know that, ultimately, God will provide.
In turn, our response to this wonderful love should be that we would always be willing to reach out in some capacity to those who are more needy than ourselves.
This may entail personal sacrifice of some kind, but this, when guided by prayer, is our call as followers of Christ. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we should give away our last few coins, as did the widow who was praised by Jesus - but it also doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t.
Bronia Karniewicz
THE motivation of surrogacy has at its core an infertile couple longing for a family. They are inspired by love and a desire for what is good but surrogacy is not simply an answer to an infertile couple’s dreams.
It is important that human life does not become something that is bought and sold, reduced to a commodity.
A child is not something owed to us. Human life should never be treated as a product.
While surrogacy laws often negate this by making it illegal to make a profit from surrogacy, there still remains a series of difficult matters encompassed in the practice of surrogacy.
It is important that we consider all the impacts of surrogacy, particularly those often overlooked in the processes of having a surrogate child.
In recent times it has been noted that becoming a surrogate mother is a painful experience for the woman and her family. Only with ongoing counselling can a woman detach herself from the baby growing in her womb.
There are a mounting number of women who, after being involved in surrogacy arrangements, are now speaking out about the negative impacts of the experience.
As Patricia Foster explains:
“Surrogacy may help take the heartache away for one family but it surely destroys another. Infertile women sometimes say they feel pain every time they see a baby, a child. I’m the one who now looks at a child that goes by, at every crying baby that I hear, to check if it is my child. I wonder every day what he looks like or what he is doing - is he healthy or could he be sick? Is he being taken care of? I look at his empty crib
and live one day at a time until I see my child again.”
Not only is the surrogate mother profoundly affected, many children of adoption, IVF and surrogacy experience issues of identify and relate an unexplainable experience of confusion, abandonment and a loss of understanding “who am I?”
This has been termed “genetic bewilderment.” The pain of infertility is immense but to forget the interest of the child is a regrettable step and the difficult realties created to ease the pain of infertility should not be ignored.
Life is not a gift we can demand as a right!
The Chief Rabbi of Britain (also recognised as the Chief Rabbi by most of the British Commonwealth), Sir Jonathan Sacks, has published in The Times a brilliantly-reasoned, and to my mind unanswerable, intellectual demolition of the sort of multiculturalism which, with the leadership or at least the connivance of various governments has been a major feature of the Great British Culture War over the last decade or so.
Sir Jonathan’s piece, I believe, just possibly may come to be seen as standing among those great pieces of journalism which every once in a while, by saying what many know but which nobody respectable has previously dared to say, signal a real turning-point in the cultural weather. Sir Jonathan’s article is extracted from his new book: The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society. It commenced:
“Multiculturalism has run its course, and it is time to move on. It was a fine, even noble idea in its time. It was designed to make ethnic and religious minorities feel more at home, more appreciated and respected, and therefore better able to mesh with the larger society. It affirmed their culture. It gave dignity to difference. And in many ways it achieved its aims. Britain is a more open, diverse, energising, cosmopolitan environment than it was when I was growing up.
“But there has been a price to pay, and it grows year by year. Multiculturalism has led not to integration but to segregation. It has allowed groups to live separately, with no incentive to integrate and every incentive not to.
It was intended to promote tolerance. Instead the result has been, in countries where it has been tried, societies more abrasive, fractured and intolerant than they once were.
“Liberal democracy is in danger. Britain is becoming a place where free speech is at risk, non-political institutions are becoming politicised, and a combination of political correctness and ethnic-religious separatism is eroding the graciousness of civil society.
Religious groups are becoming pressure groups. Boycotts and political campaigns are infecting professional bodies. Culture is fragmenting into systems of belief in which civil discourse ends and reasoned argument becomes impossible.
The political process is in danger of being abandoned in favour of the media-attention-grabbing gesture.
The politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear.”
Sir Jonathan continued that, in the 1970s, when multiculturalism emerged in strength in Britain, the idea of one nation, one culture, had come to seem dangerous and wrong.
Foreword
But at the same time something else was happening: in the 1960’s the idea that society had, or was entitled to have, a moral consensus, came under sustained attack. Multiculturalism really got into its stride just after the cultural consensus had become that there were no moral truths holding society together.
“If there is no agreed moral truth, we cannot reason together. All truth becomes subjective or relative, no more than a construction, a narrative, one way among many of telling the story. Each represents a point of view, and each point of view is the expression of a group.
“On this account, Western civilisation is not truth but the hegemony of the ruling elite. Therefore, it must be exposed and opposed. Western civilisation becomes the rule of dead white males. There are other truths: Marxist, feminist … and so on. Which prevails will depend not on reason but on power. Force must be met by force. Lacking a shared language, we attack the arguer, not the argument. …
“Political correctness, created to avoid stigmatising speech, becomes the supreme example of stigmatising speech …Right or wrong, one thing is clear: the new tolerance is far less permissive than the old intolerance.”
Sir Jonathan said that a series of events from the 1960s fundamentally changed the terms of society and moral debate.
“Until recently, serious thinkers argued that society depends on moral consensus. Without that, there is no such thing as society, merely the clamour of competing voices and the clash of conflicting wills.
“The pursuit of truth mutates into the will to power. Instead of being refuted by rational argument, dissenting views are stigmatised as guilty of postmodernism’s cardinal sin: racism in any of its myriad, multiplying variants. So moral consensus disappears and moral conversation dies. Opponents are demonised. Ever-new ‘isms’ are invented to exclude ever more opinions.
New forms of intimidation begin to appear: protests, threats of violence, sometimes actual violence.
For when there are no shared standards, there can be no conversation, and where conversation ends, violence begins …
By Fr John Flader
The second coming of Christ.
“Identity politics is deeply and inexorably divisive. If the withholding of recognition is a form of oppression, then one way of achieving recognition is to show that I have been oppressed. The logic is as follows: the group to which I belong is a victim; it has been wronged; therefore we are entitled to special treatment. This gives rise to an endlessly proliferating list of the aggrieved.”
Thus, he argues, Multiculturalism has become not an acceptance of different customs, costumes and cuisines but a culture of victimhood which sets group against group, each claiming that its pain, injury, oppression, humiliation, is greater than that of others.
Further, in this situation the new information technologies help disintegrate the idea of an autonomous national culture.
“Until recently, national cultures were predicated on the idea of a canon, a set of texts that everyone knew. In the case of Britain they included the Bible, Shakespeare and the great novels. The existence of a canon is essential to a culture.
It means that people share a set of references and resonances, a public vocabulary of narratives and discourse. Until the early 1950s a politician could quote the Bible and expect people to know what he was alluding to.”
Sir Jonathan argues that the Internet and the proliferation of television channels has not resulted in a population with access to a wider variety of sources of information but on the contrary, and, by inference, given the vested interests of the multiculturalism industry, a population able to be more selective and parochial that before in the sources information they receive.
The article concludes:
“The nation state was brought into being by one form of communications technology – printing. It is today endangered by another. Whether the media, or politicians, or we, will recognise the danger in time, no one can be sure. Without a national culture, there is no nation.
There are merely people-in-proximity.
Whether this is sufficient to generate loyalty, belonging and a sense of the common good is an open question. National cultures make nations. Global cultures may yet break them.”
This Is The Mass is a new book which explains with lucid text and beautiful photographic images the Eucharist. It takes the reader step by step through the sacred liturgy from the introductory rites to the dismissal and recessional.
