Responsorial Psalm: Many Thanks O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next. To all our friends at St. David's: enormous thanks for the wonderful (and emotional) farewell you gave us last Sunday. We were humbled by the love and kindness shown to us. We are truly blessed in all we have shared and experienced at St David's and will keep you in our prayers. God bless you all. On Sunday: Alternative Response to the Psalm : O that today you would hear His voice! Harden not your hearts Gospel Acclamation: Alleluia, alleluia! Your Word is truth, O Lord; consecrate us in the truth. Alleluia! Exhibition on Eucharistic Miracles throughout the world: at Our Lady of the Rosary Church Hall, Jubilee Road, Buckley on this Friday 5 August and Saturday 6 August, 10.30am to 6.00pm Portiuncula 800 Years This Tuesday (2nd August) – Porti- uncula 800 Years: our Poor Clare Sisters at Hawarden (“Ty Mam Duw”, Upper Aston Hall Lane, Hawarden CH5 3EN) invite us all, saying “We welcome all our friends of the Franciscan family and all who love our father Saint Francis. This is a family celebration for the Year of Mercy with the opportunity to receive the gift of mercy, the Portiuncula Pardon. 5.30pm an hour of prayer with opportunity for the Sacrament of Reconciliation 6.30pm Festival Mass. See the notice at the back. Eglwys Catholig Dewi Sant, Yr Wyddgrug St.David’s Catholic Church, Mold Parish Priest: Fr. Pius Mathew CMI, St.David’s Presbytery, St.David’s Lane, Mold. CH7 1LH Email: [email protected] 01352 752087 Deacon David Joy:01352 754722 LSUConvent:01352 700121 Website: http://www.stdavidsmold.org.uk/ www.wrexhamdiocese.org.uk http://www.cmi.org.in Karen, Alan, Sophie & Amy Morris. Money Matters : Offertory Collection last weekend £726.09 of which £413.50 was Gift Aided. 31st July 2016 Michael Jones, Anne Jones, Jim Hughes, Margaret Carr, Judith Rowe, Margaret Evans, Fred Battersby, Gwen Jones,Joe Goggin, Ian Byron, Debra Ann Roberts,Tricia Twizell, Rosa Maria, Joan Lawrence, Gay McCornick, Moira Catherall, Lea Hill, Anne Turner, Mary Rowe, Jenny Mansley, Jennifer Rowley, Nancy Wilson, Joe & Luisa Desena, Shelagh Fulham, Margaret Stubbs, Philomena Lamano, and Leo McManus. We remember in our prayers Those whose anniversaries Occur this week (31st July) John Daly, Mary Jacinta Roberts, Lilian Muter, (1st August) Maria Teresa Bardini, Winefride Cliffe, Ethel Cotter, (2nd Aug) John James O’Neill, Margaret Parry, Martin Carney, Michael Bravey, Patricia Hannah http://www.cmi.org.in Year C LITURGY OF THE WEEK: Psalter Week II 30th July Saturday Mass 5.30pm Flowers: £124.30 Gift Aid: If you are a Tax Payer, please consider filling out the Gift Aid form which is in the church porch to receive a box of weekly envelopes for your offertory donation or for a one-off donation then please use the Green envelopes. Please remember to write your name, address, sign and date the green envelope. Thank you for supporting our Parish. Let us pray for the Sick 18th Sunday Ordinary time Madeleine Davis RIP (Michel Davis) 31st July Sunday Mass 11am For People of the Parish Monday : 1st Aug Tuesday: 2nd Aug Mem: St. Alphonsus Liguori Mass 9.15am Patrick Reilly RIP (Mary& Alan McDonald) Liturgy of the day Mass 7pm Int. Srs. Sophie, Marie Odette, Veronique and Michele (Dea & Eddie Saul) Wednesday: Liturgy of the day 3rd Aug Mass 9.15am Int. Helen Edwards (Mary McCarry) Thursday: Mem. St. John Vianney 4th Aug Mass 9.15am Int. Alice Higginbottom (HF, Wrexham) Friday: Liturgy of the day 5th Aug Mass 9.15am Bill Taylor RIP (Kitty Malone) 6th August Saturday Mass at 5.30pm 7th August Sunday Mass 11am Roy Cropper RIP (Mrs. D. Green) For People of the Parish Eucharistic Adoration with Rosary and Benediction Every Friday following the morning Mass at 9.15am Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confessions) Saturdays 10.30am to 11.30am & Before the Vigil Mass (4.45-5.20pm) Sundays before the Mass (10.30-10.50am) The Humour of Jesus FAITH IN FOCUS: “ WHAT’S THE POINT? Vanity of vanities!” is a famous quotation from the bible, but what does it mean? It’s the preacher’s way in the Book of Ecclesiastes of saying that life seems “meaningless” or “pointless”. What’s it all about? It’s certainly not fair and it seems to take all my time and energy and keep me to the grindstone. very far. We’ll get bogged down in its limitations; our lives will not reflect anything other than our career prospects, our bank balances, our reputations and our comfort. Our cultural horizons will hit the buffers at celebrity, gossip, fashion A radio pundit the other day said that there should be more love shown in the work place, because love makes us more productive and that way we will earn more money. Is that the point of life, money? And what’s the point of stashing money away when your children and grandchildren will only fritter it away after