Fourth Sunday of Lent to Thank You for Your Generous and Prayerful Support for SCIAF – the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund - Over the Past Year

St Mun’s, Ballachulish Parish News Rejoice, Jerusalem Be glad for her, you who & The Good Shepherd, Kinlochleven, love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned The Visitation, Taynuilt for her, and you will find contentment at her Our Lady of the Angels, Mingarry consoling breasts. Churches Opening & St Agnes, Glenuig Prayers answered. Our churches can open again 14th March 2021 – 4th Sunday of Lent (B) from Friday the 26th March. We will be returning to the coming week where we were during much of the last half of last Monday 4th Week of Lent year; contact lists of those attending, hand Tuesday 4th Week of Lent sanitising, face-coverings, social distancing, curtailed liturgy and communion received only on Wednesday St Patrick – Feast th the hand, but we will be open. Thursday 4 Week of Lent I confess that when I heard the news, I did utter the Friday St Joseph, Spouse of the Virgin Mary – “A” word that we’re not supposed to use during Solemnity Lent. Saturday 4thWeek of Lent Nina De Caris Sunday 5th Sunday of Lent (B) Nina has died and gone to God, her maker. I offer our prayers and sympathies to Nina’s family and friends. Confession

May she rest in peace. Taynuilt – at any time on request

SCIAF Ballachulish – at any time on request.

This Sunday would, under normal circumstances, Mingarry – on request have a second collection for SCIAF. Please see the Divine Office – Vol 2. Week 4 with proper of the season th letter from Bishop Joe Toal which is attached here. Weekday readings: 4 Week of Lent Taynuilt Parish Meeting Please remember the sick of the parish in your A meeting, on Microsoft Teams, with the Bishop, prayers. the Diocesan Finance Manager and those We remember all the faithful departed in our parishioners of Taynuilt who expressed an interest prayers. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and is to take place on Thursday evening at 5.00 p.m. I let perpetual light shine upon them. will send out invitations to you – if you don’t have May they rest in peace. Microsoft Teams, you can download the app. Lenten Reflections There will be a video file on the Glencoe website on Friday with a Lenten Reflection by Fr Roddy. There have been some technical difficulties with this – hopefully all will be well, soon. Collection Taynuilt – we raised £125.00 from Standing Orders. Glencoe – we raised £200.00 plus £5.00 from Standing Orders giving a total of £205.00. Mingarry – we raised £65.00 from Standing Orders. Our finances are very fragile and the further closure of churches is going to make our viability quite precarious. If, but only if you can help, it would be greatly appreciated. We bank with the Coop Bank, Sort Code – 83 91 25 account number 65627583 (Glencoe), 65628113 (Taynuilt) and 65628058 (Mingarry) or use the new Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his ‘Donate’ button on our website. only Son. (Jn. 3:16).

RC Diocese of Argyll and the Isles. Charity registration number - SC002876 Parish Priest - Fr Roddy Johnston, St. Mun’s, Brecklet, Ballachulish, PH49 4JG Telephone: 01855 811 203. Mobile: 07775 924 965. Assistant Priest - Fr Emmanuel Alagbaoso. The Visitation, Taynuilt, PA35 1JQ. Telephone 01866 822 269. Mingarry – phone 07775 924 965 email: - [email protected] [email protected] – Website: www.catholicchurchglencoe.org.uk For Taynuilt, email [email protected]– Website https://thevisitation.org.uk

LISTEN TO THE LIGHT God is light. We have all heard this preached, but the readings on this Fourth Sunday in Lent drive the point home. The question: can we look at the light? As the first reading says, the people of Judah “added infidelity to infidelity” by worshipping false gods, polluting the sacred temple, ignoring God—and doing it with vigour. Read the First Reading for the terrible details. Out of compassion God sent prophets to warn them, but each of them received only scorn. “There was no remedy,” the reading says. The people were condemned by their own actions. God's love remained constant, but theirs did not. An invading force took them as captives into Babylon, where they remained in exile for seventy years until the good and just King Cyrus conquered Babylon and let them go. They had suffered in Babylon. For a Responsorial Psalm we have one of the most poignant of all psalms, the exquisite number 137. In it the people weep as captives in a foreign land. They refuse to sing songs of their homeland because they are exiled from everything they held dear, everything that their own infidelity had robbed from them. As far as they know, the light of life had gone out. It was not God but they who had closed their eyes to the light. John’s Gospel tells us that a person is condemned because that person “has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” God has no desire to condemn, but people condemn themselves by walling God out. At the end of the Gospel there is a very interesting, wise saying that sums up the message of this week’s Lenten readings: Light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. Maybe these sentences reveal the heart of sin itself. Light displays too much of our life. We become ashamed. We hide our selves. Yet we are built to seek the light. Perhaps the present writer can be pardoned for presenting a poem in this space, especially one that he himself wrote. Perhaps it will speak to you of the readings. It is a fable, set in the style of a children’s verse. I recommend that you read it out loud, and read it slowly. Once there was a city built in the sunlight. Listen to God Warmth and laughter abounded. this Lent. Memories of day would remain every night until the sun could return.