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I have heard talk of Christ coming again to usher in a period of peace, or a period of Divine Will or a Eucharistic Reign. Does the Second Coming necessarily coincide with the end of the world?
Before answering your specific question about what may follow the second coming of Christ, I will explain what the Church teaches about this matter.
In the Apostles’ Creed we profess, “From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.” And in the Nicene Creed we say, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”
There are many passages in Scripture that refer to the second coming of Christ. Jesus himself taught: “For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.” (Mt 16:27)
“Then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Mt 24:30-31)
“When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (Mt 25:31-32)
As we see in these texts, in his second coming Jesus will come in glory. He will come “with his angels in the glory of his Father”, he will be seen “on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” and “he will sit on his glorious throne.”
Also, when he comes again Jesus will judge the living and the dead in what is known as the General or Last Judgment. In this final judgment, all human beings who have ever lived will be gathered together before the Son of man.
There, all will see the justice and mercy of God’s judgment of everyone else. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, “We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation
and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvellous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death.”
(CCC 1040)
With the Last Judgment, life on earth will end and souls will be reunited with their bodies, to receive their eternal reward in heaven or eternal punishment in hell.
In other words, with the Last Judgment comes the end of the world, the end of time. Jesus himself had said: “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” (Mt 24:35) And St Peter writes: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.” (2 Pet 3:10)
Even though the world will come to an end the Church teaches, following St Peter, that “we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Pet 3:13) The Second Vatican Council comments: “At that time, together with the human race, the universe itself, which is so closely related to man and which attains its destiny through him, will be perfectly re-established in Christ.” (Dogm. Const. Lumen gentium, 48) It is in this final state of the universe, which will be in eternity, not in time, that Christ will most perfectly reign. The Catechsim explains: “At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul.” (CCC 1042)
Returning to your question, one could call this final reign of Christ a period of peace, a period of Divine Will or a Eucharistic Reign. All of these terms would be applicable in different ways to the eternal reign of Christ. But this will not take place in time on this present earth. It will be after the end of the world, in the next life. “His kingdom will have no end.”
There is no tradition for a reign of Christ on earth in some sort of perfect, sinless, world before the end of time. Sin will always be with us while we live on earth. It is only in the next life that “the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness.” (CCC 1042) director@caec.com.au
WASHINGTON (CNS) - A US cardinal who has worked at the Vatican for 12 years harshly criticized President-elect Barack Obama on November 13, saying he has “an agenda and vision that are aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic.”
Cardinal Francis Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a major Vatican tribunal, spoke on “Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul” in a lecture sponsored by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
Saying that the United States experienced a “cultural earthquake” when Obama was elected president on November 4, Cardinal Stafford said the president-elect “appears to be a relaxed, smiling man” with rhetorical skills that are “very highly developed.”
“But under all that grace and charm, there is a tautness of will, a state of constant alertness, to attack and resist any external influence that might affect his will,” he added.
Cardinal Stafford quoted liberally from Obama’s July 17, 2007, address to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in which Obama affirmed his support for Roe v. Wade, the 1973 US Supreme Court ruling that legalized most abortions, and said, “On this issue I will not yield.”
Obama also said in the 2007 talk that he would not want his daughters to be “punished by a pregnancy.”
“Punished by a pregnancy,” Cardinal Stafford repeated. “Catholics weep at these words. ... What should we do with our hot, angry tears of betrayal?”
The cardinal compared the upcoming years of the Obama administration to Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. “For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal,” he said. “We will know that garden.”
Although the text of Cardinal Stafford’s talk was not made public, a video clip from it was posted on YouTube by The Tower, the student newspaper at Catholic University.
The Tower also reported that Cardinal Stafford spoke about “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on human life, and said Catholics need to return to the original values of marriage and human dignity.
“If 1968 was the year of America’s ‘suicide attempt,’ 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion,” he said.
“In the intervening 40 years since ‘Humanae Vitae,’ the United States has been thrown upon ruins.” Cardinal Stafford, 76, was Archbishop of Denver from 198696, until he was called to the Vatican by Pope John Paul II in 1996 to serve as president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
LINTHICUM, Maryland - Megan Nappi didn't mince words as she sat in a circle with young adults from Baltimore and Washington, surrounded by some of the nation's leading adolescent catechesis experts during the four-day National Symposium on Adolescent Catechesis.
Asked what advice she would give on teen faith formation, the University of Maryland student and member of Our Lady of the Fields Parish in Millersville told the 100 attendees there: "Don't water it down."
The response drew audible gasps, and even applause, from the gathering of academics, educators, youth ministers, bishops, catechists and other leaders.
The symposium, held from November 5-8 at the Maritime Institute and Conference Center in Linthicum, was a project of three national Catholic youth formation groups brought together in one organization called the Partnership for Adolescent Catechesis.
"We have a whole spectrum of spirituality here," Robert McCarty, executive director of the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, said at the event. "I think we have a real progressive kind of approach to spirituality and Catholicism and the traditional (approach).
I think we've struck a nice balance."
Nappi's statement served as a wake-up call for some and a confirmation for others at the event, which had been in discussion for 10 years.
The symposium was created to help identify factors that impact adolescents' faith formation in the United States and to create a universal manner in which to catechize them.
McCarty said faith formation opportunities must be seized at retreats, service projects, conferences, pilgrimages and through personal
conversations. The standard school setting is no longer completely effective in the education of young people, he said.
"That's a shift," McCarty said. "My generation grew up in a class, and whether it was in Catholic school or parish, we sat in desks and we had people present (information) to us."
The symposium had experts speak on the current state of adolescent formation, modern youth culture and the outcomes of effective catechesis, among other topics.
During a presentation on well-formed adolescents, Bishop Richard J. Malone of Portland, Maine, said that proliferation of curriculum framework is not the "magic bullet" alone in strengthening adolescent catechesis.
"We do argue, though, that any efforts to improve adolescent catechesis that would exclude those doctrinal elements will fall short of the goal of well-formed teen disciples of Jesus Christ," he said.
It was Nappi from the Baltimore Archdiocese, though, who stole the show with her bluntness. She said that when she was in college peers who had recently joined the Catholic Church had a better grasp of the faith.
"I felt so gypped," she said. "I had been Catholic for 18 years and I knew nothing. Not that it was watered down, but I didn't have it." Church leaders said such honesty was refreshing.
"They want to know the truth," Bishop Gregory M. Aymond of Austin, Texas, said of young people.
"They may not accept it at that particular time and might not like the rules, but at least they're challenged by it. I thought that (Nappi's) advice was well-given and I hope we heard it in a very realistic way," he said. CNS
KOTTAYAM, India (CNS)Archbishop Mathew Moolakkatt of Kottayam has responded to the alleged murder of a nun 16 years ago, after police recently arrested two priests and a nun in the case.
His letter was the first official response from the archdiocese since the body of Sister Abhaya was found in a well at her Pius X Convent in Kottayam on March 27, 1992, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.
The nun was 21 when she died. She and the arrested nun belong to the indigenous Sisters of St. Joseph congregation.
Archbishop Moolakkatt’s letter was read during Masses in all 128 parishes in the archdiocese over the weekend of November 22-23.
It said Sister Abhaya’s unnatural death pained the church, but also said the archdiocese believes the arrested church workers are innocent, UCA News reported.
The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Fathers Thomas Kottoor, 61, and Jose Poothrukayil, 56, on November 18 and Sister Sephy, 45, a day later. All three live in the Kottayam Archdiocese.
