OF ASCOT VALE ST MARY’S CHURCH, 123 ST LEONARDS ROAD, ASCOT VALE ST MARGARET’S CHURCH, BARB STREET, MARIBYRNONG

Parish Priest: Rev Fr Justin Ford Assistant Priest / Lithuanian Chaplain: Rev Fr Joseph Deveikis Presbytery / Parish Office: 123 St Leonards Rd, Ascot Vale (Postal: PO Box 468 Ascot Vale 3032) Telephone: 9370 6688 Website: www.stmaryschurch.org.au Email: [email protected] Office Hours: Tue & Fri, 10am – 3pm. Secretary: Carmen D’Rosario Principal, St Mary’s School: Mr Paul Hogan T: 9370 1194 Principal, St Margaret’s School: Mr Gavin Brennan T: 9318 1339

rd Weekend Mass Times 3 Sunday of Easter – 18 April 2021 ______

Saturday Vigil: ‘In his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations.’ (Lk 24:47)

6.00pm St Mary’s ‘Now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.’ (Acts 3:19) Sunday: 8.30am St Margaret’s In our , the Risen Lord declares repentance for the forgiveness of sins to be at the heart of 10.30am St Mary’s what the Apostles must preach. And in our First Reading, we hear how St Peter, in his proclamation 6.00pm St Mary’s (Spanish) to the crowd in the days after Pentecost, was fulfilling that commission. And so the Church

Live streaming of our 10:30 continues to proclaim repentance – that is, contrition – at the heart of the Gospel message. Sunday Mass is continuing, For grave sins, this is always linked with the sacraments (or at least the desire and intention to accessible on our parish website. receive them) – in the first place; or for those already baptised, Penance (Reconciliation).

Weekday Mass Times The Catechism of the Church explains the nature of this contrition which is essential:

Mon 10.00am St Mary’s 1491 The is a whole consisting in three actions of the penitent and Tue 9.00am St Mary’s the priest’s absolution. The penitent’s acts are repentance, confession or disclosure of Wed 9.00am St Mary’s sins to the priest, and the intention to make reparation and do works of reparation. 7.00pm St Mary’s 1492 Repentance (also called contrition) must be inspired by motives that arise from Thu 9.00am St Mary’s faith. If repentance arises from love of charity for God, it is called “perfect” contrition; Fri 9.15am St Margaret’s if it is founded on other motives, it is called “imperfect.”

Sat 9.30am St Mary’s ______

Reconciliation 1451 Among the penitent’s acts contrition occupies first place. Contrition is “sorrow of (Confession) the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again.” (Ecumenical (1551): DS 1676) Saturday 1452 When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is 10.00–10.30am St Mary’s called “perfect” (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sins; it also 5.30–5.45pm St Mary’s obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to Eucharistic Adoration sacramental confession as soon as possible. (Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1677)

Tue 9.30–10.30am St Mary’s 1453 The contrition called “imperfect” (or “attrition”) is also a gift of God, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. It is born of the consideration of sin’s ugliness or the fear of eternal Sat 10.00–11.00am St Mary’s damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner (contrition of fear). Such a at St Mary’s stirring of conscience can initiate an interior process which, under the prompting of

Group baptisms will be held grace, will be brought to completion by sacramental absolution. By itself however, imperfect contrition cannot obtain the forgiveness of grave sins, but it disposes one to at 12:00 noon every Sunday obtain forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance. (Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1678; 1705) until the end of June, ______

with a maximum of 6 babies in each ceremony. So from what God has told us: any person can be forgiven deliberate serious sin and go to heaven

Baptism Information Sessions only by either actually receiving a sacrament, combined with at least imperfect contrition; or having are held in St Mary’s Church perfect contrition, motivated by the person’s love for God above all things, and united with the at 7:30 pm on the first Thursday intention of duly receiving Baptism or Reconciliation (as the case may be). For those unaware with of each month. Those desiring no fault of their own of this necessity of Baptism or Reconciliation, merely implicit intention could be the baptism of their child should sufficient, contained in their love of God above all things and their consequent desire to do his will attend one of these sessions. (which, did they but know, is that they receive Baptism or Reconciliation). But in any case, the huge

Weddings at St Mary’s advantage of having actual access to the sacraments is made clear, since that means we can be

For information on weddings forgiven and saved even from the starting point of only imperfect contrition. This makes clear yet please ring the parish office. again the urgency of our obligation to share with others (if our concern for them is real) the faith with which we have been gifted and entrusted, so that they too can receive the sacraments of .

