Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Season of the Resurrection - 7th Sunday

Dear parishioners and friends of St Charbel’s Parish,

Welcome to this week’s edition of Kadishat, St Charbel’s weekly newsletter! Please click on this link to read the full newsletter with Arabic translation.

In the Gospel for this Sunday we read from John 13: 31-35 where Jesus gives His disciples and us a new commandment: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ And then Jesus continues by saying that it is our love for one another that should characterise us as Christians. It is so easy to love our friends and families and the people who love is. The challenge in fulfilling this command is to love the people with whom we disagree and who may not always love us back.

Feast of the Ascension
This week, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Ascension. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read about that day when Our Lord, gathered with His Apostles, was taken up into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us in His glorious kingdom. The daily struggles and concerns can distract us and make us forget that we were made to join God in heaven. We pray that we may always keep our gaze set on this reality.

Walk with Our Lady
As we continue through the month of May, dedicated to Our Lady, I invite you all to join with our youth on Friday 25 May at 8pm at St Charbel’s Church to pray the Maronite evening prayers followed by a candlelit rosary procession to honour the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Queen and Mother.May Our Lady accompany you this week and every day of your lives!

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20th Year—Number 1009 Sunday 20/05/2012
Season of the Resurrection
7th Sunday
Sunday’s Readings: Ephesians 1: 15-23& John 13: 31-35 

A new commandment

“When he had gone, Jesus said: Now has the Son of man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified. 

If God has been glorified in him, God will in turn glorify him in himself, and will glorify him very soon. 

Little children, I shall be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and, as I told the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come. 

I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you. It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognise you as my disciples.” John 13: 31-35



Reflection of the Week

Love is all you need - No favourites

"Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." 
"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”

The commandment: “love one another”
Jesus says those same words to all disciples today. This is Jesus’ last message, His last words, the last important instruction for us. This is what we are supposed to do: “love one another”. We are “commanded” to love one another.

The condition to the commandment: “as I have loved you”
But there is a condition to the commandment. The key to the commandment to love one another is the phrase “as I have loved you.” We have to love as Jesus loved. How did he love? He gave his life for people. He served people. He helped people. He healed people. He fed people. He liberated people. He taught people. He encouraged people. He blessed people. He prayed for people. He felt compassion for people. He forgave people. He was nonviolent toward people. He resisted evil for people. He laid down his life in love for everyone and he says to us, “Now you go and do the same thing. Love others as I have loved you.” It’s a great challenge, but it’s also the best way to live, to walk in the footsteps of Jesus on the road of love, trying to love as Jesus loved us.

The measure “everyone will know that you are my disciples”
“If you love one another as I have loved you, then you will be my disciples and everyone will know that you are my disciples.” So the measure of our discipleship to Jesus is not whether or not we are popular or successful or law-abiding or rich or patriotic; not whether or not we support our country; not whether or not we did what everyone else did--but whether or not we love one another.

Jesus was the love of God wrapped up in flesh. Christians represent the love of Christ wrapped up in a fellowship. There is an absolutely amazing power in genuine love. There is a love that can really last. It is the love of Christ living within his people. It is a love that will not die even when death comes. It is truly the love that can last -- not only for now, but forever!

The road of love
Love is like a road. Love is a path. There are many roads and paths we can take, but if we follow Jesus, we walk one road, one path: the road of love. The road of love leads to life, which means it is a way of life. It also means love has boundaries. On the road of love, some behavior is no longer permissible. One day, when we reach the end of the road of love, we will be welcomed home into the house of love, as we hear in the book of Revelation, where there are no more tears, no more suffering, no more pain, no more violence, no more empires, no more wars, no more nuclear weapons, and no more death, and we will be ready to spend eternity in the land of love because we know how to love one another.

Why is love so important?
We are commanded to do many things for each other in the New Testament, but the command to "love one another" occurs 16 times. Simply because it demonstrates the true character of God. God is a Trinity of persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who have always existed in relationships of love. The Bible says that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). He commands us even to love our enemies because that is what God does And there is nothing that will more readily convince others of the true nature of God than Christians showing this love to one another. We learn what love is by seeing how God has acted. It is the cross that defines so much of how we should behave. Christian love is self-giving action on behalf of another.

