Posts made in December, 2012

Glasgow LITE

Posted by on Dec 25, 2012 in St. Anthony Parish | 0 comments

Glasgow LITE team were present at the 5oth anniversary mass of  St Peter Julian Eymard held inSt Anthony’ in Govan on the 9th Dedember 2012 Celbrating Mass was the Archbishop Philip Tartaglia and concelebrating Father Peter Dowling SSS. We had a stand at the side altar with our new banners showing St Peter and Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament leaflets and prayer cards.

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Glasgow LITE CHristmas lunch

Posted by on Dec 21, 2012 in St. Anthony Parish | 0 comments

The LITE team Christmas lunch was held yesterday in the Battlefield Rest reastaurant on the south side of Glasgow. All members were there with Fr Peter. Anne Ventisei was at a meeting in Dublin regarding LITE. It was a very happy and amiable group of people who had a good chat and a lovely meal. Bring on next year! It was paid for by the Blessed Sacrament Congregation and so we thank them for their generosity and...

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Time to say Goodbye, or perhaps, Welcome!

Posted by on Dec 16, 2012 in Reflections | 0 comments

I love this time of year, always have, and I suspect always will. This season we know as Advent brings with it a particularly distinctive invitation to enter into a kind of timelessness. This timelessness can be understood in a variety of ways, but always gravitates to the same end: God’s purposes being fulfilled in and because of his love in Christ. We are more obviously aware that we await, plan and prepare for the commemoration of Christ’s birth on the 25th December. The signs of that are all round us. Lurking in the scriptures at the commencement of the season however, is the Church’s invitation to face the unspecified time, for we know “neither the day nor hour” (Matthew 25: 13), of Jesus’ fulfilment of that love, that very force which brought him to dwell among us in time. You might say there is something paradoxical about these days too. Our feet are on the ground, in the here and now. Yet the unknown future is always before us whilst familiar songs and seasonal smells ignite the memory that bring us back to childlike dreams of the Christmas to come. The future Pope Benedict XVI understood this same paradox by connecting the memory to hope- the inner sense of the past, with the aspiration of the future. His basic train of thought is that it is in memory that hope is awakened.      “Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope…” (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: Seek That Which is Above 1986.) I think all of us, who are involved in the life of our Congregation, in whatever capacity, have been mindful of the timeframe of St Peter Julian’s fiftieth anniversary of Canonization- the commemoration of which has fallen right in the heart of these Advent days. In every sense, it is a Jubilee. The Hebrews understood well Yahweh’s possession of the land. The terra firma of what God had promised would always be a kind of Advent for the people of the Old Covenant. The land was and remains important. And so, the yovel, the Jubilee, would be the opportune time, every fiftieth year, to reckon land property and slaves as dispended, with cause for rejoicing as the land, ultimately, is of God’s gift. (This fiftieth year is sacred- it is a time of freedom and of celebration when everyone will receive back their original property, and slaves will return home to their families.” [Leviticus 25: 10]) It has been a tremendous opportunity to serve a Canonical year as a Novice of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament during this Jubilee tide, because I think, St Peter Julian Eymard has once again come very much into view. His life, motivation, witness and passion, and ultimately his self-identity, were entirely Eucharistic. He is found there with his Lord: he is in eternity as he was in time. I can say therefore, with some confidence, that the life of the Congregation is a daily Jubilee, where the terra firma of our life meets face to face with the outpouring of God’s life in the Son of the Eucharist. It is an extremely important acknowledgement, because it is the kind of statement...

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