Catholic in Yanchep

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Author Archives: Deirdre Fleming


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3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B | They stood there dumbfounded

The Resurrection, showing Christ raising Adam and Eve, Greek Orthodox Byzantine Icon, egg tempera on wood panel.

The Resurrection, showing Christ raising Adam and Eve, Greek Orthodox Byzantine Icon, egg tempera on wood panel.

Why do people change their minds?  In today’s readings the apostles are dumbfounded to realise that Jesus’ resurrection is right here, right now and not at some vague time ‘at the end of the age’.  Matt Nelson writes about the reasons atheists change their minds about God and and more specifically, about Christ.  An extract from his latest article:

The Word of God is living. It has power beyond human comprehension because it is “God-breathed.” God speaks to man in many ways; but especially through prayer and the reading of the inspired Scriptures. When curiosity (or even interest) of non-believers leads to experimentation with prayer or reading the Bible the results can be shocking, as many converts attest.

One former atheist who was profoundly affected by prayer and the Scriptures is author Devin Rose. On his blog, he describes the role that God’s Word played in his gradual conversion process from atheism to Christianity:

“I began praying, saying, “God, you know I do not believe in you, but I am in trouble and need help. If you are real, help me.” I started reading the Bible to learn about what Christianity said…”

Once Rose began to read the Scriptures and talk to God, even as a skeptic, he found himself overwhelmed by something very real:

“Still, I persevered. I kept reading the Bible, asking my roommate questions about what I was reading, and praying. Then, slowly, and amazingly, my faith grew and it eventually threatened to whelm my many doubts and unbelief.”

And the rest was history for the now rising Catholic apologist and author of The Protestant’s Dilemma.

Similarly, renowned sci-fi author John C. Wright distinctly recalls a prayer he said as an adamant atheist:

“I prayed. ‘Dear God, I know… that you do not exist. Nonetheless, as a scholar, I am forced to entertain the hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove your case. If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you do not care whether I believe in you, or that you have no power to produce evidence to persuade me…If you do not exist, this prayer is merely words in the air, and I lose nothing but a bit of my dignity. Thanking you in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter, John Wright.’”

Wright soon received the answer (and effect) he did not expect:

“Something from beyond the reach of time and space, more fundamental than reality, reached across the universe and broke into my soul and changed me…I was altered down to the root of my being…It was like falling in love.”

Wright was welcomed into the Catholic Church at Easter in 2008.

Read more here.

Today’s readings:

Word format: Year B Easter 3rd Sunday 2015

Pdf format: Year B Easter 3rd Sunday 2015

And for a scripture study on today’s readings go to Dr Michael Barber’s commentary here.


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2nd Sunday of Easter, Year B | Does God’s Divine Mercy mean you don’t have to do anything to be saved?

The Incredulity of St Thomas, Caravaggio, (1602), oil on canvas, Sanssouci Palace, Potsdam, Germany.

The Incredulity of St Thomas, Caravaggio, (1602), oil on canvas, Sanssouci Palace, Potsdam, Germany.

This Sunday is the Divine Mercy Sunday, and Pope Francis is about to convoke a Jubilee of Divine Mercy starting on 8th December.  A jubilee year is a time of joy and universal pardon (see Leviticus 25).  Does this mean we are all going to be pardoned without our cooperation?  Let’s remember what St Augustine said:

“He was handed over for our offenses, and He rose again for our justification (19).” What does this mean, “for our justification”? So that He might justify us; so that He might make us just. You will be a work of God, not only because you are a man, but also because you are just. For it is better that you be just than that you be a man. If God made you a man, and you made yourself just, something you were doing would be better than what God did. But God made you without any cooperation on your part. For you did not lend your consent so that god could make you. How could you have consented, when you did not exist? But he who made you without your consent does not justify you without your consent. He made you without your knowledge, but He does not justify you without you willing it.” (Sermon 169, 13, ca. 391-430 A.D.)

