All posts by 3 churches

Christ the King bidding prayers, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

bidding prayers, Christ the King,

Prayer of the Faithful

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A (9 February 2014)

Priest:   Brothers and Sisters let us pray for our needs those which are seen and those unseen.

Reader: The response to our prayer is ………..keep us safe in your care

Pope Francis asks us to be aware of the poor, the hungry and the homeless and especially those who are held as slaves.

PAUSE

Lord God ……..keep us safe in your care

We pray that we may strive to work for the common good as we make our decisions in life

PAUSE

Lord God…… .keep us safe in your care

February 8th was a day of prayer for the victims of modern slavery, we pray that the legislation that will be going through Parliament fairly soon will be adopted, so that victims can be supported and those who are responsible for these crimes prosecuted.

PAUSE

Lord God ……..keep us safe in your care

We pray for Gordon Robinson husband of Pauline who has recently died.  May he rest in peace

PAUSE

Lord God ……..keep us safe in your care

We pray that as a parish we may be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and that His light will guide us

PAUSE

Lord God ……..keep us safe in your care

In the quiet of our hearts we place all our unspoken needs before the Lord

LONGER PAUSE

Mary understood that life had its ups and downs and so we pray  ……Hail Mary

Priest:     Heavenly Father we make these prayers to you trusting in your Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit for ever Amen

Presentation

Uncategorized

Although so many of the events described in the Gospels took place in Jerusalem, when you go there it is not always so easy to “picture” them. The city has changed so much. Some sites require a great leap of the imagination. Even the Mount of Olives, obviously still there and mostly not built on, is covered with a cemetery and various churches.
So it is particularly moving that excavations on the south side of the Temple Mount have exposed the steps that people climbed up to the great Temple. For this would have been the route, the actual steps that Mary and Joseph took in order to present their baby in the Temple and be purified. Here, amid the crowds of pilgrims and worshippers, one little family slowly made their way up, unnoticed by anyone. …Until, that is, they reached the great courtyards at the top, within the Temple precincts. Here a wise and holy old man caught sight of them and made his way across. He – and the whole of the people of the Old Testament – had been waiting for exactly this moment, for the Messiah to enter his Father’s House. How Simeon’s warm and venerable heart soared as he caught sight of the little bundle in Mary’s arms. How did he know which baby was the One? Some whispering of the Spirit, some quiet idea that grasped his wise inner being. There he is – He has arrived, He is here!
With a great sigh, the sigh of the ages, the sigh of the human race that calls out for our Father, Simeon is ready to fall back into the arms of that Father, for now he can go home. His Father can let him depart in peace, for his eyes have seen the unseeable, the incarnation of eternal love.
And soon Anna comes too. A prophetess, a seer, and of good age also, her heart joins Simeon’s in soaring with a joy that she has never known before. All is complete, all is just beginning. The Old gives way to the New. The Temple now leaves its stones behind, and takes shape in the warmth and intimacy of each human heart.
Today, the steps still rise up to the Temple. But the one presented is now the one who presents. At the end of our journey, we are the one carried in his arms, carried up into our Father’s House. But first, we have to follow his steps… through the Holy Land of our lives.
Fr Matthew

A Bishop in Baghdad

Uncategorized,

This month we heard the news that Father Saad Sirop, the brother of Mrs Aida Aris and Mrs Maysoon Aziz, both from our 3 Churches, has been elected a Bishop. At 41 he is the fifth youngest Catholic Bishop in the world. Father Saad has visited us several times over the years, and some of us have watched his journey “from afar”. He has now been named Auxiliary Bishop to the Patriarch of Babylon in the Chaldean Church. This is one of the Eastern Rites of the Church, historically linked to the Syro-Malabar Rite, to which many of our Keralite members belong, including Fr Tomy, and Frs James and Modest before him. It has about 20 bishops, mainly across Iraq and neighbouring Syria, Iran and Lebanon, but also a few in countries where there are large numbers such as the USA.

The Patriarchate is based at Baghdad, where Fr Saad was born 6 September 1972. After studying at university he entered the Chaldean Patriarchal Seminary. He finished his theological studies at Rome at the Pontifical Urbanian University, and on 13 October 2001 he was ordained priest.

After ordination he gained a Licence in Philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome. From 2005 to 2006 he was Parish Priest of St James in Baghdad, Director of Studies at Babel College, and Vice-Rector at the faculty of Philosophy and Theology. His work was cut short when he and colleagues were kidnapped, a tragedy which made the headlines. Transferred to Rome, in 2008 he gained his doctorate in Philosophy, but in 2008 he was back in Baghdad. He became Parish Priest of the Chaldean Cathedral of St Joseph, and Professor of Philosophy at Babel College. He was Dean of the Chaldean priests in Baghdad, and Secretary of the Commission for Christian Youth there. He speaks Arabic, Italian, and English, and is familiar with German and Aramaic.

We cannot imagine the conditions for Christians in Iraq. Fanatics often identify them with the West, but the Chaldean Catholics have in fact been there since the very beginnings of Christianity. In an interview in 2010 Fr Saad said “I was kidnapped on 15th August 2006. I was the first priest in Baghdad who was abducted. For 28 days I was in the hands of a fanatical Muslim group. In that time I learned a lot about myself and about the relationship between the religions. In 2008 I came back to Baghdad, because I love Baghdad, I love Iraq and I love my people, so I wanted to continue working here as a priest. I also have a lot of Muslim friends here.” Bishop Saad, we celebrate your dedication to priesthood, your appointment as bishop, and we pray for you and your people.

Fr Matthew