Community Celebrating “Love”: the Golden Jubilee of Amos and to Come Together and Participate
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o u r CATHOLIC c o m m u n i t y Volume 3 No. 10 August 2014 Issue A publication of the Diocese of Roseau, Dominica $2.00 Summer Bible Adventure Challenge Anse De Mai Chapel Celebrates Patronal Feast Of Sts. Ann & Joachim Patronal Feast Feast of St. Peter In Fond St. Jean In Massacre Editor’s Pen Inside Bishop’s Message: The Catholic Educator In An Evolving The Evolution of the Village Feast Environment - Part I 03 very few weeks, somewhere around the island, we celebrate OUR CLERGY, RELIGIOUS AND LAY ASSOCIATES Ethe feast day of a patron saint Congratulations To Our Priests 04 or the Blessed Mother in one of our Interview With Fr. Vanty Auguiste - churches or chapels. Traditionally the celebration would usually commence Parish Priest Of St. Joseph 05 with a triduum or a Novena leading up Interview With Msgr. William John-Lewis - Part II 06 to the feast day, and would culminate Interview With Fr. Joseph Mali - with high Mass. Pilgrims would come Visiting Priests From Nigeria 07 from all the surrounding villages and communities to help celebrate the feast and villagers would open up their homes OUR DIOCESE to friends, family and even strangers. Know Your Faith: Great hospitality would be extended to all Liturgy Update: The Homily - Part IV 08 visitors and there would always be lots to I Believe In The Holy Spirit 08 eat and drink for anyone who dropped by. Because of the large number of Our Catholic Heritage - The History Of Our Lady Of persons which would be attracted to the La Salette National Shrine In Pointe Michel 09 feast perhaps a dance or a fair would be Tell Fr. Ben 10 organized also for the whole community Celebrating “Love”: The Golden Jubilee Of Amos And to come together and participate. But this was never the mainstay of a village Bernadine Augustina Pierre - 50 Years Of Marriage 11 feast it was simply a side activity. Feast Of St. Peter In Fond St. Jean 12 In more recent times however, Fr. Vanty Auguiste Celebrates 25 Years 13 something has changed. The emphasis Anse De Mai Chapel Celebrates Patronal Feast 14 on celebrating a feast has shifted from Patronal Feast Of Sts. Ann & Joachim In Massacre 15 the spiritual to the secular. Nowadays, the attendance at Novenas has suffered Sixth Form Sisserou Singers 2014 Production - greatly, with only a few faithful fully Celebrating 20 Years 16 participating. Pilgrims are few and far Events & Notice Board 17 between. However the attendance at the Prayer Corner 17 dances and the shows and in the bars has not dwindled, if anything, attendance We Have A Winner 19 has increased as “pilgrims” of a different kind have descended on communities OUR CATHOLIC WORLD bent on “celebrating” the village feast Woman Condemned For Apostasy Meets Pope Francis 20 with no thought to the foundation of this feast and the spiritual side of the celebration. KID’S CORNER 21 Advertisements of every kind hit the media announcing the activities to OUR YOUTH: EDUCATION, RECREATION AND FAITH take place, the band that will be playing St. Patrick’s Parish Youth Group Hike 22 and perhaps lost in this one may hear mention of a Mass or a Novena as if it is Summer Bible Adventure Challenge 22 a secondary thing and of no importance Vacation Bible School 23 at all. Mary must weep, the angles and Summer Bible Adventure Challenge photos 24 saints must weep and Jesus must weep as he cries out to us “My people, my people, what have I done to you, how I have made you tired of me” Micah 6:3. The lives of our Blessed Mother and The Social Communications Office the Saints are such a good example of Diocese of Roseau, Turkey Lane, P.O. Box 790 how to live our lives and that is why we Roseau, Commonwealth of Dominica celebrate their feast days. We however, Tel: (767) 448-2837 - (767) 448-8717 take no example from them, we ignore Fax: 1(767) 448-3404 them, and dismiss their message as Email: [email protected] unworthy of our attention and neglect our spiritual lives. When will we heed the cry of their call. 02 OUR CATHOLIC COMMUNITY AUGUST 2014 ISSUE Bishop’s Message The Catholic Educator in an Evolving Environment - Part I listen, to transmit an appreciation for those of religion. the past and to share values on which Associated with this social sector to build the future for new generations. is the phenomenon of globalization, In this context, the Christian which is not easily understood, thereby presence and the works of the Church’s requiring Christians to intensify their institutions like the schools and their effort at discernment. If we consider teachers are not easily perceived and, only its aspects of economy and are at times, even looked upon with great production, globalization is a negative reservation. In the last decades, repeated phenomenon. However, in