Posts made in August, 2009

Twenty Second Sunday – 30 August 2009

Posted by on Aug 30, 2009 in Sunday Reflections | 0 comments

Gospel: Mark 1:1-23 Year B The Pharisees and some scribes had come from Jerusalem…. They are faithful observers of the law…. with their qualities, but also with their faults…. like each one of us! They have zeal for the Word of God: they read It, study It, and teach It. But they are not sufficiently concerned about the light of the Spirit to understand It. They remain stuck with their human interpretation, and they want to impose that on others. Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders? They challenge You about the behaviour of some of Your disciples: They take their meals without washing their hand …. what a scandal! We are tempted to smile …. and yet! Isn’t it just the same with us also sometimes, even during the Eucharistic Feast? Often we argue about ways of doing it dating from past centuries…. and forget Your commandment, Lord: Love one another. Our attention focuses on a detail of the tradition of the elders, for example the way to receive Communion, to the detriment of what is essential: the communion of the Father and of our brothers with You, Jesus. How we deserve, then, the rebuke You address to the scribes: This people honours Me with lip-service, but their hearts are far from Me! The most important thing is not concern for adherence to the rubrics; it is faith and love which should fill our hearts. Preserve us, Lord, from setting aside the commandments of God and clinging to human traditions! For this, come and purify our hearts. Make us attentive to Your Word. Listen to Me all of you and understand! The badness to be erased is not firstly that which we think we see in others, it is what’s within us. It is from inside, from the heart of man that evil comes. You describe this evil to Your disciples with a dozen examples … What insistence! You make us understand in this way that the task to be done begins with the purification of our own heart! Through Communion, come Yourself, Lord, to do this work in...

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Maurice Rouleau, SSS, 79

Posted by on Aug 28, 2009 in Community, Congregation, NEWS, Province | 4 comments

We have been stunned and saddened by the death early on 28th August of our beloved Fr. Maurice Rouleau. He had been ill for less than three weeks, and following hospital admission, he eventually succumbed to massive infection, secondary to abdominal Lymphoma. His death was peaceful and prayerful. His life is changed, not ended. Born in Gardner City, Massachusetts in 1929, he joined our Minor Seminary at Suffern, New York in 1943 and our Novitiate in Barre, Mass. in 1949 making his First Profession of Vows on 8 September 1951. Following completion of his studies, he was ordained on 22 September 1956 at our New York church of St. Jean Baptiste. We fondly remember the celebration of his Golden Jubilee in 2006. In the intervening years he had served in our houses in Cleveland (Ohio), and Hyde Park (New York) before his assignment to Leicester (England) in 1968. He alternated between Leicester and Dublin until 1988, when he returned to Dublin, and happily for us, has remained here ever since. He has served our Congregation as Director of Novices, as Librarian (held a Master’s degree in Library Science), Provincial Treasurer, Vocations Director, and Local Superior. To all of these tasks he brought not only his exceptional and wide-ranging ability, but a cheerful willingness and attitude of caring that truly reflected the Eucharistic Lord he strove to emulate. His work in spreading the Eucharistic message of St. Peter Julian Eymard was not limited to his specific duties in our Communities or our Shrines. His extraordinary level of compassion kept him constantly on the trail of those who were sick at home, or those confined to Hospital or Nursing Home care. If there was need or hardship that he could alleviate, he always made himself available in total selflessness. In recent months, he was Chaplain to a nursing home for elderly religious. Having for several years served as Spiritual Director to a Member of our Secular Institute Servitium Christi, he undertook in the late 1980s to foster further vocations to this way of life, and it is thanks to his efforts in fostering and sustaining these vocations that the Institute has grown in this area. We know that he is very dear to all the Servitium Christi Members, and that they feel his loss very deeply indeed. In the short time since his final illness and hospitalisation, as we prayed for his recovery, and struggled to face the reality of his situation, the impression of him most frequently articulated was that he brought comfort wherever he went. It was not just his total reliability, and constant availability, but also his cheerful disposition which clearly conveyed his loving, caring nature, generously laced with wit and mischievousness. We are indebted to the Mater Hospital staff (especially in the Intensive Care Unit) who brought him comfort in his final days. Fr. Maurice’s passing has left an aching void in our Community, as he was a father-figure to us all, having, in many cases, been the Director of novices who steered us through our early years of formation in St. Peter Julian’s Eucharistic family. He has been an example and an inspiration to us all, and we will miss him terribly. We extend our heartfelt sympathy to his brother Marcel and his sisters Rita and Jeanne whose loss in unspeakable. It has been a great comfort to us to have Marcel and Rita here with us through the final days of Fr. Maurice’s illness, and since his death. We hope that they in turn are comforted by the knowledge that Fr. Maurice was so deeply...

