March 6 2019 - Association Of Catholic Priests

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Home / 2019 / March / 06

Ash Wednesday

06 March: Ash Wednesday

*We begin Lent by receiving the ashes of repentance on our foreheads, and plan to prepare well for Easter…

1st Reading: Joel 2:12-18

Return to me with all your heart. Spare your people, Lord

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9 comments
Dublin Review of Books: The Catholic Church
January 23 2023
Sean O’Conaill
Thanks Joe. It’s complicated obviously, especially by the suspicion that behind ‘what people think’ of any famous person may well lie something always hidden by a real person ever fearful of ‘what people think’ and therefore ever anxious to be ‘taken seriously’ for something or other. That summary of the Henry James novel is especially interesting. In overcoming the world - i.e. the need to be taken seriously by it - Jesus did something we all need to ponder endlessly. It seems that we are all equally cared for, even if the world does not care for us. In the end that is the greatest truth.
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2 comments
5 Feb 2023 – 5th Sunday, (A)
February 5 2023
Thara Benedicta
Key Message: Am I the light of the world? Homily: In today's Gospel reading our Lord Jesus looks keenly at each one of us and says "You are the light of the world", "You are the salt of the earth..". What does salt do? It makes food tastier. Likewise our Lord Jesus is asking us to make people's lives tastier. He wants us to bring joy to others' lives. Our Lord Jesus does not like our lives to be hidden, but to brighten others lives. He is depending on us to go out and shine for Him in this world. This is a great responsibility for us. We are not here to live in self pity or in depression. We are not here to live with sad faces, grumbling all along, complaining about whatever that causes inconveniences. Let us analyse the life of our Lord Jesus. He did not enjoy any comfort when He was in this world. But He was comfortable wherever He was. We can never feel fully comfortable even if we have all the luxuries in this world. But we can be fully comfortable even when our basic necessities are met. When a person feels that whatever he has is enough for him, he is the richest person in the whole world because he has attained his goal. How can we be the light of the world? Our Lord Jesus looks at each one of us and says "If you are not the light, then who will be my light in the dark world?" It is a great mission from our Lord Jesus Christ. So we can never feel our lives are insignificant. It is through our lives that our loving Jesus is planning to brighten other's lives. Never feel bad that your spouse is difficult to handle or your kid is not obeying. Since they need you, God has placed you there. When Israelites suffered, when they were insufficient for themselves, they required a deliverer. So God blessed them with Moses. Similarly, now God blessed them with you. Never feel you are little in everyone's eyes since you have a big purpose in God's eyes. The world does not recognize you because it does not understand the big purpose God has planned for you. Be close to God, then He can come close to you. In 1 Samuel 3 we read the story of how God talks with child Samuel. There God calls "Samuel, Samuel" thrice and finally Samuel will say "Here I am". There is a place in the Bible where God promises that when we call "God, God", our God will immediately answer "Here I am". Where is it? It is our First reading of today, Isaiah 58:6-10. According to this reading, God will say "Here I am" when we share our bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into our house; when we clothe the naked and not hide from our own kin. Cutting short - noticing the needs of others and being quick to help them. The Lord says, "Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard." If people are harassing us, there is no need for us to raise a finger against them. When we help someone else, God will become our vindicator. When I was undergoing financial constraints, I was praying to God to relieve me from my financial problems. Then God reminded me of one of my kin whose family was in a financial crisis. After praying for them earnestly, my financial burdens went away. My prayers were not answered when I was praying for myself alone. But when I prayed for others who were suffering, God answered my prayers. God needs us to take care of His suffering children. He is always searching "Whom will I send? Who will go on behalf of me to help my children? Who is there to take care of my little ones who are persecuted?" Our Lord Jesus cried on seeing the tears of Mary and Martha. He couldn't see them crying even though He knew that He was going to 'raise' them up. Similarly He cannot see any of His own children crying. That is why He is called as God of compassion. Seeing His children suffer is too difficult for Him. It is more difficult for Him to see His children suffering than for us who are undergoing the difficulty. Who