An International Network of Church Reform Movements conference will take place next week, from Monday 13th April to Thursday 16th April, in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Limerick.
This four day event is not open to the public but there will be an open session at 8.00pm on Thursday, 16th April in the Radisson Blu in Limerick. Some of the international participants will speak of their experience of Church Reform in their parts of the world, and how we can move forward. Members of the public are welcome to this event.
Opening Comment (for Mass without Procession or Solemn Entrance) Today’s liturgy gives a preview of the events we will celebrate between Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday: the passion, death and…
Brendan Hoban offers a reflection on Holy Week.
“Calvary sets in consoling relief the experience of all who suffer – whether the nightmare of physical pain or the emotional trauma of significant loss or the prospect of imminent death. The human Jesus, struggling to come to terms with the reality of his predicament, echoes every human experience of suffering and of loss and reflects the complexity and confusion of emotions that attend all those caught in the slipstream of pain and loss and death.”
Sean McDonagh reporting on the recent ACP leadership meeting tells us that the issue of the “New Missal” is still very much alive. “
Hopefully, the Irish Bishops will address this issue and, as a temporary solution, they will allow priests to use the 1998 translation of the Missal as suggested by the Bishop Donald Trautman.”
“we appeal for a respectful and civilised debate in which the issues involved can be discussed in a calm and reasonable manner.”
In just over ten days time, the Easter Triduum will begin, at sunset on Holy Thursday. Today we pray for all the adults and children who will be baptised at Easter. And we ask that we may be fit and ready to renew our own baptismal promises.
“For God had made two huge lights, the sun and moon, to shine down upon the earth
— the larger one, the sun, to preside over the day and the smaller one, the moon, to preside through the night;” Gen 1:16
Coming to Holy Week, we reflect on our Theology of the Cross, our Soteriology. This article from Richard Rohr OFM may be of interest in that reflection.
Pádraig McCarthy
Today we in Ireland pause from our lenten penances to honour Patrick, the apostle of the Irish. In our celebration of this solemn feast, we worship God, creator, redeemer and sanctifier, who brought our ancestors into the Christian fold through the preaching of St Patrick.
Donal Dorr offers a very practical way for the church to excercise mercy during the coming Jubilee Year of mercy announced by Pope Francis.
Is there more that we can do to prevent it being the damp squib that the Jubilee year of 2000 turned out to be?
Seamus Ahearne finds hope in the language used by Pope Francis. “He talks in a new and real language. Is it possible that our bishops have the gumption to learn from him? Have they got the backbone to listen to Francis and to Gerald O Collins? The people aren’t coming to us. When they come; let’s talk in words that they understand.”
The language we use in church has to connect to the reality of people’s lives. “We have to knock down the walls of a Church that uses ‘bad language’ or shouts out meaningless rules about what family is. We all have to listen and learn.”
This Sunday we come to the midpoint of Lent. The season is half over, and the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus is nearer to us. On this midway Sunday, it is traditional to honour mothers, praying for those still with us and remembering those who have died.
Iggy O Donovan offered his thoughts on the upcoming referendum in The Irish Times.
“The arguments crowd in on us from both sides. Much of life today is like that and we cannot off-load our troubled consciences on others, whether in church or State. We have to make our own decisions for ourselves.”
In his weekly Western People column Brendan Hoban welcomes the introduction of new regulations that will come into force governing the accounting for all church monies. These are a result of the Charities Regulatory Authority (CRA), being established by the government last October.
“While the Church for years has encouraged openness and transparency at diocesan and parish level with mixed results now the new regulations will universally enforce a new, transparent regime in every parish in Ireland.”
Gerald O’Collins SJ writes to all English speaking bishops asking that they ‘act quickly to help English-speaking Catholics participate more effectively in the liturgy.’ Gerald suggests that the “Missal that wasn’t,” the 1998 translation be used.
Fr O’Collins SJ, who was a professor at the Gregorian University in Rome for 33 years, made his comments in a letter sent to The Tablet entitled “An open letter to English-speaking bishops”.
Mattie Long reflects on the open letter Gerald O’Collins S.J. wrote to English speaking bishops concerning the continued use of the “new” missal. Added to this letter are the comments of Pope Francis on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the celebration of the first vernacular Mass celebrated by Pope Paul VI in 1965.
Mattie draws on James Dallen’s ‘What Kind of Ecclesiology?’ to question the purpose of the ‘new’ missal.
The Lord has the message of eternal life: in Lent we come to know this message and deepen our relationship with the Saviour of the world.
To provide ACI members and supporters with an alternative approach to the consultation process the ACI Steering Group is organising an ‘Open Forum’ on the Family’ in the Regency Hotel in Dublin on Saturday, 21 March, 2015.
Brendan Hoban in his weekly Western People column raises the issue of how we deal with racist and homophobic comment. He reminds us that
“The Catholic Church has had to learn some big lessons in this regard. It wasn’t so long ago that papal letters used the phrase ‘intrinsically disordered’ to describe homosexual people. I don’t think it will happen again. Or at least I hope not because its use didn’t just diminish homosexuals.”
As we continue to celebrate Lent, it’s important that we keep the goal of our journey before us. The gospel of the transfiguration is read on this lenten Sunday each year, to remind us to hold firm to a vision of glory, on dark days. Easter and its joy will follow this season of penance, just as the resurrection followed the passion and death of Jesus.
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