SAINTS OF THE WEEK 17 April – St Simeon bar Sabas & Companions, Martyrs of Persia

St Simeon (Shimun) bar Sabas was of Seleucia- Persia would later aim at severing its Christians from Ctesiphon, capital (near modern Baghdad) of the those in the enemy Roman Empire, so the Persian Sasanian Empire that ruled Persia from AD 224 to 651 Church was led to reject the Ecumenical Council of (replacing the Parthian Empire, 247 BC-AD 224). The Sassanids Ephesus (431) that condemned the Nestorian heresy. The followed the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism, separated Church, known as the ‘Church of the East’, developed by Zoroaster in the Avesta. Christian faith would have missions as far as China. Many have in had come to the Persian Empire from apostolic times, recent centuries reunited with (1553/1681/1830), but Emperor Shapur II (309-79) opposed it, fearing its forming the Chaldean , with 600,000 Roman links after the conversion of Roman Emperor members today. Others form the still-separate Assyrian . In Shapur’s persecution, Church of the East, today with some 400,000 members. thousands of Christians would be martyred for refusing As for Zoroastrianism, it would gradually be replaced to convert to Zoroastrianism or to adore the sun. Thus by Islam after Persia fell (636-51) to the Muslim St Simeon bar Sabas was imprisoned and tortured, and caliphate, but there are still about 300,000 Zoroastrians after seeing over a hundred clergy strangled, was today. Many went to India in Islamic times for greater beheaded last of all, on Good Friday of AD 341. freedom (and are known there as Parsees); others are in According to 5th-century Church historian Sozomen, Iran and Iraq. during Shapur II’s reign over 16,000 were martyred (counting only those whose names were known). ______SAINT OF THE WEEK 13 April – St Hermenegild, Martyr

St Hermenegild was a prince of the Visigothic Kingdom the influence of Ingund, and of the Bishop of Seville, St of Spain. Born at the capital Toletum (Toledo) in the Leander, Hermenegild became Catholic in 582. Perhaps mid-500s, he was the elder son of King Leovigild (568- because of his father’s severe treatment of Catholics, 86) and heir to the throne. These were the times Hermenegild revolted and proclaimed himself king. But following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. Leovigild captured Seville in 584, and his son The Romanised peoples of the Empire were largely surrendered. Imprisoned in Seville, he refused to Catholic in 476, but the Germanic invaders who would renounce his Catholic faith. When he would not accept rule over them were at first either pagan, or followed the Communion brought to him by an Arian bishop, by Arian heresy (that denied Christ’s true and full divinity). order of his father he was beheaded on 13 April 585.

The Visigoths who conquered and ruled most of Spain After Leovigild’s death in 586, Hermenegild’s younger were the latter, and St Hermenegild was raised as an became king as Reccared I. Reccared himself Arian. In 579 he married Ingund, a princess of converted to the Catholic Faith in 587, the beginning of Merovingian France. Ingund was Catholic – the Franks Catholic Spanish monarchy. The Visigothic Kingdom having converted from paganism after the conversion of would fall (711-18) to the Muslim caliphate, but a King Clovis in 496. (Ingund’s own mother Brunhilda remnant in the far north would slowly regain the land in was a Visigoth who became Catholic when she married the Reconquista – history’s longest war, finishing in King Sigebert.) Hermenegild’s Arian stepmother 1492 with the Catholic monarchs of Spain and Portugal Goswintha violently mistreated Ingund for her faith, and ruling the whole Iberian peninsula. Hermenegild and Ingund went away to Seville. Under ______Parish Safeguarding Policies Death of Cardinal Cassidy With recent new Church protocols at the national level, We pray for Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, President our Parish has updated its Safeguarding Policies: Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Safeguarding Children and Young People – Parish Policy; Parish Code Unity (1989-2001), who died in Newcastle on 10 April, of Conduct Declaration; and Parish Commitment Statement. aged 96. Originally ordained priest for the Archdiocese of You can view these, as previously, on the parish website: Sydney, for 11 years under John Paul II he was the stmaryschurch.org.au/child-safety/ Catholic Church’s chief authority on ecumenical matters. The Code of Conduct Declaration is now the standard for (His death leaves Cardinal Pell as Australia’s only cardinal; parish staff and volunteers, and will come into full operation Cardinal Pell will turn 80 on 8 June, and so will no longer for staff and volunteers to commit to individually, once the be eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope.) Archdiocese finalises the new training protocols. ______Wedding at St Mary’s Apostles’ Creed for the Easter Season We congratulate Samantha Eccles and Kullan Cordes, For the Easter Season we will again use the liturgical option who were married at St Mary’s on Saturday. ______of reciting the Apostles’ Creed instead of the . ______Baptisms at St Mary’s Friday Mass at St Margaret’s We warmly welcome into the family of God’s Church the With the end of school holidays, 9:15am Friday Mass children baptised today in our parish: returns to St Margaret’s this week. Vittoria Agresta Abbey Charlotte Tighe ______Louie Jack Tippett Isabel Alison Tippett No live streaming of 10:30 Mass, for today only Lucy May Elizabeth Evans Mia Bellefemine Elise Nguyen Mason Nguyen OF THE WEEK 13 April – Pope St Martin I, Martyr

