Third Sunday of Easter – Bidding prayers
We’re two weeks into the Easter season now, but the Good News of the season continues to reverberate in the Liturgy. Joyfully we worship God who raised our Saviour from the dead.
We’re two weeks into the Easter season now, but the Good News of the season continues to reverberate in the Liturgy. Joyfully we worship God who raised our Saviour from the dead.
Mary O. Vallely shares an Easter reflection on Mary Magdalene, a saint she believes to have been badly treated by the official Church down through the centuries (reflection composed by Fr James Martin SJ).
Jimmy McPhillips, an ACP member in Clogher diocese, critiques the ACP and its website, and regrets that so few of priests’ real concerns are raised: frustration, absence of real leadership, low morale, depression and all the burdens of pastoral ministry. He suggests that ACP members meeting at local level in dioceses and Religious communities might help keep the leadership in touch with these core issues.
Eddie Finnegan asks why so few priests in the northern dioceses engage with the ACP
Eddie Finnegan probes the non-participation of the vast majority of Ireland’s parish priests on their ACP website, and ponders if a fear of clericalism is at its heart
Eddie Finnegan analyses postings to the ACP website (articles and comments) and finds ordinary diocesan priest-members in Ireland almost absent from its pages.
A week from now, the Rising Sun will have dawned on Easter Sunday morning. But before we reach that feast, we recall the suffering and death of the Lord, believing his sufferings brought him glory, a destiny we share.
The New York Times profiles Father Helmut Schüller, the ‘mild but rebellious priest’ who was part of the 2011 ‘Appeal to Disobedience’ by 400 priests in Austria. This initiative began with a small group of priests, talking about the problems faced by their parishes, about the lack of successors to take their places, and about the fusing of congregations.
(A version of this article appeared in print on March 23, 2013, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: With New Pope, Spotlight Returns to a Mild but Rebellious Priest.)
Mary Cunningham outlines the CDF’s controlling role in the silencing of Fr Sean Fagan, undermining Archbishop Charles Brown’s recent assertion that such actions are a matter for a religious priest’s superior
As the universal Church celebrates the Fifth Sunday of Lent and asks God’s blessings on our new pope, the Irish Church invokes the help of Patrick, our national apostle, on his springtime feastday: may the faith he taught always remain fresh in Ireland and wherever Irish missionaries carried it.
Brendan Hoban identifies the positive features of the new pope, suggesting he might be a new John XXIII — an unexpected appointment, who might surprise us all (first published in the Daily Mail of 14/3/2013).
Sean McDonagh highlights Patrick’s experience of forced migration and slavery, which would give the saint an understanding the plight of Ireland’s migrants today.
This weekend, the Church hears a call to rejoice: now that we have reached the midway point of Lent, the glory of Easter is so much closer. We renew our Lenten commitments and hasten towards the paschal celebrations.
Brian Fahy shares the lesson of accepting people as they are, which he learned from his late wife Margaret. He wishes the church would learn to accept all its gay members as they are — drawing on the story of the Prodigal Son to illustrate his message.
Today, as we gather to listen to the Lenten call to repentance, we worship our God of kindness who, like a patient gardener, always gives people a second chance …
In a BBC interview, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, speaks of the need for a debate on priestly celibacy. And he believes it may be time for a pope from the developing world.
Bernard Cotter offers bidding prayers for use at masses next weekend. In his own parish of Newcestown, young people read out the intentions, so they are designed for this. Two young people read three intentions each.
The 40-day pilgrimage to Easter that began on Ash Wednesday is just a few days old. We pray that God, who sustained Jesus in his 40 days of temptations and suffering, will support us on our journey also.
Everyone who believes God’s Word is called to pass on the Good News. Like many who have gone before us, including the prophet Isaiah and the apostles Peter and Paul, we may not feel up to the task. But God helps us every day.
(This is the last Sunday before Lent, which is celebrated as Temperance Sunday.)
Michael Enright is in conversation with Father Tony Flannery, Redemptorist Priest, joint founder of the Association of Catholic Priests of Ireland, writer – and a priest on the outs with the Vatican. Open website here and press ‘LISTEN’ button.
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