The archbishop’s letter asked people to pray for an impartial
probe so the truth about Sister Abhaya’s death would be revealed. Anyone involved in the nun’s death should be brought to justice, no matter who they are, as “an obligation we owe to Sister Abhaya,” he wrote.
The letter asked that the investigation be conducted impartially and arrested suspects treated as
innocent unless and until proven guilty. The church, it said, could not do much after police, based on their initial investigation, dismissed the death as suicide. The letter also accused certain sectors of the media of attempting to tarnish the church’s image.
Some media had speculated that the church tried to block investiga-
tions and influence officials to save the priests and nun involved in the murder.
Archbishop Moolakkatt wrote that he had told investigators several times their probe was not exhaustive and that many crucial issues and people seemed to have been deliberately overlooked. Though officials promised to be impartial, the result was otherwise, his letter added.
The Sisters of St Joseph congregation has defended the arrested nun.
“Our sister is innocent. She had no role in the suspected murder,” Sister Saumy, assistant provincial superior, told UCA News Nov. 23. Sister Saumy said the arrested nun was “under our close surveillance” for the past 16 years.
“If she was found to have committed any offense, the congregation would have thrown her out,” she added.
Investigators took the statement of retired Archbishop Kuriakose Kunnacherry on November 22.
According to media reports, police accused one of the arrested priests of bludgeoning Sister Abhaya and all three of dumping her body in a convent well in Kottayam.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (CNS) -
Some future priests of the Diocese of Springfield might, on their ordination day, say they were inspired by a bus.
As part of its ongoing marketing initiatives, the diocese’s Office of Vocations has begun placing advertisements on the backs and sides of area buses.
“We hope that it will generate some interest” and get people talking about vocations, said Father Gary M. Dailey, vocations director. “It is all part of the culture of vocations that we are trying to
create throughout the Diocese of Springfield. “So I thought buses would be fun and a good way to just try and get the message out,” he told The Catholic Observer, Springfield’s diocesan paper. Both ads feature a priest’s Roman collar and a message. The ads on the back of buses state “Come Follow Me.” Those on the side read “If you’re waiting for a sign from God, this is it.”
When a bus bearing one of the ads recently drove to the parking lot of St Michael’s Cathedral in Springfield, Father Dailey smiled as he saw it close up.
“Many young men who come to me always say I wish I had a sign
from God to know that he is calling me. Well, here it is,” he said. It might be just the sign some young man “boarding the bus or just seeing this ad” needs “to make a call to the vocations office,” the priest said. If finances permit, the diocese might place ads at a couple of nearby airports, he said.
In addition, the vocation’s office has updated its Web site, www. myvocation.com, by giving it a new look and making it more userfriendly, Father Dailey said. The changes have already generated several inquiries.
On the site are the vocation stories of each of the 25 current
seminarians for the diocese. It also features the vocation stories of different priests in the diocese and those men and women who have chosen religious life.
Father Dailey also makes parish visits to promote vocations and takes “the show on the road,” he said, by setting up a vocations booth at the diocesan religious education congress and at a family vocation day at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge. His office also supplies diocesan parishes and schools with a poster featuring pictures of the 25 men currently in formation for the priesthood. Prayer cards with their photos are available, too.
VATICAN CITY (CNS)Christian martyrdom is the fullest expression of human freedom and reflects the supreme act of love, said a top Vatican official at a Mass beatifying 188 Japanese martyrs.
“It is not the punishment or the torture that creates a martyr,” but rather the fact the person suffered and died for Christ, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, former prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes, said during the beatification Mass in Nagasaki, Japan, on November 24.
The 188 17th-century Japanese martyrs were tortured and killed in different cities between 1606 and 1639 after the Japanese government outlawed Christianity.
According to Vatican Radio, more than 30,000 people attended the ceremony in the city’s baseball stadium to celebrate the beatification of Jesuit Father Peter Kibe Kasui and 187 companions.
After his Nov. 23 Angelus address to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI said the martyrs’ beatification marked a significant event for the Catholic Church and all of Japan.
The pope asked people to “rejoice” and pray the beatified martyrs’ “victory in Christ over sin and death fill us all with hope and courage.”
During the Mass, which was concelebrated by 10 cardinals
and bishops, Cardinal Saraiva said martyrs of every age, place and time have all displayed the same dedicated faith in Jesus Christ.
Christian martyrdom “is the fullest exercise of human liberty
and the supreme act of love,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.
Dying for one’s faith in Christ is “an act of love toward God and humanity, including the persecutors,” the cardinal said.
The newly beatified, all but five of whom are lay men, women, and children, had been decapitated, crucified, burned at the stake or scalded to death in boiling water.
The beatified group included entire families who refused to renounce their beliefs.
By beatifying these men and women the church is underlining the importance of persevering in the belief that only God can save humankind, said Archbishop Joseph Takami of Nagasaki.
The Japanese martyrs also highlight the value of religious freedom and the necessity of facing persecution with nonviolence if there is to be peace, he said in an interview on November 24 with Fides, the Rome-based missionary news agency.
In an interview with Vatican Radio on November 20, Cardinal Saraiva said because only five of the 188 newly beatified are missionary priests and the other 183 are laypeople, the church is sending a strong message to today’s young people and laity to strive to live a life of holiness.
Bishop Francis Xavier Osamu Mizobe of Takamatsu, president of the Japanese bishops’ commission that prepared the beatifications, told Vatican Radio on November 23 there are another 5,000 Japanese people who could have been recognized as martyrs.
He said nearly 20,000 people lost their lives in Japan because of anti-Christian persecution.
VATICAN CITY - In their silence, their prayer and their work, monks and nuns remind other Catholics that the central focus of Christian life must be to seek Christ, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Monastic life is "a reminder of that which is essential and has primacy in the life of all the baptized: to seek Christ and place nothing before his love," the pope said during a meeting on November 20 with members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
The congregation was holding its plenary meeting from November 18-20, focusing specifically on "monastic life and its significance in the church and the world today."
While the drastic drop in the number of monks and nuns in Europe and North America was one of the principal concerns of the plenary meeting, Pope Benedict did not speak about the declining numbers and the threat that poses to the continued existence of many monasteries, especially in Europe.
Instead, the pope focused on the value of monasticism for the church as a whole.
"In virtue of the absolute primacy reserved to Christ, monasteries are called to be places in which space is made for the celebration of the glory of God, where one adores and chants the mysterious but real presence of the divine in the world and where one tries to live the new commandment of love and mutual service," the pope said.
Pope Benedict said that men and women who enter a monastery are looking for "a spiritual oasis where they can learn to live as true disciples of Jesus in serene and lasting fraternal communion, welcoming guests as Christ himself."
"This is the witness that the church asks of monasticism in our day," he said. The Pope prayed that every monastery would be an
"oasis of ascetic life" where outsiders could see how attractive it is to dedicate one's whole life to Christ "in a climate of silence and contemplation."
Unless monks and nuns "live the Gospel in a radical way" and are dedicated to contemplation, he said, they cannot be truly monastic and their witness will not be effective.
Opening the plenary on November 18, Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the congregation, warned of the "danger of activism" among monks and nuns.
According to Vatican Radio, the cardinal told congregation members that some contemplative monasteries have shown "a certain fever for mission, the temptation of visibility and overexposure, perhaps motivated by the best intentions," but putting at risk "the graciousness and simplicity of an authentic Christian lifestyle." The faith
that is lived in deep silence in monasteries and chanted in their liturgies is what will proclaim the faith to visitors and attract new members, he said.
