PARISH BULLETIN

St Kieran Catholic Church

in Campbeltown and Islay

23th July 2017

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time St. Kieran’s

Monday-Wednesday Holy Mass 10.00 am

Wednesday Reception and Funeral Vigil tbc

Thursday Funeral Mass for Sean McGrory 1.00 pm

Friday Votive Mass of the Precious Blood 6.00 pm

Saturday Vigil Mass of Sunday 6.00 pm

Sunday Holy Mass 10.00 am

Sacrament of Reconciliation: Saturday 5.30-6.00 pm.

Islay

Sunday 6 August – Holy Mass, 4.00 pm Monday: Memorial of Saint Charbel Maklouf, priest

Tuesday: Feast of Saint James, apostle

Wednesday: Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, parents of the BVM

Saturday: Memorial of Saint Martha

Psalm response O Lord, you are good and forgiving.

Gospel acclamation Alleluia, alleluia!

May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our mind, so that we can see what hope his call holds for us.

Alleluia!

Communion Antiphon The Lord, the gracious, the merciful, has made a memorial of his

wonders; he gives food to those who fear him.

A Parish of the R.C. Diocese of Argyll and the Isles; Charitable Trust, a registered Scottish Charity, SC002876 Parish Priest: Fr. A. Wood, St. Kieran’s, Campbeltown; Tel. 01586 552160, email: anthonywood5@icloud.com,

website: stkieransrc.org

Invest just five minutes a day, and your faith will deepen and grow — a day at a time.

Monday, Jul 24, 2017 MEMORIAL OF SAINT CHARBEL MAKHLOUF, PRIEST Don’t be a closet Christian Saint Charbel Makhlouf, the Hermit of Lebanon, dedicated himself to imitating Christ at an early age. He entered the Maronite monastery of St. Maro and was eventually granted permission to live as a hermit. Many sought his counsel over the years, but it wasn’t until his body was discovered incorrupt long after his death in 1898 that hundreds of miracles were attributed to him. He became a sign to 20th-century Christians of the liberating power of simple living. We 21st-century Christians may not be prepared to reduce our possessions to a tunic and leaf-filled mattress, but we could begin to loosen the bonds of materialism by giving away the contents of a wardrobe or two.

TODAY'S READINGS: Exodus 14:5-18; Matthew 12:38-42. “The scribes and Pharisees said to him, ‘Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.’ ”

Tuesday, Jul 25, 2017 FEAST OF SAINT JAMES, APOSTLE Name your faith James has lots of nicknames. Besides “apostle,” he is “the Greater” to distinguish him from the other, younger apostle named James. He was “son of Zebedee,” which identified his fishing roots. He and his brother were the “sons of thunder,” reflecting a familial temper trait. He is also “the Martyr,” being the first apostle to suffer such a fate. The shrine in his name in Santiago de Compostela refers to his supposed missionary work in Spain. These names indicate that he was larger than life and multifaceted. What nickname would you want to be remembered by?

TODAY'S READINGS: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Matthew 20:20-28. “She said, ‘Declare that these two sons of mine will sit at your right hand and your left in your Kingdom.’ ”

Wednesday, Jul 26, 2017 MEMORIAL OF SAINTS JOACHIM AND ANNE, PARENTS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Be a model Remember when you first realized that you were becoming your mother? Or turning out to be just like your father? Kids do tend to grow up to be like their parents. Just like Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne, were the good ground from which the seed of goodness grew, we can be the good soil from which our children spring and produce much fruit. So, it might be better for us to invest our energy in self-control, rather than kid-control. The goal, remember, is not well-behaved kids but well-behaved adults.

TODAY'S READINGS: Exodus 16:1-5; 9-15; Matthew 13:1-9. “Other

seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Thursday, Jul 27, 2017 Be different The routine nature of daily life can cause our hearts to grow dull. And when we’re feeling dull, it’s hard to hear what God has to tell us. Yet it doesn’t take much to shake things up and get a new perspective. Just break out of a routine and do something different — take a new route to work, rearrange your furniture, clean out a junk drawer, or call an old friend you’ve been thinking about. God often talks to us in moments of surprise. So, get out of your rut and you might even get a fresh message from God.

TODAY'S READINGS: Exodus 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b; Matthew 13:10-17. “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing.”