you’ve gone? Is it worth the hard work and the restless nights worrying about it, asks our reading today? and trivia, while our significant relationships will be virtually found on Facebook and Twitter. here’s nothing fundamentally wrong with our world; God made it and it’s good. But if we limit our sights only to the things of this world then we won’ see hat makes us tick? What are our values and are any of them transcendent? Do they go beyond the make-up and greasepaint, beyond simply T following the crowd in its dream of success? The preacher in today’s scripture obviously feels that life can be meaningless unless we have a clear idea about the reason we are on this earth. Without such a spiritual compass we are at the whim of a pointless merry-go-round that seems to take more out of us than it gives. S W o what’s the driving force in your life? What makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning and confront the world and all its challenges? What motivates you to keep on going and to make your mark? Given that life is short, what makes it worth living? When today’s psalmist came to answer these questions, he put it very simply:Make us know the shortness of our life/that we may gain wisdom of heart/O Lord, you have been our refuge/from one generation to the next. For life to be meaningful we all need a goal. What’s yours? Because Jesus was fully human like us, he had to have a sense of humour. However, sometimes we read what Jesus says and we think that it must be very holy and therefore very serious. We miss the wood for the trees. In fact, that was one of the many one-liners that Jesus used in the New Testament. In trying to get across the idea that some people are critical of others whilst applying much lower standards to themselves, he said that they notice the splinter in other people’s eyes but not the plank in their own! Leave the dead to bury the dead, was his quip to someone who wanted to be his follower but wasn’t prepared to drop everything there and then. When he said that the poor will be with us always, it can only have been with tongue in cheek, for otherwise it would have been completely out of character. Often Jesus used irony to get his message across, claiming that the religious leaders knew how to live the high-life but did nothing to lighten the burdens of the ordinary people. He tells amusing stories about people who are just concerned with feathering their nest but who die and don’t get their chance to enjoy their wealth. He gives silly names to people, calling Peter a rock when he was anything but, and referring to James and John as Sons of Boanerges, meaning Sons of Thunder, and implying that they are hotheads. When the woman at the well coyly says that she has no husband he points out wryly that the man she is living with is not her husband and neither were any of the previous five. He says, “You speak the truth there”; we would probably say, “You can say that again!” And with clever use of humour Jesus is not afraid to shock. The story of the Good Samaritan is funny because Samaritans were outcasts who were shunned by good Jewish people, but in the story it’s the priest and Levite (…heard the one about the priest, the rabbi and the mullah….?) who ignore the man who has been mugged and it’s the Samaritan (the chav, the punk, the hippie) who turns up trumps. Jesus puts the humorous sting in the tail of the story that would have delighted the ordinary people who listened to him. The pages of the gospels are packed with amusing references to whining widows who wear down powerful judges, of nagging neighbours who come pestering for a loaf at midnight, of people who embarrassingly have to be re-seated at a wedding because they thought they were more important than they were, of religious people in the middle of the street with long, glum faces and ashes on their heads trying to show that they are fasting, of a self-important person praying on the front row of the synagogue but whose prayer is not as effective as the sinner who crouches on the back row…No one was safe from the butt of his humour, a butt that was simply intended to get people to think and act differently. Body, Mind and Spirit. Jesus became fully human, and that extended to having a sense of humour. Someone once said that God must laugh out loud daily when seeing how we human beings go about our daily lives and the mess we often make of them. To be holy, you don’t have to be miserable. The world has enough Holy Joes without our pretending that religion is so sombre that it should never raise a smile. We are called to experience life with body, mind and spirit: to use all our mental faculties in learning about our world, about each other and about the promises that God has made to us in Jesus. And that includes our sense of humour.
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