Our One Mission, Two Parishes
Theme or Focus for 2024 is:

Journeying together in daily life ...

25 February 2024

This week we celebrate the Second Sunday of Lent: “We all have dreams for the future, dreams about success and well-being. We all want a better world for our children and grandchildren. Our religious tradition sets before us aspirations that call for personal transformation. However, sometimes when we follow the inspiration of our most devout aspirations, obstacles are thrown in our path preventing us from following our dreams. Still, God does not call us out of our dreams into a vacuum. If we are asked to relinquish a possible future, it is only to be offered God’s future. Our aspirations may be noble, but the possibilities that God offers will outstrip them in excellence. Abraham was promised an heir; he relinquished his hold on his heir, and he was granted heirs beyond counting. Jesus came as a Rabbi; he allowed himself to be handed over to death, and he was revealed as the beloved Son of God.

Those preparing for Baptism might be asked to relinquish the dreams that they previously held in order to embrace the future God has in store for them. We who are already joined to Christ will be asked to recommit ourselves to this transformative experience. Do we have faith, or do we need a glimpse of Christ’s transfiguration in order to believe in his resurrection? Do we have to see and touch Jesus, or are we able to believe because we have heard his message? God’s future in Christ is open to us, but we must accept it in faith, even when we do not fully understand what it means." © Dianne Bergant CSA

& again ...

"The Transfiguration scene midway through Mark’s Gospel is the climactic crossroads where we must choose between staying in Galilee or going with Jesus to death in Jerusalem. In the previous chapter, Peter recognised Jesus’ true mission as Messiah and was quickly reprimanded for thinking that being the Messiah or his disciple saved a person from suffering. Jesus makes it clear. The only way to follow him is through the cross. The only way to save your life is to lose it.

The Transfiguration gives us a glimpse of that eternal life to come. So, wouldn’t it be nice to just put up a few tents and stay a while to enjoy the view on God’s holy mountain? We know the answer. ‘There is no salvation for the soul nor hope for eternal life except in the cross,’ wrote spiritual writer Thomas à Kempis in the 15th century. There is no Transfiguration without the cross; no conversion of heart until you have given up the very thing you cling to – privilege, status, belief in your own rightness. For the cross is that to which you say, I will give you anything but that, Lord. Anything.

Let us come down the mountain and do the hard work of taking up our cross. Transfiguration awaits those who let go of the very thing they cannot lose." © GIA Publications

February 2024

What are the Pope's Intentions for the Month of February?

For the terminally ill:

We pray that those with a terminal illness, and their families, receive the necessary physical and spiritual care and accompaniment.