In a statement released before the plenary, the congregation said there currently are 12,876 monks living in 905 monasteries and 48,493 contemplative nuns living in 3,520 monasteries, two-thirds of which are found in Europe.
In Europe and North America, it said, the decline in vocations and the advancing age of the religious have forced many monastic communities "to question seriously the possibility of continuing their presence."
At the same time, the congregation said, monastic communities in Asia, Africa and parts of Latin America are experiencing such strong growth that new resources and programs are needed to help the communities welcome and form new members.
VATICAN CITY, - The lay vocation in the Church is not a series of functions for the non-ordained, but rather an encounter with Christ that transcends all other human activities, says the patriarch of Venice.
Cardinal Angelo Scola said this when he addressed the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which was dedicated to a consideration of John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation “Christifideles Laici,” some 20 years after its publication.
“The Church cannot be defined in the abstract, but must be based on two focuses: in relation to Christ and his mission, and in relation to the world, to which she is constantly sent,” the cardinal said, according to a L’Osservatore Romano report of his address.
“The risk of thinking that the Church is an independent reality must be overcome.” The cardinal went on to affirm that the “lay dimension” is essential for the Church.
The lay faithful are called “within each particular Church, to live their specific lay nature, facing the historical circumstances and situations in which they are protagonists,” he said.
And in that regard, it is necessary to “overcome the temptations” that contradict this dimension of the Church, but which are very present today, the cardinal contended.
The first temptation consists in enclosing the faith within believing communities, which “does away with the popular dimension of the initial Christian experience,” Cardinal Scola suggested. This temptation “is ever greater in areas where publicly living the faith and ecclesial membership is increasingly difficult.”
The second temptation, he continued, consists in reducing the Christian faith “to a civil religion or mere ethical cement,” an ever greater temptation in Western society “in which civil life is rather exhausted.”
“The Church lives her characteristic lay dimension with the simple courage of being the People of God moving through history, the whole of history, giving witness to the beauty of the integral event of Jesus Christ, which in the form of communion, opens eternal salvation to us, giving us 100-fold as a pledge here on earth,” the cardinal affirmed.
In this connection, he added that it is necessary to overcome a “theology of the laity” understood only as a “juridical demarcation of the laity’s functions within the Church.”
“The appropriate way to understand the lay dimension of the Church,” Cardinal Scola stated, “is that of an encounter with Christ which transcends all realms of human existence.”
MECATORNET - Eckhart Tolle is a publishing phenomenon. Why are so many people lapping up his distillation of the wisdom of the ages?
More than two million people logged on Oprah to watch Eckhart Tolle’s webinars on his latest book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. His books, tapes and other DIY spiritual paraphernalia sell in the millions. Look in the New Age or self-help section, you’ll find them. On the back cover you may find a small picture of a figure oozing Yoda-like serenity. Who is this 60-yearold German, what does he say, and why is he so popular?
Eckhart Tolle teaches spiritual enlightenment. At 29, after a life of drifting and episodes of depression, a personal epiphany launched him onto the path of self-discovery. This eventually led to the creation of his own spirituality – a hybrid of Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, with a sprinkling of Christianity. (His real name is Ulrich Tolle, but he adopted the name of a mediaeval msytic.) This formula has resonated with Oprah, Meg Ryan and Cher, to name a few of the celebrities he has charmed.
If you want to be really happy, Mr Tolle says, live in the present moment. This is the only way to foil the ever-encroaching demands of an ego-based consciousness and to become aware that we are all conduits of the universal life force. A New Earth will come; we are on the verge of it already, when the chosen who live this awareness will
bring about an evolutionary leap in human consciousness. Our destiny is to be absorbed into the grand scheme of the one life force, and we, or something like us, will all live happily every after.
Mr Tolle pleads with his readers to rid themselves of egocentric consciousness –much like the dissolution of the ego in Zen Buddhism. Isn’t this just old-fashioned humility? Well, yes. If we replace “egoic mind” or “ego identification” with “pride”, we are dealing with something like classical Christian notions. And he analyses this rather well: our games and double-dealing to protect our shabby little ego. Yes, he has real insight into what makes people tick at a purely functional level.
But, for Mr Tolle, it would seem that pride, or “egoic mind” is the only enemy. Evil is an illusion springing from our “pain-body” as he calls it, our own personal and collective menagerie of egoic dysfunction.
Ignorance is living while unconscious of our destiny to live with awareness. Positive moral acts are those that kill the ego and its domination. Personal responsibility is choosing to live in the “presence”, choosing a life of awareness and achieving salvation by helping the universal life force to realise itself through us.
Our destiny of absorption into the universal life force means that we are all God, but to varying degrees we have been corrupted by our ego. Disarm the ego by doing the “now” thing and your unhappiness will disappear.
To his credit, Mr. Tolle recognises the distinction between unhappiness and suffering. However, the role of suffering is merely to lessen the hold of the ego on external “form”, things that the ego grasps to maintain its dominion over us. I suggest that he
NEW YORK (CNS) - Just because you're a vampire, it doesn't mean you can't be a gentleman.
Take Edward (British actor Robert Pattinson, Cedric Diggory in the "Harry Potter" films), the tall, pale - very pale - and handsome hero of the generally restrained gothic romance "Twilight" (Summit). He may be undead, but he's quick to open car doors for his girlfriend, Bella (Kristen Stewart, in her first starring role), and insists on formally introducing himself to her sheriff father (Billy Burke).
Then again, despite the fact that he appears to be 17, his manners were acquired about a century ago. Edward's genteel side may help to explain why "Twilight" and the three subsequent young people's books by Mormon author Stephenie Meyer in which he figures have sold 17 million copies, principally to teen girls, and spawned more than 350 fan sites online. And why a sequel was already in the works before "Twilight's" release.
Though he describes himself as a "monster," like many a cultured screen Dracula before him, Edward's evil, or potential for evil, is masked by an appealing facade. On the other hand, while his dark urges are held in check by his own willpower and by Bella's trust, an intriguing element of risk remains.
Thus, soon after Bella first sees Edward, an optical illusion makes it appear as though he's sprouted angel's wings, but a later scene has them casually handling an apple symbolic of mutual temptation.
Still, Edward is commendably scrupulous about his, uh, drinking habits. He restricts himself to animal blood, and lives with a clan of like-minded sun shunners, presided over by father figure Dr. Cullen (Peter Facinelli). Unfortunately, a wandering band of less enlightened plasma fanciers, led by thuggish James (Cam Gigandet), is also in the area, taking a toll on the humans and adding to Dad's paperwork. Edward initially resisted his attraction to Bella when she
arrived in the small, conveniently overcast town of Forks, Wash., and became his newest classmate. But his half-hearted efforts to repel her for fear of harming her were hopeless. So the two began spending luxurious moments gazing into each other's eyes and lying beside each other under the trees.
When they attempt some racier activity in a scene of passionate kissing set in her bedroom, Edward is forced to break off, unable to trust himself to stay, so to speak, on the wagon. They return to form by cuddling.
Director Catherine Hardwicke's stylish adaptation, wittily scripted by Melissa Rosenberg, never takes itself too seriously, preferring instead to use its ill-matched couple's predicament to parody both adolescent awkwardness and teenage yearning. Despite a lush, misty background, many vampire conventions are cleverly overturned, as when Bella visits Edward's home and finds, not a crypt but a spruce modern dwelling straight from the pages of Architectural Digest.
