Sunday, March 20, 2016

Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 60 - March 2016




Faith Resources Newsletter
Number 60
March 2016
My friend, the devil is not greatly afraid of the discipline and other instruments of penance. That which beats him is the curtailment of one’s food, drink and sleep. There is nothing the devil fears more, consequently, nothing is more pleasing to God.    St John Vianney
 

Message from the Manager
Welcome to the sixtieth edition of our newsletter. Since January you have been receiving a monthly email in a new format. As this is a trial it would be appreciated if you would provide your feedback. Please take a few minutes to email us and let us know if you find it easier to read or any comments that would help provide you with a better understanding and access to good Catholic materials that will support your Faith. A printed copy will be sent every three months to all our readers who do not receive it by email.
An interesting story – CNFRI have proudly supplied a statue of St Barbara for the main western road access to and from Sydney!  Recently a lady telephoned our centre, sounding urgent, and wanting to purchase a tall statue of St Barbara. She had tried several Catholic outlets without success, and explained that that she needed the statue urgently for a “mining venture”, because the workers would not enter the tunnel until the patron saint of miners was present.  We were able to arrange for overnight freight, and the statue was picked up the next day.  A Perspex case was quickly made, the statue was blessed and is now in the tunnel.  Little did we know that this “mining venture” will be the main City West Link tunnel!  So in years to come, if you are one of the thousands of motorists who will use this tunnel daily, pray to St Barbara because you are in her safe hands!
Easter is the greatest Feast of the Church Year. Despite all the chaos in Australia and the turmoil in the world we can take heart in the wonder of God’s undying love for us. It is incredible to think that Christ died for us and then rose from the dead to save us. Divine Mercy Sunday follows Easter Sunday and in this year of Mercy we hope that our supporters will take the opportunity to celebrate and spread the message that Christ gave St Faustina even more specially than in other years. There is a selection of books, booklets CDs and DVDs below to help us realise that wonder in this beautiful season.
May God bless all our readers during this joyful Easter season.

Gai Smith
Manager

Featured items

Easter Greeting Cards
Easter is the greatest feast of the Church Year. There is a lovely range of cards from $1.90 - $3.90 to send to those relatives and friends who are unable to visit you at this special time of the year or to give to those who are too old for chocolate eggs!
Easter Greeting Cards
The True Meaning of Easter by Fulton Sheen CD
In this CD Archbishop Fulton Sheen presents his reflections on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord.
The True Meaning of Easter  $5.00

Seven Last Sayings of Christ by Scott Hahn CD
In this revealing presentation Dr Scott Hahn unlocks the deeper significance of the seven last words Christ spoke before he died. The words were carefully chosen so that we can better understand the immense love God has for each person and His plan for salvation. Also available are The True Meaning of Easter by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and The Christmas and Easter Story, excerpts from Truth and Life, the Dramatized Audio Bible.
The Seven Last Words by Fulton Sheen
Though it was written over eighty years ago, few books can match it for either a Lenten retreat or spiritual reading. Also available is the book, The Seven Last Words by Rev. Fr. Christopher Rengers, in which the author shows that Christ’s words were not just for those stationed at the foot of the cross but for all generations to come. Other books available are, Characters of the Passion by Fulton Sheen, and The Cross and the Beatitudes by Fulton Sheen.

St Pauls Holy Week Missal
There are a limited number of these beautifully bound missals available.

The Second Greatest Story Ever Told by Fr Michael Gaitley
This book about Divine Mercy and Marian Consecration needs to be our mainstay during this century if we are to defeat Satan and attain heaven.
Easter at Ephesus CD
The choir of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles will make Easter even more heavenly with their Easter at Ephesus CD. We have kept these CDs at last year’s price as the cases have been slightly damaged in transit from the USA.
Also available at $24.95 each are:

Brother Francis 10: He is Risen DVD
Brother Francis is always full of joy and even more so as he instructs children about the splendour of Christ’s Resurrection. The corresponding Colouring and Activity Book reinforces the lessons learnt in the DVD.

