Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish and St. Patrick's Parish

Saturday Mass at St. Pat's at 5PM - Sunday Masses at OMPH at 9AM & 11AM

March 29, 2020
Fifth Sunday of Lent

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Reflection Questions:
Adults: How does belief in the final resurrection from the dead affect your
family’s daily life?
Children: What do you hope for after your life on Earth is ended?
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COLLECTION DETAILS:
Monthly Budgeted Income: $10,835.00
Collection for March 2020: $ 7,766.00
Development & Peace: $ 585.00

OMPH SANCTUARY CANDLE: Pat Hurtubise by a parishioner

SANCTUARY CANDLE FOR BOTH SAINT PATRICK’S AND OMPH: Each week we invite you to light the sanctuary lamp in memory of a loved one or for a special intention. The cost is $20.00 and you may drop the donation off at the rectory during office hours or place it in the collection with the information enclosed.

OMPH IS NOW ABLE TO RECEIVE EMAIL BANK TRANSFERS to omphoffice@gmail.com. If you are interested in making your donation to the church through email, please call the office for more information. Donations can also be mailed to the parishes, OMPH Box 818 New Liskeard, ON P0J 1P0, St. Pat’s Box 293 Cobalt, ON P0J 1C0.

SHARE LENT – DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE: You can give directly to Development and Peace online at devp.org. Thank you for your generosity.

DIOCESAN PRIORITY
What kind of worship is due to the sacrament of the Eucharist?
The worship due to the sacrament of the Eucharist, whether during the celebration of the Mass or outside it, is the worship of Latria, that is, the adoration given to God alone. The Church guards with the greatest care Hosts that have been consecrated. She brings them to the sick and to other persons who find it impossible to participate at Mass. She also presents them for the solemn adoration of the faithful and she bears them in processions. The Church encourages the faithful to make frequent visits to adore the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle.

CHRISM MASS that was scheduled for Tuesday, April 7th at OMPH will now be celebrated on Holy Thursday, April 9th in the Bishop’s Chapel. At this time, we have no information regarding the rest of Holy Week.

PRAYING TOGETHER: On Friday, March 27th, at 12:00 P.M., Pope Francis will give an extraordinary Urbi et Orbi Blessing, with plenary indulgence. This will be on our Facebook page. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Canada also proposes to pray the rosary. We suggest that the faithful recite the rosary, alone or with their family, on Wednesdays at 6:00 P.M.. At that time, a lit candle or lantern could be placed in a window.

LENTEN THOUGHTS ON RECONCILIATION

Question: What are the essential elements of the sacrament of reconciliation?

Answer: There are three essential acts of the penitent: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Contrition means that one is truly sorrow for having offended God and others in word, deed, or neglect. Part of that contrition is firm resolve not to sin again. Confession means disclosing one’s sins. By this act a person takes full responsibility for his or her behaviour and willingly faces the guilt caused by sin. This demands both honesty and humility. Satisfaction deals with the disorder and harm done by sin. This satisfaction, sometimes known as penance, involves some concrete way of re-establishing justice and repairing the harm done by sin.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet we read: “Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow, / We would as willingly give cure as we know.” We do know, deep inside, from whence our sorrows come. They come from sin; they come from hurting one another and offending our God. A “perfect act” of contrition lies in a deep and firm commitment to avoid all sin. Given our human condition, however, we know that as long as we are on the pilgrim journey, contrition will be a recurring event.

The second essential element for the sacrament is confession. We indicate to the confessor the number and kinds of sins for which we are sorry. This moment of personal revelation has powerful consequences: a new freedom, in that truth does set us free; deeper authenticity from claiming the dark side of life as truly our own; and a re-establishing of our membership in the community, the act of confessing often demands great courage, for sin brings upon us much shame.

Satisfaction or penance involves the attempt to set things right, indeed, to foster the righteousness that Jesus came to bring to all of us. This penance may be making restitution for having taken what is not ours, or going to someone we have hurt and asking forgiveness, or committing ourselves to helping the poor whom we have neglected by our sin.
Source: Bishop Robert Morneau, Reconciliation (Maryknoll. NY: Orbis Books, 2007) 98- 100

SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION: Fr. Wayne is available to hear confessions by appointment. Please call the office at 705-647-5035.