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Saint of the Week
St Rita of Cassia,
The Miraculous, Saint of the impossible
Feast Day 22 May

Daughter of Antonio and Amata Lotti, a couple known as the Peace-makers of Jesus; they had Rita late in life. From her early youth, Rita visited the Augustinian nuns at Cascia, Italy, and showed interest in a religious life. However, when she was twelve, her parents betrothed her to Paolo Mancini, an ill-tempered, abusive individual who worked as town watchman, and who was dragged into the political disputes of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Disappointed but obedient, Rita married him when she was 18, and was the mother of twin sons. She put up with Paolo's abuses for eighteen years before he was ambushed and stabbed to death. Her sons swore vengeance on the killers of their father, but through the prayers and interventions of Rita, they forgave the offenders.

Upon the deaths of her sons, Rita again felt the call to religious life. However, some of the sisters at the Augustinian monastery were relatives of her husband's murderers, and she was denied entry for fear of causing dissension. Asking for the intervention of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, she managed to bring the warring factions together, not completely, but sufficiently that there was peace, and she was admitted to the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalen at age 36.

Rita lived 40 years in the convent, spending her time in prayer and charity, and working for peace in the region. She was devoted to the Passion, and in response to a prayer to suffer as Christ, she received a chronic head wound that appeared to have been caused by a crown of thorns, and which bled for 15 years.

Confined to her bed the last four years of her life, eating little more than the Eucharist, teaching and directing the younger sisters. Near the end she had a visitor from her home town who asked if she'd like anything; Rita's only request was a rose from her family's estate. The visitor went to the home, but it being January, knew there was no hope of finding a flower; there, sprouted on an otherwise bare bush, was a single rose blossom.

Among the other areas, Rita is well-known as a patron of desperate, seemingly impossible causes and situations. This is because she has been involved in so many stages of life – wife, mother, widow, and nun, she buried her family, helped bring peace to her city, saw her dreams denied and fulfilled – and never lost her faith in God, or her desire to be with Him

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The Maronites and Lebanon (10)
In every stormy day there stand a Patriarch (2)

Who was the first Maronite Patriarch?
The first Maronite patriarch was St. John Maroun who lived in the 7th Century. He studied at the Convent of St. Maroun and then completed his education in Constantinople. St. John became an outstanding member of his community. 

He was ordained priest and in a few years of priesthood and missionary life converted many to the Catholic faith. He was presented by the French prince Eugene and the French Colony of Antioch to the Pope’s delegate in Syria, who consecrated him Bishop of Batroun, one of the Phoenician cities of Lebanon on the coast between Byblos and Tripoli. Under his guidance, the Maronite Community flourished in a few years increasing in number, power and extension. He was very active in visiting his people throughout his diocese, teaching the Word of God, converting the heretics and sinners and the weak and the sick. In 685 AD,

Lebanon and the whole Near East were afflicted by plague. St. John Maroun used to visit cities and villages healing those who were ill with his prayers. He wrote a special Mass for this purpose which is still celebrated by priests at the time of a plague. 

At the death of Patriarch Theophanis in Constantinople in 686 AD, the Maronites and their allies, compactly organised in a religious, cultural and military force, elected St. John Maroun as Patriarch of Antioch. When he was elected Patriarch of Antioch, St. John Maroun met the delegate of Pope St. Sergius, at Tripoli. (One of the Lebanese coastal cities)/ (Pope St. Sergius, was born in Syria, elected pope 687 AD and died 701 A.D.). Patriarch St. John Maroun accompanied the Pope’s delegate to Rome. In Rome, Pope Sergius confirmed St. John Maroun as Patriarch of Antioch.

Was the election of St. John Maroun legitimate?
It certainly was : 
1) The Maronites did not elect a patriarch against another existing patriarch of Antioch. 
2) They have formed the only Catholic organised presence in the whole diocese of the East between (640 - 742). 
3) The Maronites had simply filled an ecclesiastical vacuum created by a series of heretic Melkite Patriarchs, who were not residing in the city of Antioch. 
4) The frequent inconsistent interference of the emperors in the affairs of the church and the serious upheavals caused by the Muslem impact, gave them another reason to step in, prompted by a sense of urgency, in order to secure Apostolic Succession. 
5) Above all, it was explicitly recognised by the Holy See.


Next Sunday: In every stormy day there stand a Patriarch (3)
Is There a Connection, between the Maronite Patriarchate and That of Antioch?

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