St Martin I was born about 598 near Todi in central In reaction, Emperor Constans II (641-68), who had Italy, which in this time had been reconquered by the forbidden discussion of the matter, accused the Pope of Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. He was of noble collaborating with the Muslim Caliphs (who had recently birth, and notable for learning and charity to the poor; he taken Egypt and Syria in the first wave of Arab conquests may have been the Martin sent by Pope John IV (following Muhammad’s death, 632)). Arrested in 653, (640-42) to Dalmatia (in modern Croatia) to help those Martin was subjected to humiliation, deprivations and suffering from the invasion of the Slavs into the region. torture in then exiled to the Crimea, dying in 655: the last martyr pope. (St Maximus had his hand Martin was legate for Pope Theodore I (642-49) to the and tongue cut off, and died in exile in Georgia in 662.) Byzantine Emperors in Constantinople. This was the time of the Monothelite heresy, which held Christ to In 680-81, the Third Council of Constantinople (6th have only a divine will, with no distinct human will – an Ecumenical Council) definitively rejected the heresy, attempted compromise with the Monophysite heresy that also condemning Pope Honorius along with the Christ had only one nature (with the human nature Monothelite leaders – in his case, for negligence, Pope ceasing to exist as such). Monophysitism had been St Leo II clarified when confirming the Council. condemned at the Ecumenical (The case of Pope Honorius was much discussed at the (451), which taught two complete natures, both the divine time of the ’s proclamation of the and the human, in the one person of Christ. But many in dogma of in 1870. In fact, Honorius the Byzantine provinces of Egypt and Syria had had made no ex cathedra definition of faith: rather, he continued to reject Chalcedon, and the Empire was had actually failed to make a definition when arguably always looking to re-engage them and unify the people. he should have. So the event in no way contradicted the Sergius, of Constantinople, proposed the infallible truth of actual ex cathedra papal definitions of compromise Monothelite view, supported by Emperor faith. Pope Honorius is a good reminder of the strict (610-41) and followed by the next several limits of papal infallibility as defined at Vatican I.) patriarchs. Pope Honorius I (625-38), not alert to the The Eastern Orthodox, rejecting papal authority and deeper issues, played down the matter as a mere point of dividing from the Catholic Church from 1054 over other grammar, and failed to give a strong teaching. But issues, have continued to fervently accept Constantinople after him firmly opposed the heresy, defending the full III (as they do all the first seven Ecumenical Councils). human nature of Christ and the authority of the Council And like the Catholic Church, they also revere Pope of Chalcedon: imperial unity could not be pursued at the Martin I and Maximus the Confessor as – Maximus expense of divinely-revealed truth. being honoured as a highly important theologian. (This Martin was elected pope in 649. Supported by Byzantine can be a point of contemporary ecumenical dialogue, as theologian St Maximus the Confessor, he convened in the Orthodox agree that ancient tradition is authoritative, Rome that same year the Lateran Council, which and St Maximus is a strong Byzantine witness, in a chain condemned . (It also had an important of testimonies, to the faith of those times before the doctrinal text on the perpetual virginity of Mary.) division concerning universal papal authority.) ______

‘At the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. (Cf. Ecumenical Council of Constantinople III (681): DS 556-559) Christ’s human will “does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will.” (Ecumenical Council of Constantinople III: DS 556)’

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) n. 475

‘Holy Mary, ever and immaculate, is Mother of God, since in this latter age she conceived really and truly, without human seed from the Holy Spirit, God the Word himself, who before the ages was born of God the Father, and gave birth to him without corruption, her virginity remaining equally inviolate after his birth.’

Lateran Council (649): DS 503, held under Pope St Martin I (referenced in Vatican II, ‘Lumen Gentium’ 57)

‘Let him hasten before all things to satisfy the Roman see, for if it is satisfied all will agree in calling him pious and orthodox. For he only speaks in vain who thinks he ought to persuade or entrap persons like myself, and does not satisfy and implore the blessed pope of the most holy Church of the Romans, that is, the Apostolic see, which from the incarnate Son of God Himself, and also by all holy synods, according to the holy canons and definitions, has received universal and supreme dominion, authority and power of binding and loosing over all the holy Churches of God which are in the whole world.’

St Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Peter (giving what he takes to be a generally accepted view, else he could hardly make these claims)

‘The extremities of the earth, and all in every part of it who purely and rightly confess the Lord look directly towards the most holy Roman Church and its confession and faith, as it were to a sun of unfailing light…For from the coming down of the incarnate Word amongst us, all the Churches in every part of the world have held that greatest Church alone as their base and foundation, seeing that according to the promise of Christ our Saviour, the gates of hell do never prevail against it, that it has the keys of a right confession and faith in Him, that it opens the true and only religion to such as approach with piety...’ St Maximus the Confessor, Opuscula theo. (The ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church’ n. 834, quotes from St Maximus here) THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR B – READINGS

FIRST READING Acts 3:13-15, 17-19 GOSPEL ACCLAMATION cf. Lk 24:32

A reading from the Alleluia, alleluia!

Peter said to the people: ‘You are Israelites, and it is the Lord Jesus, make your word plain to us; God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our make our hearts burn with love when you speak. Alleluia! ancestors, who has glorified his servant Jesus, the same ______

Jesus you handed over and then disowned in the GOSPEL Lk 24:35-48 presence of Pilate, after Pilate had decided to release him. A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke It was you who accused the Holy One, the Just One, you who demanded the reprieve of a murderer while you The disciples told their story of what had happened on killed the prince of life. God, however, raised him from the road and how they had recognised Jesus at the the dead, and to that fact we are the witnesses. breaking of bread.

‘Now I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders They were still talking about all this when Jesus himself had any idea what you were really doing; this was the stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with way God carried out what he had foretold, when he said you!’ In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they through all his prophets that his Christ would suffer. were seeing a ghost. But he said, ‘Why are you so Now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? may be wiped out.’ Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me

The word of the Lord. and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as

______you can see I have.’ And as he said this he showed them RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 4 his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they could

R. Lord, let your face shine on us. not believe it, and they stood dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered 1. When I call, answer me, O God of justice; him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before from anguish you released me, have mercy and hear me! (R.) their eyes.

2. It is the Lord who grants favours to those whom he loves; Then he told them, ‘This is what I meant when I said, the Lord hears me whenever I call him. (R.) while I was still with you, that everything written about 3. ‘What can bring us happiness?’ many say. me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Lift up the light of your face on us, O Lord. (R.) Psalms, has to be fulfilled.’ He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘So 4. I will lie down in peace and sleep comes at once, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. (R.) you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and

______on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name,

SECOND READING 1 Jn 2:1-5 repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached

A reading from the first letter of St John to all the nations, beginning from . You are witnesses to this.’ I am writing this, my children, to stop you sinning; The Gospel of the Lord. but if anyone should sin, ______we have our advocate with the Father, MEMORIAL ACCLAMATION Jesus Christ, who is just; We proclaim your Death, O Lord, he is the sacrifice that takes our sins away, and profess your Resurrection, until you come again. and not only ours, but the whole world’s. ______

We can be sure that we know God SPIRITUAL COMMUNION (for those unable to receive sacramentally) only by keeping his commandments. My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the Most Anyone who says, ‘I know him’, Holy Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire and does not keep his commandments, to receive you into my soul. Since I cannot at this is a liar, refusing to admit the truth. moment receive you sacramentally, come at least But when anyone does obey what he has said, spiritually into my heart. I embrace you as if you were God’s love comes to perfection in him. already there and unite myself wholly to you. Never The word of the Lord. permit me to be separated from you. Amen. ______

Hymns: Entrance – CWB 366 (Verses 1, 2, 5) That Easter day with joy was bright Offertory – CWB 363 Now the green blade rises Communion – CWB 652 Be not afraid Reflection – CWB 346 Alleluia! Alleluia! Hearts to heav’n Recessional – CWB 358 (Verses 1, 6, 8) Easter glory fills the sky

Recently Deceased: Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy; Evelyn Ronquillo; Maria Thom Vu

Anniversaries: Edito & Nimfa Cagampang; Elisabetta Madaffari; Carmen Buhagiar

Feast Days: 21 April: St Anselm 23 April: St George; St Adalbert 24 April: St Fidelis of Sigmaringen

Readings Next Week: 4th Sunday of Easter: Acts 4:8-12; 1 Jn 3:1-2; Jn 10:11-18 ______St Vincent de Paul Helpline: 1800 305 330 – Mon-Fri 10am-3pm