Friday, Jul 28, 2017 Jesus is close at hand Where does God “live”? Where do you go to find God? Jesus declared He was the new temple, the new dwelling place of God in creation. So, wherever Jesus is, God is present, too. In his Body, which is the church, in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, in love of and service to others, and in countless other ways — in these places, God lives. Think of all the places you can encounter Jesus in your life, all the temples great and small where you feel the presence of God.

TODAY'S READINGS: Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 13:18-23. “But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Saturday, Jul 29, 2017 MEMORIAL OF SAINT MARTHA Friendliness is Godliness Even the saviour of the world needed a place where he could put his feet up and let his hair down. The home of Martha, her sister Mary, and their brother Lazarus was just such a place for Jesus. They were his good friends, people with whom he likely shared laughs and good times and perhaps on occasion a good cup of wine. When Lazarus died, Jesus without hesitation put his own life at risk by raising him. Friendship is fundamental to the spiritual life and to our well-being, yet too often we let friendships wither from neglect. Who counts you among their closest friends? If the list is short or non-existent, it’s time to reassess your priorities.

TODAY'S READINGS: Exodus 24:3-8; Matthew 13:24-30. “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Readings for the 16th Sunday Wisdom 12:13, 16-19

Our sovereign God has no need to defend acts of justice or mercy. Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16 (5a)

The greatness of God expresses itself in goodness, kindness, and forgiveness.

Romans 8:26-27 Sometimes we have no words to lift up to God. The Spirit knows what to say.

Matthew 13:24-43 Not everything that grows in the field is worthy of the harvest to come.

An extract from:

LIFE AT FULL

TROTTLE

Conscience Longing: is in us

Father, why do you constantly emphasize conscience?

Conscience, not just for me, but for the

Church, is the most important standard

of morality, though we sometimes forget

this. This needs to be properly understood.

But how? Sometimes we hear that everyone has their own conscience and should consider matters according to it.

Here I could do a whole lecture on conscience, that we have consciences

that are correct, incorrect, mistaken, invincibly erroneous, vincibly

erroneous, wide, narrow – these are the categories of conscience in moral

theology. Would you really like to hear about this?

Maybe you could say something about this in plain language?

I’ll try to do it in one thought. In the conscience, which is the most intimate

sanctuary of God’s encounter with every person, we hear His voice. This

FR. JAN KACZKOWSKI

LIFE

AT FULL

THROTTLE

voice is that natural scratching which sometimes does not gives us peace.

God acts in our lives mainly through the conscience. God is of course,

powerful, all-encompassing, but in this He is humble, that He has stowed

away in the voice of our conscience. That is why we are never allowed to

violate our conscience, which I’m afraid, happens to us all.

What is violation of the conscience?

It is opposition to the moral imperative, which says in you: do good, avoid

evil. Benedict XVI went further and said that in the conscience of every

person there are written some archetypes of the commandments. The Holy

Father compared this to Plato’s Cave. Plato assumed the existence of an

ideal world and of a real world. Man has been excluded from the ideal

world, for which he longs, in his own body, that is in the cave. Between

him and the wall of the cave there burns a fire, which we understand as

being the source of knowing truth, goodness and beauty (the

transcendentals). Between man, the fire, and the wall are passing divine

ideas. Man, as he is chained, cannot see the fire or the ideas. He does

however observe the shadows on the cave wall. Looking at the shadows he

remembers he once belonged to the ideal world. Pope Benedict says

exactly the same of the archetype shadows of the commandments. If we

were to summarize them we would say: assume, there exists a world

beyond reality, supernatural, intangible; assume there exists something

beyond the world of the senses (1st, 2nd and 3rd commandments); do no

harm, value family and respect friendship (4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10). All these

values are shared by Hindus, animists and Christians. And also by some

agnostics and atheists. The commandments awaken in us a longing for the

ideal world, and so we try to come closer to them.

Violation of the conscience is behaving in a way that opposes this longing

that is within us.

Let’s call in some specifics, for example the value of family. Are we to

close our eyes to the fact that these days families are transforming,

breaking up, being recombined with different members? Such families are

also valuable, but do they have in them that original brilliance? One of the

moral principles says that we must refrain from action, if we have

something that raises doubt. Then, you need to carefully try to understand

it, go back to first principles. And then, we reach either a certainty to be

able to go forward, with what we recognized in our consciences, or with

conviction give it up. In the event of urgency, it should be the most

probable option and not the convenient one.

As a Catholic I am not ashamed of the conflict of my subjective judgement

with objective external standards, such as the Gospel and the teachings of

the Church. I don’t always manage to hear my conscience well. I need such

standards because I am weak.