The film contains brief but intense action violence, a scene of mild sensuality and a few sexual references; it is acceptable for older teens.
might have a few difficulties understanding the suffering depicted in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. But then again, don’t we all?
What this amounts to is an anemic parody of traditional Christianity. Mr Tolle, like other New Agers, believes that the universe would be a much tidier place if we got rid of the idea of a personal God who wants me to become a fully actualised person, just like Himself. Don’t get me wrong – Mr. Tolle’s suggestion of being present in the hre and now has merit – just read the 18th century classic, Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre De Caussade, for a Christian perspective. But it’s not a revolutionary spirituality. In fact, it is basically a revival of ancient gnosticism.
And why is A New Earth so popular?
Clearly it must answer a craving for genuine spirituality. People are crying out for meaning – and not just any meaning, but something that makes them get up in the morning.
To suggest meaninglessness as the foundation of reality sounds deep and insightful.
Remember “The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? It was “42”. But people are tired of a juvenile cynicism which tears down without building up. And they don’t find meaning they crave in science, the dominant discourse of our time. Faulty interpretations of science and philosophy often point to a meaningless universe powered by Darwinian determinism.
As the 1979 Nobel laureate in physics, Steven Weinberg once quipped: “the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless”. Consumerism and other avenues of satisfying our con-
cupiscence point to nothing beyond themselves.
Where are people to look to make their lives worthwhile? Inside ourselves, say the New Age gurus. So Mr Tolle has tapped into a market driven by psychological angst and distrust of traditional religion. By throwing together some snippets from Zen and Hindu traditions, along with a few shallow references to the Bible wrapped up in a generous dollop of personal opinion, Mr Tolle capitalises on baby-boomers’ anguished search for coherence and meaning.
The sad thing is that many good people will be desensitised or even inoculated against the real thing, just as junk food deadens the palate to gourmet cuisine.
Craig Smith is a research biologist in Hamilton, New Zealand.
“wow” factor
MECATORNET - The subtitle of this book is “A Hero Made and Unmade” which caused me a shiver of apprehension. Would Cook go the way of all flesh, the way of Cecil Rhodes, Baden-Powell and others, and be subject to a rigorous postcolonial scrutiny that would turn him into a greedy profiteer? But to my relief, Glyn Williams, emeritus professor of History at London University, has not attempted a television-type debunking and has confined himself to researching the circumstances surrounding Cook’s unexpected death in Hawaii on 14 February 1779. Cook rose from humble circumstances in the colliery trade in Whitby, Yorkshire, to become one of the world’s greatest coastal surveyors and navigators of the Pacific.
The Admiralty had planned to offer him honourable retirement but understandably, given the strenuous excitements of his naval career, Cook was reluctant to settle down. Thus he took charge of the Resolution, along with Captains Thompson and Clerk, and set sail in 1776.
According to Williams, the voyage was dogged by darker features than had been apparent on the earlier journeys, where Cook could justly be proud of the care of his men -– he hadn’t lost a single sailor to scurvy on his first trip, an extraordinary achievement in itself, given the usual death toll of sailors from sickness – and his relationships with the islanders they met.
There were delays, incidents, harsh treatment to the crew for minor misdemeanours and punitive behaviour towards islanders who stole from the ships. In particular, the author asks, did Cook lack his previous cool judgment and allow himself to be worshipped as a god (in contravention to the Articles of War) by the Polynesian islanders, who were then disillusioned to discover he was human after all?
Certainly, after Cook’s death, the
Admiralty “lost” vital evidence, his ship’s log was doctored to make him appear heroic and there are significant omissions from Cook’s Journal concerning his stay in Hawaii in January and February 1779. Further, England was gloomy about the American War of Independence and needed a man of great stature to recharge national pride. Cook himself was, naturally, a patriot and an imperialist.
Sifting the evidence of that fatal morning of 14 February, it seems that, just like a contemporary random stabbing on a London street, a capricious and unplanned spark momentarily fired up powerful emotions: there was Cook’s misjudgement about the islanders’ response to his authority, their panic and resentment of the crew’s behaviour and in this sudden “confounded affray” the Captain was stabbed to death. Cook had made an uncharacteristic mistake.
This should not overshadow his very great achievements. A man of exceptional perseverance and self-control, Cook was never known to consort with native women as other members of the crew did. A prudent, sober Yorkshireman to the last, he deplored the spread of venereal disease among the natives by his sailors and did his best to limit it if he could not prevent it. An entry in his Journal for 20 January 1778 mentions that he gave orders that no sailors “who had the venereal upon them should go out of the ships.”
But it is just this kind of Journal entry which shows Cook’s limits. He was no Admiral Nelson who has gone down in the popular imagination as alternately embracing Lady Hamilton and fighting the French with his one remaining arm. He does not leap from these pages with flashes of despair or elation.
Although rightly honoured in New Zealand and Australia – the author surmises that had it not been for his reputation, his report of a single brief visit to Botany Bay on his first voyage might have been seen as too risky to send 1300 people across the world in 1787 without further investigation – I am left with the impression of a dull dining companion.
Cultivated young patrician woman whose ancestors loomed large in Rome’s history. She vowed her virginity to God, but her parents married her to Valerian of Trastevere.
Cecilia told her new husband that she was accompanied by an angel, but in order to see it, he must be purified. He agreed to the purification, and was baptised; returning from the ceremony, he found her in prayer accompanied by a praying angel. The angel placed a crown on each of their heads, and offered Valerian a favour; the new convert asked that his brother be baptised. The two brothers developed a ministry of giving proper burial to martyred Christians. In their turn they were arrested and martyred for their faith. Cecilia buried them at her villa on the Appian Way, and was arrested for the action. She was ordered to sacrifice to false gods; when she refused, she was martyred in her turn.
Ingredients:
100g ground almonds
100g sugar
2 tsp kirsch
2 tbsp cocoa fondant icing food colouring
2 tsp melted dark chocolate slivered almonds for decoration
Method:
Mix the almonds and sugar and a teaspoon of kirsch with sufficient egg white to bind it into a smooth paste. Divide paste into two portions. Roll one portion into small balls about 1cm in diameter. Add cocoa to the other half and make pieces the size and shape of an olive.
Tint some of the fondant icing green and flavour with the remaining kirsch. Dip the plain balls in this.
Add the melted chocolate to some fondant icing and dip the chocolate olives in this. Put a sliver of almond in each. Allow Cecilias to dry. After they are dry place in fancy candy cups.
Makes 24
*This is a french recipe given in A Good Housekeeping Compendium published in London in 1952.
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KIDS BITZ ARTIST OF THE WEEK will receive a free gift from the Record Bookshop. All you need to do is post or email in a drawing, poem or colouring picture. This week we are giving away another Beautiful Red Dove pendant chain. please post or email : Justine Stevens, The Record, PO Box 75 Leederville WA 6902 or email production@therecord.com.au
Q: What did the horse say when it fell?
A: I’ve fallen and I can’t giddyup!
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A: Why the long face?
Q: What do you call a horse that lives next door?
A: A neigh-bour!
Q: When does a horse talk?
A: Whinney wants to!
Q: How do rabbits travel?
A: By hareplane.
Q: What is a bunny’s motto?
A: “Don’t be mad, be hoppy!”
Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit?
A: Unique up on it.
Q: How do you know carrots are good for your eyes?
A: Because you never see rabbits wearing glasses!
Q: What is a rabbit’s favorite dance style?
A: Hip-Hop!
