Year of Faith: Parish Newsletter - Introduction

BENEDICT XVI APOSTOLIC LETTER

Apostolic letter "Motu Proprio Data" porta fidei of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI for the indiction of the year of...

DENIS MCBRIDE  THE DOOR OF FAITH

The “door of faith” is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church.

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A boat, symbolizing the Church, is represented as moving through the waves under full sail. The main mast of the boat is a cross, which is a sign of our faith; the sails are in the form of the trigram IHS, representing the Holy Name of Jesus, and the background to the sails is a sun which, associated with the trigram, refers also to the Eucharist.

The “door of faith” is opened at baptism, but during this year Catholics are called to open it again, walk through it and rediscover and renew their relationship with Christ and His Church.

It is possible to cross that threshold when the word of God is proclaimed and the heart allows itself to be shaped by transforming grace. To enter through that door is to set out on a journey that lasts a lifetime.


“The Year of Faith gives all of us a graced opportunity to nourish the life of faith we have been given. None of us stays believing automatically; our faith needs to be fostered and cherished, fed and fortified otherwise it can die from indifference or neglect. Although no one can believe for us, none of us believes on our own..”                           


Fr. Denis McBride: Clydebank born Redemptorist Priest

POPE BENEDICT XVI  PRAYER

And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed,

Each of us is loved,

Each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.

There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.


Pope Benedict XVI, Homily April 24th, 2005

“The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or are in any way afflicted, these are the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.”

Fifty years ago the Second Vatican Council called  the Church to  a renewal of  faith. We know that as a community we do not stay dedicated just by existing. Our dedication can become old and tired, we can become disenchanted with the Church, feeling that we no longer want to belong. We stay faithful by struggling to grow up in the faith and take responsibility for our own community, defects and all. There are times when we need  the faith and love of the community to support us in our weakness and times when we help others by our support.

PASTORAL CONSTITUTION THE CHURCH IN  THE MODERN WORLD

YEAR OF FAITH  PRAYER

Spirit of Life, who was moving over the abyss, help human beings in our time to understand that the exclusion of God

leads them to lose their way in the desert of the world, and that it is only where faith enters that dignity and freedom flourish and the whole of society is built in justice.

Spirit of Pentecost, who made the Church one Body, restore to us, the baptized, an authentic experience of communion; make us living signs of the Risen One’s presence in the world, a community of saints that lives in service to charity.

Holy Spirit, who equips us for the mission, grant that we may recognize that so many people in our time too are in quest of the truth about their life and about the world. Make us work for their joy by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s grain of wheat that enriches the soil of life and ensures an abundant harvest.


Amen

YEAR OF FAITH  OUR PARISH

How are we to grasp the opportunity which this year presents? We will invite those families who present their children

for the Sacraments of Initiation - Baptism, First Reconciliation, Confirmation, First Holy Communion - to participate actively in our community and not simply pass through and beyond us.

We will encourage, affirm, empower and develop lay ministry, as approved by the Church, to meet the needs of our Parish through the leadership of our priest and deacon, by the grace of the Holy Spirit and following the model of the Second Vatican Council.

We will join with our fellow Christians in East Kilbride in presenting through the local media how we live out our faith through active involvement in the public and social life of our town and in our pastoral and spiritual care of our neighbours in the wider community.