Bulletin/Mass details 21st March
We will be back in the church for Mass from Friday 26th March
See the details above
The Palm Sunday Mass will be a bit shorter and simpler. There will be no procession with palms and the Passion reading will be shortened.
The Parish Penance service will take place on the Monday at 7.00p.m and there will be no individual confessions because of the pandemic restrictions.
” on 20 March 2020 during his mass live streamed from the Vatican, Pope Francis explained that the faithful can confess their sins directly to God, ask for them to be pardoned and experience God’s loving forgiveness.
During his homily, or sermon during mass, the Pope said: “Return to your father who is waiting for you. The God of tenderness will heal us; he will heal us of the many, many wounds of life and the many ugly things we have done. Each of us has our own!”
The homily reflected the emphasis that Pope Francis has put on forgiveness and mercy during his seven-year pontificate. God welcomed every repentant sinner with open arms, he said. “It’s like going home.”
But the decision by Pope Francis to speak about confession and suggest that people could instead pray directly to God about their sins is also influenced by the highly unusual situation people find themselves in.
Many Catholics think of going to confession during Lent because it is a traditional time of repentance. There is also a tradition that people make their Easter duty during Eastertide – going to confession and to holy communion. But these practices are put into jeopardy this year by the coronavirus pandemic and the demands of governments, accepted by the Vatican, that people stay away from churches and engage with others.
Lent is a special time “to let God wash us, purify us, to let God embrace us”, the Pope said, and the best place for that is the confessional.
“But many people today would tell me, ‘Father, where can I find a priest, a confessor, because I can’t leave the house? And I want to make peace with the Lord, I want him to embrace me, I want the Father’s embrace’.”
And he advised Catholics that the Church teaches through the catechism that you can make your own direct confession to God if you find yourselves in a situation where you cannot go to confession. Instead, said Pope Francis: “As the catechism teaches, you can draw near to God’s forgiveness without having a priest at hand. Think about it. This is the moment.”
“He wants people to take more responsibility and repent from the heart,” said Lamb. “In a way he is using this crisis to get people to be more mature. The situation is forcing them to think harder about their faith.”
The Pope may well have also been concerned about the risks priests are facing in administering to people. By Monday night, the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera was reporting that 60 priests have died of Covid-19, mostly in northern Italy where the pandemic is at its worst.
While Pope Francis has encouraged Catholics to make their own personal confession instead of seeing a priest, plenty have been doing that for years. The once-weekly or monthly spiritual discipline has been ignored by many Catholics for years, especially those living in the West.
According to John Cornwell, author of The Dark Box, a history of confession, its distinct unpopularity is due to Catholics being first initiated as penitents when children.
“It really went down the tubes because it was so infantilised”, he said, reflecting on the lists of trivial misdemeanours that children felt obliged to list to priests.
Its usual pattern – shaped by childhood – is that a penitent lists his or her sins in a few minutes and the priest listens, maybe asks a few questions, then imposes a penance, usually an Our Father or saying a few Hail Marys, and after an act of contrition is said, offers the penitent absolution. But Cornwell insists it is a worthwhile practice for adults to help them develop a stronger relationship with God when there is more of a dialogue between the person confessing and the confessor.
“In fact it is a beautiful sacrament if you have sinned grievously and you turn to God you find forgiveness,” he said. “For adults it can be a wonderful means of spiritual direction.”
The Vatican is also considering the use of general absolution during the Covid-19 crisis. On 20 March it published a text from the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Roman Curia office that dates back to the 12th century which deals with matters of the “internal forum” – how individuals come to personal moral decision-making.
The note advised that in the time of Covid-19 the sacrament can be administered in the normal way where possible through the individual confession, but it recognises the possibility of the administration of “general absolution” to members of the faithful together without “individual confession” in times of “imminent danger of death”, as explained in the code of Canon Law 961.
The Mass of The Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday will be simplified – no washing of the Feet.
The Good Friday Commemoration of the Lord’s Passion at 3.00 will also be shortened – we may not ‘kiss’ the cross but we can venerate it observing the rules about distancing.
The Easter Vigil at 8.30 on the Saturday Evening will also be much shortened but it is the church’s great Mass and we will do our best to make it an occasion of remembering, joy, and renewal of faith.
No Easter Egg hunt this year! But there are plans for ‘something else’ and artistic creativity is at work.
Radioalba.org will have a special Stations of the Cross and a ‘Seven Last Words’ and I hope that we can put these two services and perhaps some special Morning Prayers for Holy Week onto the St Leo the Great Facebook.
Morning Prayers daily: followed by school Morning Prayer and notes on the daily readings: 7.00 a.m. and hourly until 12.00
Evening Prayers at 8.00 and hourly until 10.00
Night Prayers 8.50p.m. and hourly until 10.50
Sunday Mass:
The Canticle of Ezechiel: Hear me, my people
| First reading |
|---|
| Jeremiah 31:31-3 |
I will write my Law in their hearts
| Responsorial Psalm Psalm 50 g |
|---|
| Psalm 50(51):3-4,12-15 |
| Second reading | Hebrews 5:7- |
|---|
He learned to obey and he became the source of eternal salvation
| Gospel | John 12:20-3 |
|---|
If a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it yields a rich harvest
The Intercessions
Let’s pray for more generosity of heart
so that we who have inherited the new covenant foreseen by Jeremiah in Babylon may live up to it by the way we live. Lord hear us
Let’s pray for all who are ill or are suffering in any way – whether from the coronavirus, or any other sickness or anxiety: Sr Bridie Dowd, Sr Anne, Ellen Hamilton, Jimmy Kennedy, Kathleen Mallon, Molly McGavigan, Teresa Kidd, Margaret McLean, Andrine Mansi, Mary Clunie, Sean Fitzgerald, Ishbel MacMillan, Jack Rae, Anne Judge, Catherine Mulrine, Yvonne Watt, Rae McVey, John Gibson, Eleanor Reid, Heather Francke, for all being treated in the local Hospice, and all who serve the country in the emergency services.
Lord hear us.
Let’s pray for peace, particularly in the Holy Land and the Middle East; for refugees and asylum seekers, and for a greater spirit of hospitality and compassion in our own country. Lord hear us
For those who have died recently including Sr Matthew and Jack Clunie,
for those whose anniversaries fall about now including Michael Kennedy and Irene Brannan, and for all who are mourning.
Lord, hear us
The Communion hymn this week is:
Unless the seed dies it bears no fruit. Unless it dies, it stays a single grain;
But if it dies the harvest will be great. Yes, in the ground the dying seed will rise!
Whoever lives for this world surely dies; but death to self leads to eternal life!
These are the words I speak to you today. They point towards the death I must go through.
Now is the time of judgement on this world: The Prince of Evil is at last cast out.
When I am lifted up through glorious Cross then I will draw all peoples to myself.
I am the Way that leads you into God. I am the Truth that guides you on this Way.
I am the Life I lay down for the sheep: eternal Life that never will be lost.
If you love me then you will keep my word, and I will raise you to eternal joy!