Q: Where do rabbits go after their wedding?
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Friday November 28
MEDJUGORJE EVENING OF PRAYER
6.30pm to 8.30pm at St Lawrence Parish, 394 Albert Street Balcatta, commencing with Adoration, Rosary, Benediction and Holy Mass. Youth encouraged to attend. Free inspirational DVD of Fr Donald Calloway available on the evening. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480.
Sunday November 30
FRANCISCAN ADVENT REFLECTION
10am at the Edel Quinn Centre, 36 Windsor Street, East Perth. Come and join the Secular Franciscan Order in WA for a day of prayer, reflection and Mass at 2.30pm to start the Advent Season. Please bring a plate to share for lunch. Enq: Anne-Marie 9447 4252 after 6pm.
Tuesday December 2
CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL
HEALING MASS
7.30pm at the Holy Family Church, Thelma Street and Canning Highway, Como. Healing Mass and end-of-year fellowship. Prayer Teams available. A collection will be taken up. Please bring a plate for light supper. Enq: Pam 9381 2516 or Dan 9398 4973.
Friday December 5
THE ALLIANCE, TRIUMPH AND REIGN OF THE UNITED HEARTS OF JESUS AND MARY
5.15pm, at St Bernadette’s Church, Glendalough. Confessions, Mass 5.45pm followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament; hourly Rosaries, hymns and reflections etc throughout the night. Vigil concludes with midnight Mass in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Enq: Fr Doug Harris 9444 6131 or Dorothy 9342 5845.
Friday December 5
PROLIFE WITNESS
Commencing 9.30am with Mass at St Brigid’s Midland, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.
Saturday December 6
WITNESS FOR LIFE
Commencing 8.30am with Mass at St Augustine’s, Gladstone Road, Rivervale, followed by Rosary procession and prayer vigil at abortion clinic, led by Fr Paul Carey SSC. Enq: Helen 9402 0349.
Saturday December 6
DAY WITH MARY
9am to 5pm at Good Shepherd Church, 44 Streich Avenue, Kelmscott. Day of prayer and instruction based upon the Fatima message. 9am Fatima Video. Reconciliation, Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Sermons on Eucharist and Our Lady, Rosaries, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross. BYO lunch. Enq: Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate 9250 8286.
Sunday December 7
DIVINE MERCY
1.30pm at St Joachim’s Church, Shepperton Road and Harper Street, Victoria Park. Holy Rosary, and Reconciliation. Holy Family Sermon by Fr Joseph Mario followed by Divine Mercy prayers, Benediction and refreshments. DVD/Video - Body and Blood of Jesus, Part 2 by Fr Corapi. Enq: John 9457 7771 or Linda 9275 6608.
Sunday December 7
ANNUAL ROSARY PROCESSION
4.30pm at St Joseph’s Parish, Hamilton Street, Bassendean, in honour of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, followed by Benediction. Light refreshments. Triduum Rosaries will be held in preparation for this event from 3 December to 5 December commencing 7.30pm respectively. Enq: Colin 9279 9750 or Renato 0419 924 633.
Monday December 8
FEAST OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
7.30pm at Our Lady of Fatima Church, 10 Foss Street, Palmyra. Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal will be offered for the feast. Latin Mass is offered every Sunday at 12 noon. All welcome.
Saturday December 13
ST PAUL’S COMMUNITY THREE SPRINGS
CHURCH FUNDRAISING
Launch and sale of recorded CD called – Crowing in the Midwest, at Christmas Dinner. Cost of CD is $5 plus postage of $3. If you would like to order the CD please forward payment to PO Box 213, Three Springs WA, 6519. All welcome to join us in our celebrations. Enq: Myrtle 08 9954 1135.
Saturday December 13
ST PADRE PIO PRAYER GROUP
8.30am at St Bernadette’s Church, LJ Goody Centre, 49 Jugan Street, Glendalough. St Padre Pio DVD, 10am Exposition of the blessed Sacrament, Rosary, Divine Mercy, silent Adoration and Benediction. 11am Mass, using St Padre Pio liturgy. Confessions available. 12noon lunch; bring a plate, tea and coffee provided. Enq: Des 6278 1540.
Thursday December 18
ST PEREGINE HEALING MASS
7pm at SS John and Paul Church, Pinetree Gully Road, off South Street, Willetton, in honour of St Peregrine, Patron of Cancer sufferers and helper of all in need. The celebration will include Veneration of the Relic and Anointing of the Sick. Enq: Patrick, paddyjoe@iinet.net.au
Friday December 19
MEDJUGORJE EVENING OF PRAYER
7pm to 9pm at Holy Spirit Parish, 2 Keaney Place, City Beach, commencing with Adoration, Rosary, Benediction and Holy Mass. Free inspirational DVD of Fr Donald Calloway may be obtained on evening. Enq: Eileen 9402 2480.
Sunday December 21
STATIONS OF CHRISTMAS
3pm at St Theresa’s Church, 678 North Beach Road, Gwelup. The Balcatta Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order invites you to prepare for Christmas with the Stations of Christmas. The celebration will conclude with afternoon tea at the Community Centre. Enq: Anne-Marie 9447 252 after 6pm.
ACCOMMODATION NEEDED
Female overseas student aged 23, with 3 months old baby, needs accommodation and support with a family, preferably north of the river for approximately 12 months. Phone: Lydia, Pregnancy Assistance, 9328 2929.
JOSEPHITEMARY MACKILLOP 2009 C ALENDARS
Special Edition Centenary Year, of Blessed Mary MacKillop’s death. Each month has an Inspirational Quote from Mary MacKillop’s writings and a beautiful colourful scene. Too inspiring to miss out! To purchase a copy please ring the Secretary 9334 0999.
INTERPARISH SOCCER: A NOTICE TO ALL PARISHES
The young parishioners in Lockridge are interested in having soccer matches against other parishes. It is a great way for a bit of ‘friendly rivalry’; keep up fitness whilst having fun and all in a good atmosphere. Enq: 0433 646 208 or 0431 951 772.
Every 1st Thursday of the Month
PRAYER AND MEDITATION SERVICE USING SONGS
FROM TAIZE
7.30pm at Our Lady of Grace, 3 Kitchener Street, North Beach. The service is a prayerful meditation in which we sing beautiful chants from Taize together, spend time in prayerful, meditative silence, bathed in candlelight reflecting upon themed readings. Enq: Beth 9447 0061.
Every First Friday and Saturday of Month
COMMUNION OF REPARATION ALL NIGHT VIGIL
7pm Friday at Corpus Christi Church, Mosman Park, 47 Lochee Road. Mass with Fr Bogoni and concluding with midnight Mass. Confessions, Rosaries, Prayers and silent hourly adoration. Please join us for reparation to Two Hearts according to the message of Our Lady of Fatima. Enq: Vicky 0400 282 357.
Every First Friday
CATHOLIC FAITH RENEWAL
7.30pm at Sts John and Paul Church, Willetton; praise and worship, teaching and Mass offered by Fr Saminedi, then supper and fellowship. All very welcome! Enq. Maureen 9381 4498.
Every First Friday
HOLY HOUR FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
7pm at Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel, 2 Rawlins Street, Glendalough. Mass celebrated by Fr Saminedi. 7.30pm, Adoration with Fr Don Kettle. All welcome. Refreshments provided.