Fear one morning said light is too bright. Too much truth can be seen. How can we seem what we say we are if light the intruder is here? So walls went up and a ban on all windows and nothing of day could remain. The city said, you have left us, O sun. In the darkness we have gone blind. But the sun outside still shed its light, and its warmth and its laughter and love. It lightened the walls and gave warmth to their chill, while within, the soul bored a hole. Into it poured a single beam, a sunlight of laughter and care. Softly, silently, almost like spring, love opened and blossomed and grew.* Listen to the light. Listen to God this Lent. Let love open and blossom and grow. John Foley, SJ https://liturgy.slu.edu/4LentB031421/reflections_foley.html

Rt Rev. Joseph Toal STB KC*HS

Bishop of Motherwell

To be shared with Parishioners on Sunday 14 March – SCIAF Sunday

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, I write on behalf of the Bishops of Scotland on this the fourth Sunday of Lent to thank you for your generous and prayerful support for SCIAF – the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund - over the past year. In the Gospels, we hear of many occasions when Jesus heals the sick, reaching out with love and mercy to the most marginalised and the poorest, both in action and in spirit. As Catholics we are called to follow his example, to recognise that we are our brother or sister’s keeper. To reach out to the poorest with love. SCIAF is the embodiment of the love of our Church in Scotland, reaching out to our vulnerable sisters and brothers around the world. It is why during Lent, we ask you to give generously to support the vital work SCIAF does on our behalf. This has been a difficult twelve months for all of us, but through WEE BOX and collection donations, gifts in wills and direct debits, SCIAF have continued to help the poorest people in the world. SCIAF is extremely grateful that last year, generous parishioners raised £945,218 to help survivors of gender- based violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Victims of a devastating war which lasted more than 20 years. Where many were killed, displaced and are in need due to ongoing violence. Through SCIAF’s Church partners these vulnerable survivors, mostly women and girls, were given the medical care and trauma counselling they needed to recover, and gained new skills to build a better life. That is our faith in action. This year, SCIAF ask us to look to another country where frequent conflict has left behind a legacy of fear, displacement and despair, making it one of the world’s poorest and most fragile states. Children with disabilities were already the most vulnerable in society. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has deepened already existing issues of poverty, putting them at greater risk. When a crisis comes, be it conflict, famine or even the coronavirus, it’s the poorest and most vulnerable children who suffer most. Many children with disabilities in South Sudan are not able to go to school or, later on, to work and earn a living. They may have no access to support services or hospitals for treatment. They may face stigma and exclusion. Due to a lack of access to education and opportunities, disabled children can miss out on vital learning that helps them to break out of the cycle of poverty, unlock their potential and live life to the full. Through SCIAF the Scottish Catholic Church can help children with disabilities in South Sudan to access the education and support they need to build a bright future. SCIAF will reach the poorest people first and put our faith into action. With the support of parishes, SCIAF’s work in South Sudan will provide a lifeline for children with disabilities and their families. Our support will help to adapt schools so that pupils with disabilities can access education. Children will be provided with aids such as wheelchairs, ramps, hearing aids and canes, as well as healthcare to help them live more independently. For example, just £35 could buy a classroom desk so a pupil with a disability doesn’t need to sit on the floor. I am delighted to let you know that this year, all donations to SCIAF’s WEE BOX, BIG CHANGE appeal, made before 11th May, will be doubled by the UK government. Your donations will help SCIAF’s life changing work around the world, while match funding from the UK government will provide a lifeline to children with disabilities, their families and communities in South Sudan, helping them to build bright futures. Thank you for your continued generosity; know that it goes towards good work. As Lent continues and we look forward to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, please remember SCIAF and everyone they work with in your prayers.

May God bless you and your families during the holy season of Lent and throughout the year.

+ Joseph Toal, Bishop President of SCIAF On behalf of the Bishop’s Conference of Scotland