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St Patrick’s Catholic Parish
2 Moffat Street West (PO Box 243), Herberton QLD 4887
4096 2218 Fax: 40914975
Ph: (07)
Parish Priest: Gregory J. Moses Email: [email protected] Mobile: 0417 707 875
Dean of Western Deanery: Hilary Flynn Mobile: 0408 078 989
Deacon (Southern Tablelands): Alban Hunt Phone: 4096 6304
Pastoral Care: Sisters of Mercy Convent Phone: 4096 1450,
MSB College Principal: Br. Bill Tynan Phone: 4096 1444 www.msb.qld.edu.au
Trish Inderbitzin Mobile: 0417 719 685
Fr. Barry Craig Parish Priest Malanda, Ph. 4096 5156.
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Malanda Scholar in Residence
Year ABarry Craig Ph. 4096 6873.
12th October 2014
Sunday: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
11.15 a.m.
I shall live in the house of the Lord all the
days of my life.
Alleluia alleluia! May the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes
of our heart, that we might see how
great is the hope to which we are
called. Alleluia!
O’Connor, Fr. John Butcher, Joe-Ellen
Bouttell, Fr. John Newman, Sr. Ines, Sr.
Barty, Ellie Schuch, Maree Nasser, Ralph
Griebel, Ernest Hetherington, Malcolm
McDonnell, Sr. Anna, Fr. Frank Crane,
Katherine Swift, Kevin English, Fr. Mick
Bonner, and all our ailing priests and
nuns.
Welcome back to the boarders!
Welcome back this week to the MSB
Boarders.
Tuesday: 8.30 am mass in chapel
Friday: 8.15 am mass in chapel
Sunday: 29th Sunday in Ordinary
Time: 11.15 am mass in Church.
Please pray our recently deceased
Patricia Frances Nash, Derek Worthy
(Maureen's husband), Jane Adams
(Michael's sister), Francesca Curcio,
Dominico Trimarchi, Fr. Bill McCarthy,
Patricia Hodge, Fr. Peter McHugh.
Special prayers for Trish Nash, and for
Arthur, Cassie and Josh her family.
Also for those whose anniversaries
occur: Sr. Catherine Kelly, Eleanor
Fahey, Clement Gibson, Sr. Magdalen
Bowe, Harold Thomas Tucker, Joy
MCHugh, Harry Fawcett.
And for our sick and indisposed: Leo
Simonis (classmate of Guido and
myself), Sr. Mairead, Gil McIntyre,
Shirley McIntyre, Syd Spry, Fr. John
Next Youth Mass: tentatively, Sunday
9th November, 5.30 pm.
As part of a deal having to do with the
Tolga Church being taken off to St.
Stephen's in Mareeba, Bishop James has
promised to mechanise our bell, as well
as the bell in Atherton. This should make
it usable once again.
Please pray for Christians in the Middle
East. Also for our school. And for peace
in the Ukraine and in Syria and Iraq.
MSB Speech Night: Friday October 31st, 7
pm at the Herberton State School. All
welcome.
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time: wedding
banquets, good food and fine wine for all in a
world beyond tears
Now that Fr. Karel has taken over
weddings in Port Douglas, I don't have as
many weddings as in past years, but still
some, including this weekend. Question
arises as to whether to go to the reception
if I get asked. Different priests and
deacons have different policies. My
policy, for the sake of consistency, is not
to accept unless I would have been
invited anyway on the basis of family or
personal friendship. Jesus on the other
hand may have accepted every invite he
was given, no matter from whom, eating
and drinking with prostitutes, tax
collectors and sinners as readily as with
scribes and Pharisees, in an exchange of
hospitality, people give him hospitality and
in exchange he introduces them into the
lavish Hospitality of God.
Good food and fine wine, banquets and
particularly wedding banquets are
important enough for us, though one can
well have too much. In Jesus’ day they
would have been absolutely important,
really significant occasions particularly in
the village culture, celebrations going for
days, the high point of the year,
sometimes the only high point(s) in an
otherwise drab and difficult existence. So
it is not surprising that this bundle of
wonderful very human imagery gets to be
so significant in the Scriptures, a way of
representing God’s dreams for us and for
our world, a banquet prepared for us in
the sight of our foes, good food and fine
wine for all peoples, the fullness of life for
all in a world beyond tears. And it is this
dream that is beginning to be fulfilled in
the life and ministry of Jesus.
This is a party to which all are eventually
invited, the poor the sick the blind the
lame, the people from the highways and
byways, as well as the devout, extensive
Divine hospitality. But not everyone is
coming to the party, lots of people are
leaving themselves out, including the
chief priests and elders of the people.
There are differences between the
Matthew and the Luke versions of the
parable, Luke, probably earlier, is a bit
more friendly, but the key message is still
the same I think: do come along, do
come to the party, don't you be left out in
the cold!
But what’s this about the wedding
garment? People on the highways and
byways are not going to be just by chance
packing a tuxedo or formal dress just in
case someone invites them to a wedding,
and even more so for the poor, the
crippled, the blind and the lame. The
answer is, on such occasions they were
handed out by your host on your way in, it
was part of the hospitality. On your way
in you got to be freshed up and cleaned
up and you also got to be dolled up,
gotten ready for the feast. The person
who hasn’t bothered to pick one up has
no respect at all, really has no excuse.
One of the reasons for coming to mass, I
guess, is to be refreshed and washed up
and dolled up again after the dust and
battles of the journey during the week, to
allow the Lord of the Banquet to take
away our sins and difficulties and to
remind us and restore us as need be to
our dignity as the beloved sons and
daughters invited to the Supper of the
Lamb, or like in the prodigal son, rings on
his finger shoes on his feet. Though this
itself is like a refreshing of our Baptism,
both parts, the getting all washed up and
the getting all dolled up.
And then how do we accept the invitation
and how do we turn up? Once again, our
mass is like a gold-plated individual and
collective invitation, and as we take and
eat, take and drink, that’s like an RSVP.
But more than that, our communion with
the Lord and with each other is already a
part of the enjoyment of being at the
Supper of the Lamb. But our daily life has
a lot to do with it as well…