Third Sunday of the Month
OBLATES OF ST BENEDICT MEETINGS
2pm St Joseph’s Convent, York Street, South Perth, affiliated to the Benedictine Abbey of New Norcia. All those interested in studying the rule of St Benedict, its relevance to lay people’s day-to-day life are welcome. Vespers and tea conclude meetings. Enq: 9457 5758
Every Saturday
HOLY SPIRIT OF FREEDOM CHARISMATIC PRAYER MEETING
10.30am to 12.30pm at St Peter the Apostle Church Hall, 91 Wood Street, Inglewood. All are most welcome.
Every Sunday LATIN MASS KELMSCOTT
The Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal will be offered every Sunday at 2pm at the Good Shepherd Parish, 40-42 Streich Avenue, Kelmscott, with Rosary preceding. All welcome.
Every Sunday until November 30 THEOLOGY OF THE BODY
4pm at 67 Howe Street Osborne Park, commencing September 28. Free seminar. Presenters Disciples of Jesus Catholic Covenant Community and Youth Ministry leaders. Find out what it means to be man or woman. Why we are called to live a life of purity and chastity. A must for 16-25 years group. Enq: Shannon 9444 1467 or 0429 421 149.
Every 4th Sunday of the Month
HOLY HOUR PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
2-3pm at Infant Jesus Church, Wellington Road, Morley. The hour includes exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Let us implore God to rain an abundance of new life into our Church, open our hearts and those of the young people of the world to hear His Word for us now, today. All welcome! Enq: 9276 8500.
Every Sunday
PILGRIM MASS
2pm at Shrine of Virgin of the Revelation, 36 Chittering Road, Bullsbrook; with Rosary and Benediction. Reconciliation is available in Italian and English. Anointing of the sick; second Sunday during Mass. Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin; last Sunday of month. Side entrance and shrine open daily between 9am and 5pm. Enq: 9447 3292.
Every Tuesday NOVENA TO GOD THE FATHER
7.30pm St Joachim’s Parish Hall, Shepperton Road, Victoria Park; incorporating a Bible teaching, a Perpetual Novena to God the Father and Hymns. Light refreshments will follow. Bring a Bible and a friend. Enq: Jan 9323 8089.
Every Monday
ADORATION, RECONCILIATION AND MASS
7pm at St Thomas, corner Melville and College Roads, Claremont; Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament with Evening Prayer and Benediction, spend 40 minutes quietly before our Lord for the health, faith and safety of yourself and your loved ones; Reconciliation 7.30pm, Mass and Night Prayer 8pm.
Every Sunday
MUSICIANS AND SINGERS
6pm at the Redemptorist Monastery Church, Vincent Street, North Perth; the Shalomites have been providing the music and singing for over thirty years. We are looking for new members. All interested singers and musicians welcome. Enq: Stephen or Sheelagh 9339 0619.
Every 1st Sunday of Month
DIVINE MERCY
Commencing with 3 o’clock Prayer at Santa Clara Parish, Bentley, followed by the Chaplet, reflection and Benediction. All friends and neighbouring parishes invited. Tea and coffee provided. Enq: Muriel 9458 2944.
Every 2nd Wednesday of Each Month
CHAPLETS OF THE DIVINE MERCY
7.30 pm at St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dean Road, Bateman. All welcome to a beautiful, prayerful, and sung devotion. Enq: George 9310 9493 home or 9325 2010 work.
Every Thursday
JOURNEY THROUGH THE BIBLE
7.30pm, Acts 2 College of Mission and Evangelisation, Osborne Park using The Bible Timeline; The Great Adventure can be studied towards accredited course or for interest. Resources provided. See http://www. acts2come.wa.edu.au/ or Jane 0401 692 690.
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
Jesuit Volunteers Australia calls for part-time volunteers to respond to the needs of people in the community who live in marginalised circumstances. At the heart of this program is a reflective process, based on Gospel values, which underpins the work of the volunteers. Enq: Kevin 9316 3469 or kwringe@iinet.net.au, www.jss.org.au
BOOK DONATIONS WANTED
We urgently need donations of Altar Vessels, Catholic books, Bibles, Divine Office, Missals, Lectionaries, Sacramentaries etc. Telephone: (08) 9293 3092.
Reflections on this Sunday’s Gospel; Matthew 20:16 “…Stay awake…”
Working as a missionary in Africa amongst a refugee population of over 50,000 people, I remember many occasions when staying awake was a matter of life or death. We were never sure each night when we would be called upon to use the mission vehicle, an old Toyota ute, as a make-shift ambulance. We took turns as to who would be staying awake each night. More often than not we were called upon to deliver an expectant mother with birth complications to the nearest hospital some 120 kms away through bush tracks and pot-holed roads. We called our ute ‘the donkey’ as it would be loaded with all manner of people and things to accompany us on our mercy dash through the night. And such joy there would be for the whole village when news filtered back of the miraculous birth of a child in difficult and almost impossible circumstances.?
Call the Mission Office on 9422 7933 should you want to explore this idea further.
in brief
Pope prays for victims of 1932-33 Ukrainian famine
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed for the victims of the 1932-33 “Great Famine” that left millions dead in Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union during a noon blessing on November 23.
In an apparent reference to the deliberate Soviet policies of collectivization and food confiscation that caused the famine, the pope condemned ideologically based governmental actions that violate basic human rights.
He made the remarks as many Ukrainians were commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor, or “death by hunger,” the name given to the deliberate famine that occurred in the Soviet Ukraine and which killed between 7 and 10 million Ukrainians. Speaking in Ukrainian, the pope recalled that the famine under the Soviet regime of Josef Stalin caused millions to die of starvation.
“I express the strong hope that no longer will any political order, in the name of an ideology, deny the rights of the human person and his freedom and dignity, and I assure my prayers for all the innocent victims of this tremendous tragedy,” he said.
Vatican newspaper: Beatles' music better than today's pop songs
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Vatican newspaper said the musical compositions of the Beatles were far more creative than the "standardized and stereotyped" pop music of today.
The Beatles' songs have demonstrated "remarkable staying power, becoming a source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians," it said.
The newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published a lengthy and laudatory retrospective on the Beatles on November 22 to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the "White Album," the group's groundbreaking double-record set.
"Forty years later, this album remains a type of magical musical anthology: 30 songs you can go through and listen to at will, certain of finding some pearls that even today remain unparalleled," it said.
With rock songs like "Back in the USSR." and "Helter Skelter," ballads like "Julia" and "Blackbird," and dreamlike pieces like "Dear Prudence," the album represents the "creative summit" of the Beatles' career, it said.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Without the practice of Christian charity, the world today risks a disastrous fixation on personal self-interest, Pope Benedict XVI said during a noon blessing on November 23, the feast of Christ the King.
Addressing pilgrims from his apartment window above St Peter’s Square, he said Christ made it clear that his kingdom, while not of this world, works within human history to bring about all that is good.
“If we put into practice love for our neighbor, following the Gospel message, then we make space for the rule of God and his kingdom is realized among us. If instead everyone thinks only of his own interests, the world can only go to ruin,” the pope said.
Christians need to remember that the kingdom of God is not a question of honors and appearances, but of justice, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, he explained, saying God will welcome those who work daily to carry out his teachings, not the hypocrites who talk about Christ but fail to put his commandments into practice.
Classifieds: $3.30/line incl. GST Deadline: 12pm Monday
Female overseas student, 23 yo, with 3 mth old baby, needs accomm and support with a family, preferably north of the river for approx. 12 mths. Ph Lydia at Pregnancy Assistance, 9328 2929.
