Monday 28 May 2012

Season of the Pentecost - Pentecost Sunday

Dear parishioners and friends of St Charbel’s Parish,

Welcome to this week’s edition of Kadishat!

This Sunday, we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. This is the day when the Church was truly born. The disciplines were scared, confused and hiding behind closed doors. When the Holy Spirit descended on them, they poured into the streets and started preaching the Gospel. The disciplines were blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We also have received these gifts through our Baptism and Confirmation.

Please click here to download the full Kadishat newsletter with Arabic translation.

Year of Grace
The Bishops of Australia have declared a Year of Grace starting on Pentecost 2012. This is a time for us, as Church, to celebrate and renew our faith and life as Catholics. It is an invitation for all of us to "Start afresh from Christ", to attune our hearts and minds to the presence of the Holy Spirit, so that our lives may be transformed.

You can learn more about the Year of Grace by accessing the following website: http://www.yearofgrace.catholic.org.au/

At the end of this month of May, I entrust you all to the care of Our Lady, Help of Christians, whose feast we celebrated on the 24th of May. May she guard you under her mantle and be your guiding light to her Son, Jesus Christ.

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20th Year—Number 1010 Sunday 27/05/2012
Season of the Pentecost
Pentecost Sunday
Sunday’s Readings: Acts of Apostles 2: 1-21 & John 14: 15-20



I shall not leave you orphans
“If you love me you will keep my commandments. I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth whom the world can never accept since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you. I shall not leave you orphans; I shall come to you. In a short time the world will no longer see me; but you will see that I live and you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you” John 14: 15-20



All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit 


“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

Acts of Apostles 2: 1-4




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Reflection of the Week

Love Requires Obedience

At the very beginning of today’s passage Jesus tells the disciples 
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

Just as important as what Jesus said is what He did not say. Jesus did not say, “If you keep my commandments, then you love me.” You can’t turn a cause and effect statement around without changing it’s meaning. “If you keep my commandments, then you love me” means that love is produce by obedience or love flows out of obedience. 

What Jesus said was, “if you love me, then you will obey my commandments.” In other words, love produces obedience, or obedience to Christ’s command is the result of genuine love. It is possible to obey Jesus’ words, and not love Him, maybe because of fear of God. However, it should be impossible to love Him and not obey Him. However, the Lord prefers obedience out of love not out of fear!

The help of the counselor
After receiving Jesus into our lives, the next step is to make him Lord over every area of our lives. That process can be long and difficult, but God helps us with His Spirit, who is also called “the Counselor.” The Holy Spirit will assist us in identifying and working on our problem areas. God has given us the Holy Spirit as our “live-in” Counselor to help us navigate to freedom. As we respond in obedience to the Spirit’s guidance, we will successfully cast off the chains of sin-slavery and move into the new life God has prepared for us through Christ.

The Spirit of truth
And I will ask the Father, 
and he will give you another Counselor to be with you for ever
 -- the Spirit of truth --”

The gift of the Counselor, The Holy Spirit is only available for those who have a love relationship with Jesus. Those who not only know about him, but have invited him to be part of their lives, to indwell within their very body. Jesus clearly teaches the importance of us allowing the Holy Spirit to fulfill his role in both our personal lives, and the life of the church. The Holy Spirit guides and leads us at all times, If we allow Him. But it is our choice if we want to be filled by him.

Do you love Jesus
All of your skills, talents, knowledge, possessions and money have no value without a loving way of life without loving God with our whole hearts. Jesus requires us to love Him. Do we really love the Lord?

Message of Pentecost
At Pentecost: three thousand different people of different nations and languages and cultures were drawn together into one church when they heard the disciples declare "the wonders of God" in their own tongues. 

The language of the Spirit transcended the differences among and between people.

This reminds us that whereas language, culture, and race may divide, it is the Lord, through His Spirit and Word, Who brings us unity. Within the church of Jesus Christ, unity is not based upon similar or like-minded viewpoints. Nor is it based upon issues or feelings. Nor is it based upon ethnic background, social class, or skin colour. Rather, all true believers are one in Christ


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Symbols of Pentecost

Fire: One of the symbols of Pentecost is fire. It is not the kind of fire that consumes and destroys; It is the kind of fire that warms, energizes, excites, and powers.

Doves are another symbol of the Spirit, since the Spirit came to Jesus' baptism in the form of a dove. The dove is also a symbol of peace, one of Jesus’ profoundest hopes for the human race.