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Twenty First Sunday – 23 August 2009

Posted by on Aug 23, 2009 in Sunday Reflections | 0 comments

Gospel: John 6: 60-69 Year B Many of His disciples …. Those around You, Lord, are Your disciples, people who followed You for a long time, who listened to You to the point of forgetting about providing for their body. Among them there is neither scribe, nor Pharisee ever ready to criticise You; it’s a long way from the crowd at Nazareth who wanted to be rid of You. There are only disciples, men and women who trust You and follow You, like every one of us. So You can speak in all simplicity. That’s what You do in announcing the Eucharist to them. But what a reaction! What a sudden turnabout! This is intolerable language! It’s crisis amongst Your friends, amongst those who follow You. It is true that Your language is rather shocking. What are You going to do? You do not retract, you do not adjust the meaning of the words you use. But You invite them to surmount the objections of the flesh, of human reason, to welcome Your message in spirit, in faith: It is the Spirit Who gives life, the flesh cannot do anything. We are often faced with the same dilemma: to follow You in faith …. or to stick with our human reasoning. Your word is insistent, Lord. Increase our love and our faith so as to remain faithful to You. Many went away and stopped going with Him. You do not hold on to them …. You give the same freedom to the twelve, to everyone …. What You want is not the quantity of disciples, but the quality of the faith and the total gift of self of those who set out with You. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal...

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Theresian Day

Posted by on Aug 19, 2009 in Liverpool Shrine, NEWS | 0 comments

On Wednesday, 23rd September, 2009, a special Mass will be celebrated in the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament, Dawson Street, Liverpool, in honour of St. Therese of Lisieux, at 12.10 pm, by Fr. Frank Gallagher, O.C.D.  At 2.00 pm Father will give a Talk on St. Therese followed by a Question and Answer Session in St. Joseph’s Hall, below the...

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Nineteenth Sunday – 9 August 2009

Posted by on Aug 8, 2009 in Sunday Reflections | 0 comments

Gospel: John 6: 41-51 Year B I am the Bread come down from heaven You had fed the crowd by multiplying the child’s five loaves. Amazed, the people wanted to hold on to You to make you King. Their motive is not very high. You mention it to them: You are seeking Me because you have eaten your fill of bread. You came for something else, something more important: Work for the food which will last for eternal life! I am the living Bread, come down from heaven. We’re not just passers-by on earth. We were made in the image of God, called to live with Him, eternally. You bring us food which will sustain and develop this life. You Yourself are this Bread: living Bread and Bread of eternal life. You are this Bread through Your Word: they will be taught by God Himself ….Whoever believes in Me, whoever hears My Word, has eternal life … You are this Bread through Your Eucharist: the Bread Which I will give in My Flesh for the life of the world, It is My risen Body. The Jews were complaining …. They are not the only ones! Like them, how often I am tempted also to complain, to whine. I remain on the human plane …. increase my faith, Lord. No one can come to Me unless the Father draw him. The Father wants to draw all people to You. He sent You so that all may be His children, in You and through You. Thank You for coming to have us share this divine life. Thank You for making Yourself our food for this purpose: whoever eats Me will have life through me! Take It all of you and eat It! May all hear Your call, Lord, and respond to...

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