To quote Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously, “What then, must we do?” To understand what you need to do, listen to Fr Barron’s homily here.  It’s not enough just to be ‘a nice person’.  Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said,

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ. (The Cost of Discipleship)

Today’s readings can be downloaded here:

Word format: Year B Easter 2nd Sunday 2015

Pdf format: Year B Easter 2nd Sunday 2015


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Easter | The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Myth or Reality?

Christ Risen from the Tomb, Ambrogio Bergognone (c. 1470-1523), Samual H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Christ Risen from the Tomb, Ambrogio Bergognone (c. 1470-1523), Samual H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

A very happy and blessed Easter to all our readers! Please join us at 6.30 tonight for the Vigil.

Readings for the Easter Vigil:

Word format:  Easter A B C

Pdf format: Easter A B C

Let’s face it, our culture has walked so far away from Jesus that it is now high time we turned around and saw him with fresh eyes.  Christians are not worshipping some mythical figure, wise teacher or guru.

The first witnesses maintain that the same Jesus who had been brutally and unmistakably put to death and buried was, through the power of God, alive again. He was not vaguely “with God,” nor had his soul escaped from his body; nor had he risen in a purely symbolic or metaphorical sense. He, Jeshoua from Nazareth, the friend whom they knew, was alive again. What was expected for all the righteous dead at the end of time had happened, in time, to this one particular man, to this Jesus. It was the very novelty of the event that gave such energy and verve to the first Christian proclamation. On practically every page of the New Testament, we find a grab-you-by-the-lapels quality, for the early Christians were not trading in bland spiritual abstractions or moral bromides. They were trying to tell the whole world that something so new and astounding had happened that nothing would ever again be the same. ( Fr Robert Barron: continue reading at  http://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/what-easter-means/482/)

Watch this video to find out why the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is credible.

Even today, miracles are occurring to confirm that Jesus is alive and with us.  They just don’t get into the mainstream media.  Read here about the Eucharistic Miracle witnessed by Pope Francis, and attested to by well-known Australian investigative journalist, Mike Willesee.

http://www.loamagazine.org/nr/the_main_topic/eucharistic_miracle_in_buenos.html


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Good Friday | Why did Jesus die?

The Crucifixion, Isenheim Altarpiece, centre panel, Matthias Grünewald, 1512-1516, chapel of the Hospital of Saint Anthony, Isenheim, Germany, c. 1510-15, oil on wood, 9' 9 1/2" x 10' 9" Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France.

The Crucifixion, Isenheim Altarpiece, centre panel, Matthias Grünewald, 1512-1516, chapel of the Hospital of Saint Anthony, Isenheim, Germany, c. 1510-15, oil on wood, 9′ 9 1/2″ x 10′ 9″ Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France.

Today is the most solemn day of the year, and Catholics spend it in prayer, fasting and abstinence.  Why do we do it?  What is the significance of Jesus dying on the cross?

Billy Kangas discusses this question on his blog

An excerpt …

One day I came in and there was a giant banner hanging over the pulpit that read, “Why did Jesus die?” At first I didn’t take too much notice of it, but as I sat alone in the room for the next two hours the question began to gnaw at me. It got under my skin, it infected me. It became more than a question, it became a challenge. The question “why did Jesus die,” eventually drove me to question my faith, rethink my dogma and eventually set me on a path that ended in my joining the Catholic Church in the 2013 Easter Vigil.

Kangas goes on to explain the difference between the Protestant ‘penal substitution’ explanation (Jesus has to suffer for us because God is angry) and the Catholic view:

Augustine realized that God could have saved us with his power. God is fully capable of overpowering any creature, sin, vice, or person. God chooses to overcome with Christ’s death because God wanted to create a life with humanity where they could participate in God’s saving action with Him. A pure exercise of divine power would not have given humanity a way of participation. God used the shedding of blood because he wanted to give humanity a path of salvation that they could imitate, and even be united in through the sacramental life of the church.