are the children whom our Lord Jesus likes us to help? Where should we go in search of them? Our Lord Jesus wants us to help those who are around us. He does not want us to do a "google search" for people whom we need to help. They are right in front of us. They may not require financial help, but they will require our consolation. They will require those who are thoughtful towards us. If you are having a special child, it means you are a special person for God. God would have been searching for someone who can love without expectations, who can take care of His weak little ones and He has selected you. It is a special anointing from God. How sweetly we sing in our churches, "Make me your servant, humble and meek, Lord let me lift up those who are weak.." These are our little weak children from God. Let us continue to be His meek, humble servants. Never miss any chance to be a blessing. Our challenges are our chances to be a blessing!!
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2 comments
5 Feb 2023 – 5th Sunday, (A)
February 5 2023
Joe O'Leary
Looks like I got the Gospel wrong for tomorrow. I thought we were to hear the 'antitheses" ('You have heard it said... but I say to you'). Here are my thoughts anyhow: Sermon for Feb 5 2023 Matthew puts his best foot forward in the Beatitudes (last Sunday), but today's gospel may seem a downer after that inspiriting start, because Jesus is now laying down the law in no uncertain terms, even mentioning 'jots and tittles' that St Paul was supposed to have freed us from and the the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) set aside. Martin Luther, in his quest for a gracious God, distinguished the preaching of Law from the preaching of Gospel, and claimed that the highest art of a Christian pastor or theologian is to know when to apply both. He rather paradoxically saw the Sermon on the Mount as Law rather than Gospel. The preaching of Law has three purposes: to convict us of sin, by making us see how far short we fall of the Law's perfection, and thus prompting us to turn to the Gospel and its gift of righteousness; to give us guidance in acting righteously once we have been justified by faith; to provide a basis for the good order of civil society. What makes the Sermon on the Mount liberating as well as binding is that it regrounds the law of Moses in a law of the heart. Irrespective of external deeds, it asks us if we commit murder in our heart, whenever for example we call a brother or sister a fool (or any other of the choice epithets so lavishly distributed on the Internet, especially in religious blogs). Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses, and the Mount here is a new Sinai. The body of the Gospel, between the infancy and the passion narratives, is organized in five sections of narrative and five sections of teaching (of which the Sermon on the Mount is the first). This echoes the five books of the Mosaic Pentateuch. The mountain of the Transfiguration and the mountain from which the risen Jesus sends his disciples forth to teach all nations echo the mountain of the Sermon. Matthew is no doubt the evangelist most rooted in Jewish tradition (and most polemical in the critiques of distortions of Jewish tradition, in Mt 23, a set of woes contrasting with the Beatitudes). It is good that his Gospel is the first book of the New Testament, as it forms a solid bridge between ancient promise and present salvation, fufiling, not abolishing. The many fulfilled prophecies that dot his text again place Jesus in a Jewish light more clearly than the other Gospels do.
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9 comments
Dublin Review of Books: The Catholic Church
January 23 2023
Joe O'Leary
Sean asks lots of questions to which the answers may not be available I didn't see Corsage though it was on when I was in Vienna, because I feared would be something like the Marie Antoinette film of a few years ago. Cioran was a nihilistic philosopher, so he probably meant that Sisi was disillusioned in some Nietzschean sense. If Henry James's Christina is modelled on her, he would have meant disillusion of the kind that a girl who marries an unloved older man at her mother's bidding in order to rise to royal status could be called disillusioned. Sisi was religious but in a way that was the despair of those who wanted her to be Catholic. I think she thought that in supporting the Hungarian monarchy, which had been under a Hapsburg bushel (she herself now becoming queen of Hungary) she was giving the Hungarian people what they wanted, and indeed earned their undying gratitude. What title had she to be taken seriously? Her many roles did not cohere into a single project, other than that of being herself, a strange woman (eine seltsame Frau, as the subtitle of the 1934 biography has it). She was at various times a famous beauty, a cultural icon, a diplomat, a philanthropic royal personage (but not enough), a huntress, an amateur poet, a scholar, a philosopher in her own way.
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