From the Brother Francis Reading and Colouring Book Series we have The Resurrection. Also available is the very simple My First Easter Colouring Book and from St Joseph’s Colouring Books: Easter Colouring Book.
The Story of Easter  Carry-Me-Along Board Book
This colourful book teaches children about what happened to Jesus at Easter. With its handle and appealing illustrations, it is very popular with children 1-4years old. The Easter Story by Rev Jude Winkler suits children 3-12 years old, Easter Board Book is also another popular book for younger children. The Easter Sticker Book gives the 4-8 year old plenty to do during Holy Week. The 6-10 year old will love the challenging puzzles in Easter Activity Fun.

Easter Homilies of Benedict XVI
These addresses selected by CTS are taken from his Easter sermons and are very profound. They have been described as the highlights of Pope Benedict XVI’s Magisterium.  Witness to the Risen Christ, a small booklet from CTS, is a series of addresses by Pope Francis that will help us renew our Faith during the Easter season.
The Divine Mercy and St Faustina by Andrew Witco
CTS has produced this small easily understood booklet to help us understand St Faustina, the image of Divine Mercy and the message of Christ’s Divine Mercy for us, $7. Also available is the Divine Mercy Prayer Book by the Marian Fathers $7, and The Divine Mercy Message and Devotion, $8.20, the large print edition is $11.95.

7 Secrets of Divine Mercy by Vinny Flynn
Vinny Flynn has worked with the world’s most respected Divine Mercy experts, Fr Michalenko and Fr Kosicki to write his latest book, 7 Secrets of Divine Mercy. Described by Fr Michael Burbidge as brilliant, the author offers an invitation and a road map so that Divine Mercy, the overflow of love from the Holy Trinity, can transform our lives. Also available from the same author are 7 Secrets of the Eucharist, 7 Secrets of Confession and 21 Ways to Worship.
7 Secrets of Divine Mercy CD
Vinny Flynn draws from Scripture, the teachings of the Church and the Diary of St Faustina to fathom the depth of Christ’s Divine Mercy which our present Pope and his two predecessors described as the heart of the Christian Faith. Also available is The Saving Power of Divine Mercy by Fr Jason Brooks (the Divine Mercy is recited at the end of this CD), The Miracle of Divine Mercy with the Chaplet sung by Kitty Cleveland, Eric Mahl’s Being All In CD and the CD of The Second Greatest Story Ever Told.

The Fathers of St Joseph Manual
The Fathers of St Joseph is an apostolate which promotes, transmits and strives to live out the spirituality of fatherhood as exemplified by St Joseph. The book provides the structure and content to conduct 'mini-retreats' for men in your parish. The mini-retreats aim to communicate the spirituality of fatherhood in a manner that encourages and inspires fathers to embrace, engage and be sanctified by their vocation.
The Fathers of St Joseph Manual $36.95
Professor Solomon's Introduction to Philosophy
Professor Solomon, in retirement in country New South Wales, is giving lessons in the philosophy of St Thomas to the local home-schooled Catholic children.  He has been prevailed on to allow us to reproduce them in this booklet.  We hope that their content will assist those ignorant of the Church’s philosophy to understand the reasons underlying her teachings.