Although men and women are freed from death and forgiven of their sins, they are not made perfect when they are baptized into Christ. People still fall into temptation and sin. Augustine also viewed the Cross as a sure guide for endurance in Christ. God’s action in Christ’s life, and death is the starting point that demonstrates what true obedience to God looks like. The salvation which is inaugurated on the cross is worked out as God’s grace works actively in us, and is made perfect as the Church as a whole is saved from even their sinful desires through the purgative life of the saints in unity with one another in Christ. (c.f. Augustine, Sermon 222; 232; 233)

Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/billykangas/2014/01/how-this-simple-question-turned-me-catholic.html#ixzz3WCXudEBj.

I have put together a booklet for The Lord’s Passion, which we remember this afternoon at 3 p.m.  Please join us for this and Stations of the Cross this morning at 10 a.m.

Word format: Good Friday A B C

Pdf format: Good Friday A B C


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Mass Times and Venues for Holy Week, Yanchep to Lancelin

Christ Crucified, Diego Velazquez, 1632, oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid

Christ Crucified, Diego Velazquez, 1632, oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid

HOLY THURSDAY, 2 April: Confession 6 p.m. before Mass, Presbytery, 3 Blaxland Ave, Two Rocks.

MASS OF THE LORD’S SUPPER:   6.30 p.m., 2 April, Presbytery, 3 Blaxland Avenue,Two Rocks.

GOOD FRIDAY, 3 April:  STATIONS OF THE CROSS, 10 a.m., St James Church,  Lagoon Drive, Yanchep.

GOOD FRIDAY, 3 April: THE LORD’S PASSION, 3 p.m., St James Church, Yanchep

EASTER VIGIL:  YANCHEP: Saturday 4 April, 6.30 p.m., St James Church, Lagoon Drive.

EASTER SUNDAY: GUILDERTON:   Sunday, 5 April, 8 a.m., Guilderton Community Hall, Wedge Street.

EASTER SUNDAY: LANCELIN:   Sunday, 5 April,  10.00 a.m., 33 Gingin Road.

CONFESSIONS:       Please ask Fr Augustine before Mass.

Any questions?  Phone 9561 2172 or 0400 660 337.


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Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Year B | Yeshua, name above all names

Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem

The Entry of The Lord into Jerusalem

“One day I will do something that will change the system and everyone will then know my name and remember me.”  These are reported to be the words of Andreas Lubitz to his former girlfriend, prior to committing mass murder by deliberately crashing an Airbus A320 into the French Alps this week.  His action is currently being described in the news media as a case of depression.  But depressed people don’t generally commit murder on a grand scale.  On the other hand, people under the influence of Satan do.  Let’s remember who the real enemy is.  And remember that the best way to counter evil is prayer.

Lubitz wanted to elevate his own name.  In contrast, we read in today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians , how Jesus:

 … humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

John Bergsma has a beautiful commentary on this reading over at The Sacred Page.

This famous passage—often thought to be a early Christian hymn or creed that St. Paul is quoting—gives an outline of the whole Gospel.  Jesus did not see “equality with God as something to be seized,” using the Greek word harpagmon, from a root harpazo, “to snatch or seize, often quickly or violently.”  Jesus is thus a contrast with the Greco-Roman mythical hero Prometheus, who ascended to the realm of the gods and “snatched” fire, bringing it back to man in an effort to attain equality with the divine.  So Prometheus has always stood as an icon of rebellion against God or the gods, and a worldview that imagines the divine as opposed to or limiting the human.  In this worldview, humanity is liberated and fulfilled at the expense of the divine; the realm of God must be rolled back to make way for the kingdom of man.  This spirit continues to animate the New Atheist movement in our own day (with their flagship publisher, Prometheus Books), which is more a miso-theistic (God-hating) cultural force than an a-theistic (no-God) one.