The wind is another symbol of the Spirit, since the Hebrew word means 'wind' or 'breath'.


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June, Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is a form of devotion to the person Jesus, and especially to His Love.
The Catholic Encyclopedia details a history of this devotion. It observed that from the time of Saint John and Saint Paul there has always been in the Church something like devotion to the love of God, Who so loved the world as to give it His only-begotten Son, and to the love of Jesus, Who has so loved us as to deliver Himself up for us. But, accurately speaking, this is not the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it pays no homage to the Heart of Jesus as the symbol of His love for us. From the earliest centuries, Christ's open side and the mystery of blood and water were meditated upon, and the Church was beheld issuing from the side of Jesus, as Eve came forth from the side of Adam. But there is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries, any worship was rendered the wounded Heart.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart developed further during the seventeenth century by the visions Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a French Visitandine nun at the convent of Paray-le-Monial. She had a vision of Christ's Heart on the feast of Saint John that was similiar to that of Saint Gertrude. Jesus permitted her to rest her head upon His Heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of His love, telling her that He desired to make this known to mankind and to diffuse the treasures of His goodness, and that He had chosen her for this work, (probably 1673, Dec. 27). In June or July o f 1674, Sister Margaret Mary said, Jesus asked to be honored under the figure of His Heart of Flesh and asked for a devotion of expiatory love -- frequent Communion, Communion on the first Friday of each month and the observance of Holy Hours.

In another visioin, on the feast of Corpus Christi 1675, Sister Margaret Mary reported that Jesus told her, "Behold the Heart that has so loved men...instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude..." Jesus then asked for a feast of reparation on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi. bidding her to consult Father de la Colombiére, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray. He recognized the action of the Spirit of God and consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart and directed Sister Margaret Mary to write down her account and to circulate it throughout France and England. Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque was canonized in the 20th century.

On May 25 1899, Pope Leo XIII, in his en-cyclical Annum Sacrum, declared that all Catholics should consecrate themselves to the Christ's Sacred Heart, and his intention to solemnly consecrate all mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus -- although the Pope pointed out that this would simply be giving Christ what is already His.


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The Maronites and Lebanon (11)
In every stormy day there stand a Patriarch (3)

Is There a Connection, between the Maronite Patriarchate and That of Antioch, There surely is.

The Maronite Patriarch was elected in order to continue the succession over the Catholic Patriarchate See of Antioch founded by St. Peter the Apostle before he went to Rome. That is why the title of our Patriarch is still: “Patriarch of Antioch and the whole East”, and for this reason the Maronite Patriarch has the right to add Peter to his own name in honour of St. Peter who was the first Patriarch of Antioch. There are 2 main criteria that guided our Patriarchs: purity of faith and survival. Patriarchs changed their Sees directed by the winds of safety.


What is the role and authority of the Maronite Patriarch?
The Patriarch is the supreme head of the Maronite church. His only superior is the Pope.

He carries the title of Patriarch of Antioch and all the East. The Pope carries as one of his titles, Patriarch of all the West. The Pope is superior to the Patriarch of Antioch in matters which concern the whole Catholic church. But in matters concerning only the see of Antioch, the Patriarch is sole arbiter.

The Maronite patriarchs have been known for their piety, their zeal and their saintly life. Some of them were hermits before they became Patriarchs. Persecutions, suffering and martyrdom, were the characteristics of the Maronites and their patriarchs. A lot of them sought refuge during persecutions in caves and grottoes. While others died for their faith or performed miracles. Some others were prominent scholars and writers. One European traveller described them by saying: “Their staffs are of wood, but they themselves, they are of gold”.

What is the final message ?
We should all remember that persecution, suffering and martyrdom were and still are at the heart of Maronite history. Our history has been written in the blood of Martyrs. Maronite survival living in this cursed East was only possible, due to the faith in their own destiny, their clinging to their traditions and their judicious choices they learned to make.

Lamartine a famous poet and French philosopher, who visited Lebanon in 1832, found in the Maronites a potential for the awakening of the whole Levant. Referring to Egypt’s Mohammad Ali, Lamartine quoted: “Egypt has but a man; Lebanon has a people”. This is what we really need now if we are survive.

References:
Rev Dau B, (1984) History of the Maronites, Lebanon.
Rev Tayah W.P. (1987) The Maronites Roots and Idendity, Florida- USA, Bet Maroon Publishers.


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