Professor Solomon's Introduction to Philosopy 
$15.00



Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 5th March, 2016
HANDOUTS n. 131
“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”
Marian Girls
A new “Children of Mary” a Marian “Girl Guides”
Download as a PDF
WE need an appropriate parish “ministry” for girls to serve the congregation in the pews, during Mass and outside of Mass.
Its members would complement the ministry for boys who serve the priest on the sanctuary.
MARIAN GIRLS
Sunday Mass in most parishes would be enhanced by Marian Girls or a “Young Marian Girls’ Group”. The present groups of altar girls are ready at hand to supply members for a new ministry.
At Sunday Mass, such a group offers more extensive and varied roles than does the service of Altar Boys on the sanctuary.
And it’s for girls only, no boys!
This idea has already proved the preferred choice of some groups of altar girls — even at a time when many Catholics are losing the ability to spiritualize albeit ordinary acts of service to others.
Mothers and female teachers are by no means radical feminists. They have been enthusiastic for Altar Girls simply because there was nothing else available. If offered an alternative, most mothers and teachers will choose it. They want their daughters or pupils to feel ‘special’ and ‘valued’ in the Church community. They are unlikely to be particular about how it is done.
SPIRITUALITY
The first aim of such a parish group of Marian Girls would be to glorify God by the sanctification of its members and service to the congregation.
They might pray that some of the altar boys might hear and heed a vocation to the priesthood, since promoting vocations is enjoined on all (canon 233§1).
Its spirituality and prayers could be taken from the Angelus and Our Lady’s Magnificat:
* Ecce! Behold, the handmaid of the Lord.
* Fiat Be it done to me according to thy word.
Magnificat! My soul glorifies the Lord.
ACTIVITY 1 — vergers
A verger is more than an usher who oversees the interior of a church. Marian girls will probably like to sit in the front seats as a group, perhaps in a white uniform with blue accessories. They and their mothers are good judges.
Their reverence and deportment would edify the congregation and guide postures for the lapsed or non-Catholics. They could have their own Marian Prayers and be available to lead the Rosary or Liturgy of the Hours before or after Mass.
They could distribute the Sunday Mass bulletins at the door, find people seats in a crowded church, and help young mothers cope with small children. Social functions also have their place.
ACTIVITY 2 — choristers
Marian Girls could form a Choir tutored by an organist. “Lead choirs” help congregations with Latin chants found in some editions of the Sunday Missal. Special motets suit Offertory and Communion. Longer English hymns, e.g. sequences, Gloria and Creed, suit a choir giving support to a congregation to sing the odd verses in melody, with the choir alone singing alternate verses in harmony. Choirs like a challenge, and no one is excluded.
They can encourage a diffident congregation with Responses made confidently, loudly and clearly.
Announcing hymns carefully would give people time to find the right place: “The entrance hymn is n. 7, Firmly I believe and truly, n. 7” — or Offertory Hymn, Communion Hymn, “Hymn of Praise after Communion” and the Recessional.
They can be available for the Readings or to make the Petitions for the Prayer of the Faithful.
They could organize the Offertory procession — or even accompany it with flowers to put near the altar.
ACTIVITY 3— sacristans
As sacristans they would complement the altar boys to set up altar and sanctuary.
Decorating the sanctuary is doing something beautiful for God. Flowers bring people closer to God through the beauty in His creation. They enhance worship and encourage reverence for the sacred place. They help everyone rediscover the religious aspects of beauty and its historic place in Catholic worship.. Girls love flower arranging and older ladies would be a good guide for them in the work sacristy and the placement of vases on the sanctuary.
Laundering altar linen, is a great honour, not a chore, and a privilege once enjoyed by the nuns. There are special prayers for some items because of its intimate use with the Blessed Sacrament.
Baking altar breads, under strict supervision of the ingredients, is a suitable ministry for girls, even of primary school age. Rightly they thrill with deep devotion to know that it is their bread that Our Lord will change into His Body.
PARISH PRIESTS
The parish priest has pastoral authority to start a Marian Girls, and develop it as he sees fit, with office bearers, meetings, prayer plans. .
The Prayer Book and Manual of The Children of Mary remains a resource for setting high standards and planning recruitment of further members from the girls of a parish and its schools.
However, great pastoral charity and prudence is needed. It has been done already. It can be done again — for the glory of God and sanctification of souls. And the idea might spread to other parishes.
 
