Category: Spirituality

A four week program of guided prayer is being offered at Corpus Christi Community, Greenvale starting Monday 18 November. These weeks based on Ignatian Spirituality, are a way of finding God in everyday life. This is a group prayer program where participants pray at home for at least half an hour each day and meet once a week to share experiences of prayer. Further info on the Noticeboard in St Anne’s Church. Call Jacinta Bright on 0425 710 797 for more info.

Adoration is held in St Anne’s Church on the first Friday of every month from 7-8pm and is led by the Legion of Mary.
Next Friday 6 September after 9.15am Mass, the Rosary will be prayed and a morning tea  will be available to celebrate the Birth of Our Lady.

The Prayer Group at Ta Pinu Marian Centre Bacchus Marsh invites everyone to celebrate the feast of the Assumption Thursday 15th August 2013 at 11.00am Holy Rosary followed by Mass and Concludes with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Ta Pinu Marian Centre Bacchus Marsh Flanagans Drive Bacchus Marsh.

The Rosary is prayed at St Anne’s Church every Saturday morning from 9am and is led by the Legion of Mary.

“the worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church… the presence of Christ under the sacred species reserved after Mass derives from the celebration of the sacrifice and is directed towards communion, both sacramental and spiritual.”

Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia N.25

In response to the retreat held in April, a morning of reflection has been planned to celebrate our Parish Feast Day. Titled “Living Prayer” a morning spent with the teaching and wisdom of St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church and Founder of the Reformed Carmelite Communities of both women and men. You are welcome to come along and bring a friend. Saturday 20 July, 9.30am to 12 noon in the Parish Centre.

Next Sunday, Pope Francis will lead a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration in Rome. All parishes in the world are invited to arrange a similar Holy Hour as a special moment of prayer for the needs of our Church. Our Holy Hour of silent adoration will be on Sunday 2nd June from 2.30pm to 3.30pm in St Anne’s Church.

The Emmaus Charismatic Prayer Group will meet at St Anne’s Church on Thursdays at 10.00am.
All welcome, including children.
Further info or transport please contact Elaine & Lambert van der Weerden on 9744 4029.

Reflection on the Gospel-Pentecost Sunday Year C
Veronica Lawson RSM

(Acts 2:1-11; John 20:19-23)

Pentecost Sunday is often called the birthday of the Church. For the ancient Israelites, Pentecost (meaning ‘fiftieth’) was a harvest festival celebrated fifty days after the harvesting of the first sheaf. When the Jerusalem temple was built, this harvest festival was transformed into a pilgrimage feast to celebrate the covenant that Israel had made with God on Mt Sinai. The Jews of the first century, including Christian Jews, celebrated the great pilgrimage feast of Pentecost. Several decades after the death of Jesus, the early Christians reflected on their origins and chose this feast to mark the birth of God’s new covenant with God’s people.

In today’s first reading (Acts 2:1-11), Luke tells the new Pentecost story in symbolic language that evokes the story of Moses and the people of Israel receiving God’s Law on Mt. Sinai. Just as God’s presence to Israel was marked by earthquake and thunder and fire, so God’s Spirit enveloping the people of the new covenant appears in a mighty rush of wind and tongues of fire. Luke’s account also evokes early rabbinic teaching that the voice of God on Sinai divided into seventy tongues and all the nations received the Law in their own tongues. In other words, the dispersion and division created by the hubris of those who built the Tower of Babel is symbolically reversed in this pouring out of God’s Spirit.

For the content of the new covenant, we turn to the gospel reading from John 20:19-23. The risen Christ appears to the disciples who are huddled behind locked doors. He offers the simple greeting: “Peace be with you,” the greeting we offer each other at every Eucharistic celebration. He sends them on a mission of peace in continuity with his own God-inspired mission. He breathes on them the gift of the Holy Spirit and tells them that God will forgive those whom they forgive, and will ‘retain’ or ‘seize hold of’ the transgressions of those whose sins or transgressions they ‘retain’.

To seize hold of evil-doing is to expose it and deal with it. Sometimes it is best to forgive and simply allow everyone to move on. In other situations, amnesty only exacerbates the problems. Much of the enduring conflict in our world derives from the inability of ordinary people and of leaders to know how to deal with transgression. The Holy Spirit is the unique source of our power to forgive, of our power to refrain from vengeance, and of our capacity to deal with or ‘seize hold of’ the sins of the perpetrators of violence and abuse in our Church and in our world.

Network Ten has advised that from Sunday 7 April, the program will be broadcast on Channel 11 at 5.30am.

For those who can’t get up at 5.30am, Mass is broadcast on the radio at 7.00am on 89.9 Light FM every Sunday morning.

The Emmaus Charismatic Prayer Group will not meet next Thursday, Anzac Day. Meetings will resume on Thursday May 2nd at St. Anne’s Church at a new time of 10.00am.
All welcome, including children.
For further info/transport please contact Lambert & Elaine van der Weerden on 9744 4029.

Adoration will be held in St Anne’s Church on Friday 5 April from 7-8pm.
All welcome.
Led by the Legion of Mary.

The Emmaus Charismatic Prayer Group will not be meeting on Holy Thursday March 28th. Meetings will resume on Thursday April 4th at 10.15am at St. Anne’s church.

A Prayer Service will be held on Tuesday March 19 at 7.30pm at St Anne’s Church. It is hoped that this prayer service will help those dealing with abuse in the Church, or those feeling betrayed, may be able to start their healing process. Everyone is welcome.