In contrast to Prometheus, Jesus does not conceive of the relationship between God and man as one of antagonism, in which the divine nature must be violently “snatched” from the Divinity.  Jesus empties himself of the glory of his divinity in order to descend to the status of creature, of “slave.”  Crucifixion was the form of execution mandated for slaves; citizens could not be crucified.  Having taken on human nature, he submits to the death of slaves: “even death on a cross.”  But paradoxically, this great act of self-giving love shows the glory of Jesus and the glory of God.  Truly, a God who would so empty himself out of love is greater, more lovable, more worthy of worship, than a God who will not give of himself. The cross is the glory of our God.  So God the Father bestows on Jesus “the Name which is above every name”, so that at the Name of Jesus, “every knee should bend.”  St. Paul probably has in mind here the ancient ritual of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), on which, according to the Mishnah, the High Priest would exit the Holy of Holies after making atonement for Israel and pronounce the priestly blessing of Numbers 6 upon the gathered worshipers.  This was the one day a year (apparently) when the Divine Name YHWH was pronounced audibly, and each time the assembly heard the name pronounced, they dropped to the ground in prostration.  The name of “Jesus” is now heir to the glory of the divine name YHWH.  In the Name of Jesus we now find salvation.  Thus, in the Catholic tradition we bow the head at the Name of Jesus and celebrate the Feast Day of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Jan 3), for which our present text is an optional Second Reading.

Unlike the New Atheists, the Jesus and his disciples do not regard the divine-human relationship as one of antagonism where goods are “snatched” from each other, but a relationship of communion, love, and self-gift.  The human is not exalted at the expense of the divine; rather, human and divine are exalted together.  God and man are mutually glorified by loving each other.  Humanity becomes more human by becoming more divine.  Divinization also humanizes.

Today is the beginning of Holy Week, where we follow Jesus from his final entry into Jerusalem to his Resurrection.  This year we have the narration from the Gospel of Mark.  You can download a 12 page Mass booklet for the Palm Sunday Procession and Mass here:

Word format: Year B Palm Passion Sunday

Pdf format: Year B Palm Passion Sunday


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Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B | Attuning Ourselves to the Divine Will

Adoration of the Trinity (Landauer Altarpiece), Albrecht Dürer, 1511, oil on poplar panel, Kunst-historisches Museum, Vienna.

Adoration of the Trinity (Landauer Altarpiece), Albrecht Dürer, 1511, oil on poplar panel, Kunst-historisches Museum, Vienna.

In one of my posts on Facebook last week, a comment was made that our religion was ‘repressive’ (referring to my support for traditional marriage).  By that, the speaker meant ‘how dare you tell other people how to behave’!  (The people who say these sorts of things are usually, by the way, advocates of free speech.)  Actually, the Church doesn’t tell ‘other people’ how to behave.  It tells its members how to behave, and it is the job of these members (the faithful) to advocate for best practice in the public square, for the good of society.  It is also the job of the faithful to bring up their children to follow the good, the true and the beautiful and to repress (yes, repress – or suppress, if you want to be less Freudian) its baser desires: selfishness, unfaithfulness, dishonesty, disobedience, pride, lust, envy, and so on.

In today’s Readings from Hebrews and the Gospel of John, we see Jesus wrestling with the natural desire not to die (i.e. repressing this desire), versus obedience to the Divine plan:

During his life on earth, Christ offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in silent tears, to the one who had the power to save him out of death, and he submitted so humbly that his prayer was heard. Although he was Son, he learnt to obey through suffering; but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation. (Heb 5:7-9)

and again in today’s Gospel:

‘Now my soul is troubled.
What shall I say:
Father, save me from this hour?
But it was for this very reason
that I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify your name!’ (Jn 12:27-28)

In Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 2, Pope Benedict discusses the troubled soul of Jesus:

