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Bulletin for the week of March 12th - 18th, 2006.
A sincere welcome to those who are new among us. We hope you find a warm and welcoming faith-home with us. Please introduce yourself after Mass and call the Rectory to register. 40/3/50 - THE PASCAL SEASON
LENT - WE CLIMB THE HOLY MOUNTAIN OF EASTER: The traditional Lenten practices can still play a significant role:
GETTING TOGETHER WITH ST. ALOYSIUS FOR A LENTEN FAITH REFLECTION: Why not take the opportunity of the Lenten time of prayer and reflection to read and meditate on this document? To help us grasp key messages in it, the Pastoral Council has invited Joe Gunn, former Director of the Social Affairs office of the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops, to present the document and comment on its applications in our lives, on Monday, March 13th, 7:30-9:00p.m. at St. Aloysius church hall. Please plan to attend and invite friends and neighbors! THIS SUNDAY’S MASS - A SLIGHT CHANGE - WHY?Remember four weeks ago we handled the opening ritual of the Mass a bit differently. The purpose of it was to highlight the faith meaning of each routine action as” getting to church on Sunday. “We come together as Christians, we sign ourselves with the cross while using baptismal water, we sing praise and thanks to God, we know ourselves called by God to be God’s beloved people. We emphasized the aspects of our faith a bit more while we had our First Communion candidates in our midst. They are with us again this Sunday. That gives us an opportunity to pay more attention to the first part of the Mass where the focus is on the Bible, the Book of God’s Word. So we take the liberty to rearrange that part of the Mass a bit. Please note, this may give the impression that we made an attempt to make it more interesting for the kids. That is not really the point. We as adults must become more aware of the faith significance of what we do at church, and how that in turn is meant to nourish us in the places we go to after we have been at church. If, as a result, we are in a better position to pass that on to our children, so much the better. But we must first be convinced that what we are about is adult stuff, Otherwise, there is always the danger that it is all perceived as “stuff that is nice for kids”, but that as adults we sort of graduate away from. What a disaster! “GIFT BEARERS” NOT ON THE LIST OF MINISTRIES? Why do we bring up the bread and wine? What does it mean? Is it not easier to simply have them on the altar right from the beginning of Mass? Fair questions.---- On the other hand, there is something in that ritual action. The bread and wine are more than “bread and wine we need for Mass. At this point in Mass the bread and wine embody ourselves, our world, our human condition as we stand before God. In the bread and wine we present ourselves to God with our achievements and our failures; we present our world with its exciting, it’s trying its terrifying features. We bring them, we bring ourselves to that all-important event that is being celebrated in the Eucharistic prayer: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In that all-important event God has begun the re-creation of our wounded humanity. That does not leave the bread and wine untouched. In fact, through the power of the Spirit this bread and wine are transformed so that they now become the bearers of Christ’s self-giving on which we are privileged to feed at Communion. So there is a lot in that simple gesture of bringing up the bread and wine. We want to honour its true meaning. ---- GETTING READY FOR BAPTISM - PREPARATION STARTS MARCH 22nd: However, the celebration of baptism is always preceded by a preparation. The form that we have given to that preparation is three evenings of reflection with the parents who have requested that their son/daughter be baptized. In other words, we need a fair bit of time to get ready for the baptisms. The next time we celebrate baptism at OLV will most likely be Sunday April 23rd or 30th. The preparation for it begins on Tuesday March 22nd, followed by sessions on March 29th and April 5th. That is a fair distance between the preparation sessions and the actual baptism. The reason for that is the celebration of Easter and the celebration of baptism at St, Al’s in Gatineau. OLV SOCIETY: OUR SYMPATHY AND PRAYERS: BIRTHDAY WISHES TO: CEREAL BARS: ST. PATRICK’S DAY DANCE: ST. COLUMBAN ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARTY:
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