REFLECTION FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
Sunday Readings

The first reading from the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel 37:12-14 is taken from the chapter about pouring forth the Spirit upon the "dry bones" in the valley of his vision. The prophet speaks of restoration through an act of God through the Spirit and that it was through him that the people first were saved from their oppression in Egypt, and by his power they will be saved again and restored as the people of God. The symbolic meaning of the reading is the resurrection of the people to new life, a theme clearly reiterated in succeeding apocalyptic literature and finally present in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The second reading from St Paul to the Romans 8:8-11 states that through Christ the whole person of the believer is saved, raised up, and redeemed. The realm of the flesh is the realm to be left behind, and the realm of the Spirit is where true life is to be found. But there is no hellenistic dichotomy here between flesh and spirit since the believer lives with the Spirit of God enfleshed in his body so that his whole person will live in conformity with that Spirit. The indwelling of the Spirit refers to the baptism of the person and his consequent moral life.

The Gospel reading, St. John 11:1-45, opens up in front of us a scene of unprecedented sorrow. The Lord Jesus receives the message from the sisters of Lazarus who, when confronted with the gravity of his condition, tried the only thing possible, they turned to the Lord of who it was said: ‘Everything He does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak’ (Mk 7:37). It is the cry of each one of us who would like their loved ones to live forever without ever leaving us.

The Lord Jesus, inexplicably, waited a further two days before heading for Lazarus’ home. Even then, He only left with His disciples when he divinely knew of His friend’s death. This particular detail from the Gospel tells us that the Word of God was made Man for the love of all of us. Also that His look of love is always upon us waiting for that meeting of immense joy that will happen in eternity.

Upon Jesus’ arrival in Bethany there was a new apparently inexplicable development in the story. First Mary, then her sister Marta and behind them all the Jews who were united with them, converge on Jesus with the certainty that if there was a response to their sorrow it would come from Him. They were not irreligious people who were looking to Jesus for a solution. They profoundly accepted Israel’s faith in the final Resurrection and so even this event was not ultimately inexplicable. In fact Martha said to the Lord, ‘I know that he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day’. (Jn 11:24) However, knowing that in relation to the Lord, nothing that was authentically human in them or their cry of sorrow be would be lost. Prior to that, their only consolation came from the eschatological faith of the time.

In this last sign, worked by the Lord before His triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, everything seams to flow to that ‘new reality’ inaugurated by Emmanuel, God with us. Sharing our existence, Jesus had loved us with a supreme passion, with that virginal love that doesn’t seek to possess the heart of the other, but to love it in truth with delicate insistence right up to sacrificing Himself for us. In this infinite delicacy and attention to everyone, He was able to be moved by those who were linked to Him by ties of the most profound friendship who understood that it could not be anything but God’s presence amongst them. ‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world. (Jn 11:25-27)

Christ then performed the great miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection. He announced, through the work of the Father, that He, Himself, God made man, is the Resurrection and the Life. He is also the Lord of biological life. His voice can reach those who, like Lazarus, have exceeded the threshold of four days from their death and arrived at the point where bodily corruption commences. Faced with this sign, the words with which He foretold His Resurrection become clearer: ‘I lay down my life, that I may take it again.’(Jn 10:17) He really can ‘take up [His life] again’ as He is the Word of Life. If Lazarus’ resurrection didn’t stop the Lord’s beloved friend from embracing ‘our sister death’ – to use St Francis’ expression - when God finally called him again from this life, then how much greater is the Life that the Lord has earned for Lazarus and everyone of us in the Pascal Mystery that we are preparing to celebrate a few days from now.

It was Martha and Mary’s faith, even when confronted with Lazarus’ death that gave rise to the extraordinary miracle worked by Christ. This is not only a consoling story narrated in the letters of the Gospel, but it is also accessible to us today in the Church from the day of our Baptism until when we are incorporated to Him by means of the Spirit that He has given to us. ‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.’ (Rom 8:11)

Most Holy Mary, the mother of the Risen One, give us the grace to look towards and live the light of this extraordinary reality – the promise of Resurrection in Christ. Amen.

From the Congregation for the Clergy