The great Byzantine theologian Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) formulated an answer to this question [on the relationship between Jesus’ humanity and divinity] by struggling to understand Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives. Maximus is first and foremost a determined opponent of monotheletism: Jesus’ human nature is not amputated through union with the Logos; it remains complete. And the will is part of human nature. This irreducible duality of human and divine willing in Jesus must not, however, be understood to imply the schizophrenia of a dual personality. Nature and person must be seen in the mode of existence proper to each. In other words: in Jesus the “natural will” of the human nature is present, but there is only one “personal will”, which draws the “natural will” into itself. And this is possible without annihilating the specifically human element, because the human will, as created by God, is ordered to the divine will. In becoming attuned to the divine will, it experiences its fulfillment, not its annihilation. Maximus says in this regard that the human will, by virtue of creation, tends toward synergy (working together) with the divine will, but that through sin, opposition takes the place of synergy: man, whose will attains fulfillment through becoming attuned to God’s will, now has the sense that his freedom is compromised by God’s will. He regards consenting to God’s will, not as his opportunity to become fully himself, but as a threat to his freedom against which he rebels.

The drama of the Mount of Olives lies in the fact that Jesus draws man’s natural will away from opposition and back toward synergy, and in so doing he restores man’s true greatness. In Jesus’ natural human will, the sum total of human nature’s resistance to God is, as it were, present within Jesus himself. The obstinacy of us all, the whole of our opposition to God is present, and in his struggle, Jesus elevates our recalcitrant nature to become its real self.

The question for each of us is: do we experience God as a threat to our freedom, or do we desire God so much that we happily allow him to use our freedom for his purposes, and in so doing, achieve true self-fulfilment?

Mass readings for today …
Word format: Year B Lent 5th Sunday 2015

Pdf format: Year B Lent 5th Sunday 2015

Other resources:

  1. Listen to Fr Barron’s homily for today.
  2. Scripture study for this weekend.


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4th Sunday of Lent | Why do so many prefer darkness to light?

The Crucifixion, Isenheim Altarpiece, centre panel, Matthias Grünewald, 1512-1516, chapel of the Hospital of Saint Anthony, Isenheim, Germany, c. 1510-15, oil on wood, 9' 9 1/2" x 10' 9" Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France.

The Crucifixion, Isenheim Altarpiece, centre panel, Matthias Grünewald, 1512-1516, chapel of the Hospital of Saint Anthony, Isenheim, Germany, c. 1510-15, oil on wood, 9′ 9 1/2″ x 10′ 9″ Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France.

This week we saw the tragic death of 18 year old Australian suicide bomber, Jake Bilardi.  In a blog post from January 13, Bilardi says, “And that is where I sit today, waiting for my turn to stand before Allah (azza wa’jal) and dreaming of sitting amongst the best of His creation in His Jannah, the width of which is greater than the width of the heavens and the Earth.’’

How sad that in his search for God, he found the wrong one.  Carolyn Moynahan, in her article, Why do kids desert the West to fight with Isis, written well before Jake’s death, hits the nail on the head in her analysis.  And as Greg Sheridan says in his article in The Australian, “how long can the West live off the moral capital of religious conviction that it is now abandoning? The West is the only part of humanity abandoning religious belief. Can societies in which there is no overarching idea beyond the individual compete successfully in the long run?”

In our readings today, John invites us to turn to the right God while there is still time:

For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world,
but so that through him the world might be saved.
No one who believes in him will be condemned;
but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already

Of course, Westerners are likely to balk at the word ‘condemned’.  But of course it’s not God who condemns you, it’s your refusal to seek him that does.

Download today’s readings here:

Word format: Year B Lent 4th Sunday 2015

Pdf format: Year B Lent 4th Sunday 2015

To understand  how God can be both merciful and yet allow people to be condemned, read the homily from Sacerdos.  And listen to Fr Barron explain God’s tender mercy here.