Future of the Priesthood and Altar Boys
VITAL FOR VOCATIONS
PRIESTS and faithful now realize that we have to make a stark choice — to help boys discover God’s call to the priesthood OR to continue with altar girls. It is a matter of one or the other.
What is proposed here is directed primarily to parish priests who have inherited, or themselves mistakenly initiated altar girls. What is needed is “a way forward”, without any fuss or an angry word or even a tear shed. Otherwise, as we have seen for the last 40 years, boys will quit.
It seems that unisex, now dubbed “gender equality”, is linked to deprivation in psychosexual maturation. Maybe it is due to “a lack” in childhood relationships with their fathers. Boys and girls need continuing formation and example of both father and mother in the complementary sexual roles.
The feminist agenda insists on unisex. It is an ideology enforced by dictatorial decree: Hoc volo, sic iubeo, dixi — “This I wish, thus I command, I have spoken.” They don’t know or can’t recognize the obvious, that boys and girls are different. It is a dead end. Experience shows that complementarity, not interchangeability, always works.
“They do err in their hearts” Psalm 95[94] and “There is a lying spirit in the mouths of all their prophets” 1 Kings 22:22.
STRONG CORRELATION
There is strong link between future priests and youthful service of boys on the sanctuary. In altar serving, boys can gain that intimacy with Christ to hear and heed His call to be spiritual fathers to the faithful and spiritually married to the Church, and to seek entry into the seminary.
Of course, the usual vocation for boys is fatherhood of families. Less usual is the fatherhood of single men in a spiritual fatherhood in the lay apostolate.
Most girls will become home-making mothers or spiritual mothers as nuns. Others embrace the virginal life of spiritual motherhood in the lay apostolate.
“BUT ALTAR GIRLS ARE PERMITTED”
They began from disobedience in the 1970s, like several other less desirable practices, e.g. Communion in the Hand and received standing.
St John Paul II forbade altar girls in Inaestimabile Donum (on correcting abuses) 1980, n. 18; cf. Blessed Paul VI in the Third Instruction on the Liturgy 1970 n. 7.
Further, he had assured Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta that there would never be altar girls. I have a friend (now RIP), who phoned her to confirm this.
In 1994, when he was very ill, he was persuaded to implement a particular exegesis of Canon Law.
Yet on Holy Thursday, 2004, he spoke of “Altar servers... a garden of priestly vocations... a pre-seminary.” Since women can’t be priests, by servers he certainly meant the male sex.
Yet some still consider altar girls as normative!
The 1994 CONCESSION VOIDED by it results
With the advent of altar girls, the boys dropped out, so the original concession is no longer valid:
... the Holy See wishes to recall that it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar. As is well known, this has also led to a reassuring development of priestly vocations.  Original concession for altar girls, 15-3-1994
BOYS & YOUTH PREFERRED
It is altogether laudable to maintain the noble custom by which boys or youths, customarily termed servers, provide service of the altar after the manner of acolytes, and receive catechesis regarding their function in accordance with their power of comprehension. Nor should it be forgotten that a great number of sacred ministers over the course of the centuries have come from among boys such as these. Associations for them... should be established or promoted... Girls or women may also be admitted to this service of the altar, at the discretion of the diocesan Bishop and in observance of the established norms. Sacrament of Redemption, (2004) n. 47
The “associations” are for boys. The last sentence seems to hint that altar girls were a mistake. Already, in 2001, Cardinal Medina (Congregation of Divine Worship) said that no priest can be compelled to have altar girls even in dioceses where they are allowed.
WHERE WILL OUR PRIESTS COME FROM?
Australia now depends on Asian/African missionary priests. Check! Do their countries have altar girls?
BOYS & GIRLS are not the same
Their vital roles in life are different, but linked by their complementary sexuality, whereby all are enriched. Equality and justice demand that dissimilar things be treated dissimilarly:
They [teachers] should, together with the parents, make full allowance for the difference of sex and for the particular role which providence has appointed to each sex in the family and in society.  VCII on Christian Education GE n. 8(e)
... inalienable right to education ... suitable to the particular destiny of the individuals, adapted to their ability, sex and natural cultural traditions... (ibid n. I)
ACCEPTING ONE’S SEXUAL IDENTITY
Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.  Italics in original '.Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2333
WOMEN MINISTERING to Christ & Apostles
He [Jesus] went ... preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him and also some women ... who provided for them out of their means.    Luke 8:1-3
Father James Tierney
 
© The Rev. B.J.H. Tierney. Handouts are free and may be copied for any non-profit teaching purpose. However, donations to defray costs are welcome and should be made to the publisher and distributor, the Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc. PO Box 359, St Marys NSW 1790; phone 02 9673 2235; fax 02 9623 3181 email <fr@eardinalnewman.com.au>