■ THE PAINTERS REG NO 5846
"We take the pain out of painting” Residential & Commercial. Phone Jim: 0412 123 630
■ BRICK REPOINTING Phone Nigel 9242 2952.
■ PERROTT PAINTING PTY LTD
For all your residential, commercial painting requirements. Phone Tom Perrott 9444 1200.
■ BRICKLAYING
20 years exp. Quality work. Ph 9405 7333 or 0409 296 598.
■ PICASSO PAINTING
Top service. Phone 0419 915 836, fax 9345 0505.
■ REPAIR YOUR LITURGICAL BOOKS
General repairs to books, old bibles & missals. 2ndhand Catholic books avail. Tydewi Bindery 9293 3092.
Make the most out of your computer with oneon-one tutoring on basic IT applications like HTML, CSS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. PC maintenance also available. Call Collin on 0438 643 070.
Work from home - Call 02 8230 0290, or visit website www.dreamlife1.com
■ MANDURAH
Townhouse in Resort Complex. Fully furnished. Sleeps 6. Phone 9381 3495 or email valma7@bigpond.com
■ DUNSBOROUGH
Beach cottage, 3 bedrooms, sleeps 7, 300m to Quindalup beach. Great price for Dunsborough! Tel: Sheila 9309 5071 / 0408 866 593 or email: shannons3s@optusnet.com.au
■ GUITAR LESSONS
Learn to play the guitar and bring out the musician in you. Learn what you want to learn and at your own pace. Call Collin on 0438 643 070.
■ ORGAN
Yamaha El 25 in excellent condition. $2000 ono. Contact St Luke’s Parish, Woodvale 08 9409 6291
■ ALL AREAS
Mike Murphy 0416 226 434.
■ CHRISTIAN SINGLES
Widowed, Divorced or Never married. All age groups. Meet-for-Drinks, Dinner Seminars and Individual Dates. Phone 9472 8218. Tues-Fri 10am - 6pm. www.figtrees.com.au
■ SEEKING LADY
Guy 40s tall, n/smoker, education, social drinker, conservative, loyal, creative, likes reading, cafe food styles, walking and swimming. Down to earth. Reasonable ambitions, dry SOH, seeks lady friendship view to long-term relationship. Marriage if culturally compatible and complementary. Some or more Christian values. Phn 0419 543 093.
■ KINLAR VESTMENTS
‘Modern meets tradition.’ Quality hand-made & decorated. Vestments, altar cloths, banners. Vickii Smith Veness. 9402 8356 or 0409 114 093.
■ GIFTS OF LOVE
Individually made to order, candles of your choice for baptisms, weddings, and other special occasions. Custom made Rosary beads or choose from our exclusive range. Hand made leather bible and missal covers, religious statues, icons and other exclusive gifts of love. “The greatest of them is love” 1 Corinthians 13:13 Please e-mail giftsoflove@amnet.net.au Call Rose 0437 400 247 after 4pm.
■ CATHOLICS CORNER
Retailer of Catholic products specialising in gifts, cards and apparel for baptism, communion and confirmation. Ph: 9456 1777. Shop 12, 64-66 Bannister Road, Canning Vale. Open Mon-Sat.
■ RICH HARVEST YOUR
CHRISTIAN SHOP
Looking for Bibles, CDs, books, cards, gifts, statues, baptism/communion apparel, religious vestments, etc? Visit us at 39 Hulme Court (off McCoy St), Myaree, 9329 9889 (after 10.30am Mon to Sat). We are here to serve.
■ ALL SAINTS HANDCRAFTED ROSARIES AND CHAPLETS
View our current range of original Rosaries, chaplets and bracelets for all occasions. Custom orders in the beads and colour of your choice are welcome. Contact Elisa on 0421 020 462 or email allsaintscreations@iinet.net.au
■ OTTIMO
Shop 108 TRINITY ARCADE (Terrace Level) 671 Hay St, Perth. Ph 9322 4520. Convenient city location for a good selection of Nativity sets, cards, books, CDs, Christian gifts and fashion accessories. Opening hours 9am-6pm MondayFriday.
EFFECTIVE LEGAL, family owned law firm focusing on property settlements and wills. If you are buying, selling or investing in property, protect your family and your investment, contact us on (08) 9218 9177.
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In this beautiful book, Faith Teddy tells the story of the first CHRISTMAS. Along the way, kids are encouraged to pray and learn the importance of PRAYER!
$9.95 + P/H
In this beautifully illustrated book for children, Chico the cat describes the life of his “best friend”, Pope Benedict, in this authorised biography of the Pope for young people approved by the Vatican.
$19.95 + P/H
This volume contains six entertaining and engaging dramas, in both modern and biblical settings. Each drama allows tweens (ages 10–12) to role-play certain situations they may themselves encounter every day. They also have the opportunity to discover and experience biblical stories in a whole new way. Contains dramas including Advent and Christmas material.
Titles include:
1. A Marriage Made in Heaven
2. Family Reunion
3. Big Mistake: Royal Edition
4. Blessed Family of God (Advent/Christmas)
5. Let’s Go Fishing
6. The Parade of Lights
This popular series has gone from strength to strength. With peek through windows and fun shapes these chunky board books provide hours of playtime fun.Travel along with the wise men in a stand up book that’s also a toy palace. Follow the Star teaches children to listen to what God tells us to do, and it’s peek through windows and chunky shape provide hours of playtime fun.
$7.95 + P/H
Kids of all ages will love these plays. They are fun to read and fun to perform. Using a variety of settings and characters, they will help you present the meaning of Christmas in churches, schools, and anywhere else that people gather to hear and celebrate the stories of Jesus’ birth.
$6.50 + P/H
At Home with the Word is your guide to a deeper understanding of all the Sunday readings for the liturgical year. This year’s annual provides you with all the Sunday readings for Year B, offers insights into the readings from pastoral ministers, and suggests ways to practise the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. With prayers to begin and end your scripture reading, this is a great way to help yourself, your children, and other adults prepare to listen to God’s word at Mass. Bulk pricing makes this an economical resource to get every family in your parish. Also available in large print.
$13.95 + P/H
A beautiful hardbook book for children, it tells the story of how the hymn ‘Silent Night’ was written. The story is centred in a small village that is faced with disaster on Christmas Eve. Through the singing of the hymn, catastrophe is averted, and the song ‘Silent Night’ enters into legend.
$17.95 + P/H
Offers family prayers and activities like making an Advent wreath or praying together daily, creating a Christ mobile, and more.
$6.95 + P/H
Simple prayers that enhance family celebrations including: Blessing of the Advent Wreath, Advent Meal Prayer, Christmas Morning Prayer, and many more.
$2.95 + P/H
A charming, lyrical retelling of the events of the first Christmas night. This simple and charming book with warm, child-friendly illustrations, introduces young children to the wonder of the Christmas story in an unsentimental fashion. This revamped edition features extra ‘sparkle and squidge’ - a glittery padded cover encasing a board book format.
$9.95 + P/H
This collection of ideas and suggestions will help you respond to God’s involvement with your family and to express your Christian faith together. It invites you to do such things as:
*making a Christmas tape for relatives who can’t be with you
*reading the Bible in your family
*walking, cooking, singing, praying together
*sharing hopes and fears at the start of the school year
$6.95 + P/H
365 DAYS WITH THE LORD
2009: BIBLE DIARY
This ever-popular biblical diary contains the Gospel reading set down for each day of the year together with the reflective commentary, and space to write notes.
$24.95 + P/H
$11.95 + P/H