WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ORDO FRANCISCANUS SAECULARIS NEWSLETTER APRIL 2014
ELLECTIONS ELLECTIONS ELLECTIONSKALGOORLIE ENQUIRERS ! FRATERNITY IN THE GOLDFIELDS?
FROM LEFT
NOEL D’SOUZA MICHAEL MC GUIRE ANTOINETTE FRENDO SANDRA MARONEY ANGELA MC GUIRE & DAVID WARD
DATES FOR YOUR CALENDAR - 2014
10th August 5.30pmTRANSITUS OF ST CLARE Edel Quinn Centre 36 Windsor Street PerthPlease bring a plate for refreshments afterwards
3rd October 6.30pmTRANSITUS OF ST FRANCIS Our Lady of Poland Church 35 Eighth Avenue MaylandsPlease bring a plate for refreshments afterwards
30th November 10am - 4pm REGIONAL REFLECTION DAY Edel Quinn Centre 36 Windsor Street PerthMass 2.30pm Please bring a plate for shared lunch
21st December 3pmTHE CELEBRATION OF GRECCIO (hosted by Balcatta Fraternity) St Theresa Church 678 North Beach Road Gwelup
Christ
Has
Risen Alleluia
THE JOY OF THE GOSPELS FATHER NORBERT PITTORINO OFM
THIS YEARS FRANCISCAN RETREAT held at Redemptorist Retreat house NORTH PERTH
20TH 21ST September 2014 6.30pm Registration live in /live out
A CEREMONY OF THE STIGMATA OF ST FRANCIS WILL BE CELEBRATED ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON
ENQUIRES PLEASE CONTACT Angela Mc Guire Phone: 08 92755658
MIDLAND
Here we are at the beginning of another year and getting close to Easter, how time flies. During 2013 we had been studying the book “Franciscan Lay Spirituality” by Fr Pittorino, we have now reached the end of the book and have found it to be a great resource for Franciscan Spirituality we all felt that we should go through the book again. I am sure we will all be looking forward to meeting Fr Pittorino when he comes to Perth for the retreat in September Please God.
There are six candidates in Kalgoorlie who are to be received on the 17th of May through Midland Fraternity, what a blessing for Kalgoorlie! Harry Argus has been leading this group through their formation and all is going really well. It seems that the Holy Spirit is busy sowing seeds for the harvest and paving the way for a fraternity in the Goldfields. We will certainly keep harry and the six candidates in our prayers that God may guide them on their spiritual journey as they prepare for their future profession.
The prospect of a future fraternity in Kalgoorlie is certainly very exciting, Harry has done a marvellous job with the formation of this group they are all excited and looking forward to their reception in May, keep up the good work Harry you’ve done really well. Pax et Bonum
Antoinette
Catholic Easter Prayer
Lord, the resurrection of Your Sonhas given us new life and renewed hope.Help us to live as new peoplein pursuit of the Christian ideal.Grant us wisdom to know what we must do,the will to want to do it,the courage to undertake it,the perseverance to continue to do it,and the strength to complete it.
source :New Saint Joseph People's Prayer Book
Editorial
Pope Francis’ recent Exhortation presents us with a number of very real challenges that confront us in our missionary endeavours. I think that it would be helpful for us to examine some of the things the Pope has to say and perhaps ask ourselves what we should do in our lives to adjust our thinking and actions in line with the ideals presented to us by the Pope. He says that he is speaking to us as a father and not as a law-giver. He asks us to be more positive in our approaches and to adjust our lives accordingly. The Pope begins his letter in this way: “The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. In this Exhortation I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths
for the Church’s journey in years to come.” What is the Pope trying to tell us? I think Pope Francis is pointing out something that we need to face in our lives: the lack of missionary zeal on the part of many Catholics. Pope Francis wants us to have a good look at this problem and find ways of resolving it. He says that this lack of missionary action spells out an almost near rejection, or forsaking the apostolic character of the Catholic faith by the majority of Catholics. He refers to the Word of God which tells us that the person who buries his talent is displeasing to God because they fail to profess the faith they have received from God through the Church and participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God. That is quite a challenge! If you were asked, “What have you done this week to spread the faith?” you might think the questioner some kind of fundamentalist or oddball. But that is the challenge the Pope wants us to consider. The “New Evangelization” that
the Popes have spoken about over the past ten years will go nowhere if we don’t do something about it ourselves. We can’t simply stand by and wait for someone else to do it. It is our task to do something. Everyone knows there is a lack of faith in the world today. Some blame poor liturgy; some blame bad schools or catechesis; others blame the breakdown of the
family. All of these may have something to do with the problem but the basic diagnosis goes deeper. The Pope thinks it is a lack of joy in Catholics themselves. He says, “If we have joy, then no one needs to tell us to spread the faith. We will do so naturally and spontaneously,
the same way that we share anything that we are passionate
about .The lack of joy is linked to a certain
“Narrowness and self-absorption” which is
made worse by various trends in modern life, such as consumerism and immersion in electronic media. This is expressed in many forms of pessimism, bitterness, defeatism, spiritual sloth and anxiety, worldliness, self-reliance and hides behind many “pious” looking, false forms of Christianity.