We, Catholics, should conform our consciences to the teachings of the

Church in such a way as to not violate the conscience. And if there are

doubts – despite our sincere, earnest efforts – and they continue, then we

are obliged, with extreme caution, to follow the voice of our conscience.

This does not mean that later it won’t turn out we were mistaken, but the

error was at that time, to return to theological jargon, it was an invincible

error.

It all seems very fuzzy.

But interesting.

How are you so sure that the shadows of the commandments are the conscience and not cultural codes?

God also works through psychology and education. Let’s not remove God

so severely from this world. Gratia supponit naturam, grace is based on

nature. If a student doesn’t learn, and calls on the Holy Spirit, well then,

how is He to help, He has nothing to work with. God very rarely acts

contra naturam.

Will your faith collapse when scientists find an area in the brain

responsible for mystical feelings? When it’s confirmed that this faith is

merely a part of the brain? Or if someone opens our skull and stimulates an

area responsible for the feeling of God, is this evidence of the non-

existence of God? No, it would only be evidence of God who so

miraculously created us through evolution, that he planned the feeling of

Him through emotion. He also planned for us a cultural code so as to

behave ethically.

God is very gentle. From one side you see a great tension, which I like a lot

in theology – God, the Unmoved Mover. As some wishing to show-off in

sermons say: “Lord of time and Lord of history, the One who acts above

our matrix, who in one glance sees the beginning of history and its end. A

personal God, the elusive Absolute, who is not even a person, and functions

in the manner of a person, because if He was a person, it would limit Him,

He would no longer be limitless, absolute”.

God functions in the manner of a person, that is He enters into

relationships. He enters into relationships with me, with you, with

everyone, because only between persons is there the possibility of

relationship.

The Sign of the Cross

You make the sign of the cross, so you do it properly. It is not a hasty and clumsy gesture, without meaning. No! you make an appropriate sign of the cross, slow, large, from the forehead to the chest, from one shoulder to the other. Do you feel how it includes your whole self? Take care to focus on it properly: all your thoughts and all your heart in this one sign, that goes from the forehead to the chest, from shoulder to shoulder. And then you will feel this sign encompass your whole self, the body, yourself, the soul, it embraces you, ennobles you, sanctifies you.

Why is that? Because it is the sign of everything and the sign of salvation. On the cross the Lord redeemed all people. Through the cross He sanctifies man down to the smallest element of his being.

Therefore, we make the sign of the cross before prayer, so as to inspire us with order and focus, so that our thoughts, will, and heart join with God. We make this sign after prayer, so as to preserve in us what God has granted us. We make the sign of the cross in temptation, so as to give us strength. In danger, for protection. During blessing, for the fullness of God’s life to enter the soul, so that we be made fruitful and sanctified interiorly.

Think about this every time you make the sign of the cross. This is the most sacred sign that exists.

The Holy Father’s prayer intention for July That our brothers and sisters who have strayed from the faith, through our prayer and witness to the Gospel, may rediscover the merciful closeness of the Lord and the beauty of the Christian life.

PrayersPlease pray for all those who are in need or have asked for our prayers: Canon Donald MacKay (Daliburgh), Shirley Finn, Mrs. Isa Durnan, Willie Robertson. Please remember in your prayers all those, whose anniversaries occur at his time, and pray

for the repose of the soul of Sean McGrory and the consolation of his family and friends.

News and EventA talk by Ronald Campbell.

Friday 28th July at 6.30pm on Living in Pope Francis’ Rome.

Mission Visit: India Village Ministries

All are warmly invited to come and meet Suresh Vemulapalli, of India Village Ministries, Andhra Pradesh, S. E. India. He will be visiting Campbeltown on Wednesday 26th July and will give a presentation of his ministry in Springbank Evangelical Church, 75 Longrow, at 7.30pm.

More information about the ministry may be found at www.indiavillage.org

Fr. Tony will be away at a family funeral from after Mass next Sunday until Tuesday.

Coffee Morning: 12th August 10am-12pm the parish will have a coffee morning in the Red Cross hall. Helpers welcome and needed. If you can help in any way, let Margaret Wilson or Fr. Tony know.

Email addresses: to help inform you all of late changes to events, or get information out quickly, it would be helpful if have an email address to let Fr. Tony know what it is. Put your email address in the large envelope in the porch (forms and pens available).