Click-here-to-listen


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3rd Sunday of Lent, Year B | Jesus, the Embodiment of the Law

Pope Francis, Penance and Reconciliation during 24 Hours for the Lord

Pope Francis, Penance / Reconciliation during 24 Hours for the Lord

Are The Ten Commandments still relevant for us?  I have friends who claim the Bible is nothing special – just a man-made unenlightened compilation of Bronze Age writings, and certainly not inspired by the Holy Spirit.  If that were the case, Jesus would not fulfil so many prophecies from the Old Testament.  In today’s Gospel, for example, we see Jesus fulfilling prophecies from Isaiah 56:6-7, Jeremiah 7:1-11 and Malachi 3:1-3, to name only a few.

Mass Readings Word format: Year B Lent 3rd Sunday 2015

Mass Readings Pdf format: Year B Lent 3rd Sunday 2015

John Bergsma gives a great analysis of the readings here.

I have to conclude that my friends who denigrate the Bible are too used to thinking of themselves as ‘good people’ and find it too confronting to consider themselves as sinners, so they are compelled to ‘shoot the messenger’.  Getting down to practicalities, Pope Francis has called all Christians to make 13th and 14th March “24 Hours for the Lord”.  He wants us to go to Adoration, examine our consciences (take some time about this – perhaps spend an hour in Adoration asking the Lord to reveal your sins to you) and receive the sacrament of penance / reconciliation / confession during this time.  To prepare for this, why not listen to Fr Barron’s homily on the Ten Commandments here:

Click-here-to-listen

 

and do a thorough examination of conscience.  You can download these as a guide:

Word format: Confession and Examination of Conscience

Pdf format: Confession and Examination of Conscience

By the way, these lists of sins are not exhaustive – they are just meant as a guide.  If you take time to examine yourself and listen to the Holy Spirit, you’ll find many imperfections that aren’t even on the list.

For those of you in the Perth Northern Suburbs, you can attend 24 hours for the Lord events here:

  • Joondalup Holy Spirit Chapel: Adoration and Confession from 00h00 (midnight) Friday until midnight Saturday.  Mass: 12:10 Friday.   Please put your name on the adoration roster in the front porch.
  • Our Lady of the Mission, Whitfords: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament: Friday 09.30 a.m. to 7.00 p.m., Mass Friday 9 a.m, Saturday 08.30.  Confession: Saturday 12.00 to 13:00and 17:30 – 18:00.
  • St Simon Peter, Ocean Reef: Blessed Sacrament Adoration Friday 9:00 to 18:50.  Mass: Friday 19:00, Saturday 8:30, Reconciliation: Friday 18:30-18:50, Saturday 17:00-17:45.
  • St Andrew’s, Clarkson: Mass: Friday and Saturday 08:00, Reconciliation: Saturday 17:00 to 17:30, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction: Friday 15:00 to 17:00.

Wishing you joy and grace this Lent!


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2nd Sunday of Lent, Year B | Can you sacrifice what you love the most?

Abraham and Isaac, Henry Davenport Northrop, 1894, Treasures of the Bible, illustration.

Abraham and Isaac, Henry Davenport Northrop, 1894, Treasures of the Bible, illustration.

This Sunday’s readings link Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac with the Transfiguration of Christ.  What’s the connection?  And how are we to respond when people like Richard Dawkins say things like this in The God Delusion?

“Any modern legal system would have prosecuted Abraham for child abuse, and if he had actually carried through his plan to sacrifice Isaac, we would have convicted him of first degree murder.” 

Mass readings, Word format:Year B Lent 2nd Sunday

Mass readings, Pdf format:Year B Lent 2nd Sunday

John Kincaid lays it out brilliantly for you at The Sacred Page and Fr Barron also speaks about the meaning of the Abraham and Isaac narrative in his Lent reflections.  If you haven’t signed up to these yet, please do!  His homily for today focuses on the mystical experience of God.

Click-here-to-listen

The trouble with Dawkins is that he does not understand the manner of God’s revelation of himself, and neither does he want to.  If you really desire to understand God, pray for a heart that is humble and open to a mystical experience of him.  Nothing gets in the way of experiencing God like arrogance and self-righteousness.  And read a commentary that explains how the Bible works, such as Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins’ Walking with God.