Parish Bulletin, 18 April 2021

PARISH 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 Gospel, 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) – Baptism in the first place; or for those already baptised, Penance (Reconciliation). Weekday Mass Times The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the nature of this contrition which is essential: Mon 10.00am St Mary’s 1491 The sacrament of Penance 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 Council of Trent (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 Baptisms 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 salvation. SAINTS OF THE WEEK 17 April – St Simeon bar Sabas & Companions, Martyrs of Persia St Simeon (Shimun) bar Sabas was Bishop 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 Rome (1553/1681/1830), but Emperor Shapur II (309-79) opposed it, fearing its forming the Chaldean Catholic Church, with 600,000 Roman links after the conversion of Roman Emperor members today. Others form the still-separate Assyrian Constantine the Great. 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 brother 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

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