From our parish priest, Fr Greg on temporary closure of the church

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Posted on by on March 23rd, 2020 | 0 Comments »

Dear friends,

Each day the Coronavirus pandemic affects us more and more. As of midday we will close the church in accordance with the directives of the Federal Government. This will be a sad loss for many of us.
Instead of lamenting what we do not have we need now to nourish the sources of our faith, hope and love at home.

1. We need to pray in ways that strengthen our personal relationship with Jesus. Our prayer can begin with being relaxed, silent and aware of the presence of the Lord with us. We need to have a sense of allowing ourselves to be known, affirmed and loved by God. Prayer is a dynamic relationship. It begins with a basic trust in the love of God, it grows in humble fidelity and creative love. What happens then is up to us and God’s Holy Spirit.
2. We need to read the Scriptures and quietly let them speak to us and then to reflect on them. A good place to start is to read the Scripture readings for each day from the mass and to meditate on them.
3. We also need to reflect on the liturgy of Holy Week and Easter by reading the Readings and prayers of the ceremonies. The prayers of the liturgy are a balanced spiritual diet. Over time they change how we see God and ourselves and how we pray.
4. The mass is essentially a wonderful prayer of thanksgiving to God for all he has given us in Christ. To be a Eucharistic Christian is to be grateful for the life we have been given. Not the life we might have had in our dreams but the life we have been given, we need to be grateful for everything.

To find the daily scripture readings online a good starting place is bibleclaret.org/liturgy/ it contains commentary and food for reflection.

I will make available the texts for all the Holy Week Masses and ceremonies closer to Palm Sunday.

If you want to follow a celebration of the mass online there are a number of sites with masses from different places. If you know Italian you can follow Pope Francis’s daily mass as it is live streamed. If you want an English translation and summary go to https://www.vaticannews.va/…/mass-casa-santa-marta.pagelist…

I can also recommend the mass of Fr Kevin Bates, one of my teachers, who is now a parish priest in Sydney. His parish has a YouTube page https://
www.youtube.com/channel/UCYqNs5RQ54TCk2lIkMyH9zQ

Each day Frs Tadgh, John Pallipaddan and I concelebrate the Eucharist in our priory chapel. We pray especially for all our parishioners and all who suffer as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic anywhere in the world,

Every blessing,

Greg Burke

« Church closed from midday today until further notice
All parish groups suspended until further notice »

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