a positive criticisms have been leveled at the sense, globalization can be viewed as Church. Consequently, evangelization is an association for growth, in which facing new challenges which are putting humanity can learn to develop new accepted practices in question and are forms of solidarity and new ways to share weakening customary, well-established the development of everything for the ways of doing things. In other words, the greater good of all. In such a situation, situation is requiring the Church and its the new evangelization can provide the schools to consider, in an entirely new opportunity to transcend the geographic way, how she proclaims and transmits confines of past missionary activity. the faith. The situation challenges us to It is meant to happen even within the redefine ourselves and our mission. confines of our schools and among our In facing these challenges, the educators. Church has to make the person of The third sector to be evangelized Jesus and a personal encounter with is Social Communication. While n Thursday, July 31, 2014, him central to her thinking. She must providing great possibilities for the I made a presentation at the proclaim the gospel in new ways which Church, it also represents one of her O23rd Biennial Conference of can speak to today’s culture. It must greatest challenges. Today, no place the Caribbean Association of Catholic speak to the various sectors of our in the world is beyond reach and, Teachers, held in Georgetown, Guyana, present day society. consequently, unaffected by the media under the theme: Catholic Educators The first sector which the and the digital culture, which is fast as Agent of Change in the Caribbean. Church has to attend to in this becoming the forum of public life The topic of my presentation was: evolving environment is culture. We and social interaction. Undoubtedly, The Catholic Educator in an Evolving find ourselves in an era of a profound the diffusion of this culture has its Environment–-the Context of the New secularism which has led to a loss in the benefits, including major access to Evangelization. Following is an edited capacity to listen and understand the information, greater opportunities for version of the presentation which I deem words of the Gospel as a living and life- knowledge, exchange and new forms useful for public perusal. giving message. Secularism has entered of solidarity; and the capacity to build As Christians, we find ourselves the Christian life and has become not an increasingly “world culture” which immersed in a period of significant simply an external threat for believers leads to a common patrimony of values historical and cultural change. Since the but something to be faced each day in the and a greater development of thought Second Vatican Council, these changes various manifestations of the culture of and human expression. In this sector, have steadily increased over the years relativism. Temptations to superficiality the new evangelization means that and have brought with them not only and self-centeredness, arising from Christians need to show boldness in hopes and dreams of utopia but also the hedonistic and consumer-oriented the situations where they live every day, fears and skepticism. mentality, are not easily overcome. and find the means and approaches to The initial years of this The second is the Social sector: ensure that the Church’s patrimony in new millennium, have witnessed Our societies are experiencing an education and knowledge, safeguarded developments which has indelibly unprecedented encounter and mixing of by the Christian tradition, has a part to marked the history of humanity cultures, resulting in forms of corruption, play in these modern situations. and dramatically affected it in many the erosion of the fundamental reference The fourth sector in which changes ways. We are living in a particularly to life, the undermining of the values call the Church’s evangelizing activity significant, historic moment of change for which we exert ourselves and the is the economy. Many popes have and tension and a loss of equilibrium deterioration of the very human ties denounced the growing disproportion in and points of reference. These times are we used to identify ourselves and give the Northern and Southern hemisphere increasingly forcing us to live immersed meaning to our lives. In this process in the access to resources and their in the present and passing things which culture becomes extremely fluid and distribution, as well as the damage to makes it increasingly difficult for us to fluctuating, increasingly leaving little creation. for the great traditions of life, including “IGNORANCE OF SCRIPTURES IS IGNORANCE OF CHRIST” 03 CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR PRIESTS he months of June, July and August each year and the Judicial Vicar of the Diocese.