These may appear to be very harsh sounding words from our gentle Pope, but he is speaking as a father to us and trying to show the way to a happier and better life that we all deserve. I think we have much to think about in these words. What is the answer? The Pope suggests that the only solution is to turn back to Christ unfailingly each day. If we are like those who want to overcome believing only in themselves, their own powers and regard themselves as superior to others and remain intransigently faithful to a particular catholic style from the past so that they analyse and
classify others instead of opening the door to grace, Then this gives us reason to pause and think about our lives and how we affect others. What should we ourselves do about the present situation in the world? That is the challenge that each one of us must face and come up with a positive answer. Fr Norbert, OFM
Brother sun sister moon @ live.com.au
BALCATTA FRATERNITY
Happy Easter to everyone, especially our sick and isolated members. We are keeping you in our prayers.
It has been a busy start to the year with the Regional Elections and preparing for Professions in addition to the usual activity.
The Fraternity has been using some chapters of To Live as Francis Lived for ongoing formation and we used the Lenten message of Pope Francis for this year to give us some inspiration for our February meeting. We have enjoyed having Pat Merrells back at meetings.
Balcatta Fraternity hosted the annual
Stations of the Cross on 16 March at St Theresa’s Church, Gwelup. It was well attended and a number of parishioners joined us. One of them is a Dominican Third Order.
Our sister Bernadette Guy has sadly suffered another stroke and needs our prayers.
Wishing you all, many blessings this Easter.
Anne-Marie LangdonMinister, Balcatta FraternityEnd of article
God blessAnne-Marie Langdon
SOWING THE SEEDS
Dear Brothers and Sisters in St Francis and St Clare:
Wishing you a most happy and blessed Easter. May the Lord grace you with an experience of new life within you which propels you to walk even more closely day by day with our loving Lord with all the opportunities in your lives for new beginnings.
There is a sense of new beginnings in Western Australia. The new Regional Council for the next three years including a new position of Promotions Councillor was elected by the fourteen people who attended on Sunday 30th March. They are:-
REGIONAL MINISTER ANGELA McGUIRE
VICE MINISTER ANTOINETTE FRENDO
SECRETARY DAVID WARD
TREASURER NOEL D'SOUZA
FORMATOR MICHAEL McGUIRE
PROMOTIONS COUNCILLOR SANDRA MARONEY
Thank you for your confidence in giving me the opportunity to serve the Order in WA for another term. I farewell Anne-Marie Langdon and Anthony Porrins and thank them for all their time. talent, energy and ideas that they have contributed over the last three years on the council. Thank you to Antoinette Frendo and Noel D'Souza that they are continuing in their roles on the council and I am grateful for their friendship and commitment. I warmly welcome three new people to the council.....David Ward, Sandra Maroney and Michael McGuire. A most important task we have ahead of us is to update our Regional Statutes. These must then be approved at an Extraordinary Non-Elective Regional Chapter and I shall confirm details of that date later which I estimate will be in June.
The Fraternal Visitation and Pastoral Visitation took place on Saturday 29th March with meetings of the Regional Council, Fraternity Ministers and Spiritual Assistants with our visitors Fr John Cooper OFM Cap who is the National Spiritual Assistant and Lola Kelly the National Vice Minister. All in all I think the Region of WA was seen to be making good progress. I am expecting to receive a report from this visitation.It is with much joy that I bring you good news of the brothers and sisters who will be professed and received into the Order in May and June.
THREE PROFESSIONS INTO PERTH FRATERNITYAURORA THISAiNAYAGAN BIANCA VALENTE DOMINIC CHEW4th May 9.30am Parish Mass Queen of Martyrs Church 77 Seventh Avenue Maylandswith refreshments afterwards.....all welcomeTHREE PROFESSIONS INTO BALCATTA FRATERNITY
FR GERARD TOTANES HELEN LONG MARION GRIMA
7th June at Geraldton Cathedral.....all welcome
SIX ADMISSIONS INTO MIDLAND FRATERNITY
JOHN BUTCHER FRANCIS ANDINACH DONNA CROSS
IRENA ANTONIAK SAM ANTONIAK MIRIAM BELLGARD
17th May in Kalgoorlie.....all welcome
Keeping all these brothers and sisters in our prayers for these special and significant occasions in their lives
David Ward has been continuing to work on our new WA Website for the Order and you'll be the first to hear about it when it is finally ready to be launched. Fr Norbert Pittorino ofm from Sydney is coming over to lead our Annual Retreat this year on "The Joy of the Gospels". Many of you have studied his book "Lay Franciscan Spirituality". He is a prolific writer of all things Franciscan and has spent many years serving his Order in Papua New Guinea. I think you will find him very knowledgeable and interesting and he is very happy to have been invited over to the west for our Retreat. The "all welcome" sign lights up for our Retreat....some of our professed members today have come through their attendance at our Annual Retreats. The calendar of events planned so far for this year are in this newsletter and it is hoped to arrange another meeting this year with the Anglican Franciscans.
Thanks to email I can keep in touch with about two thirds of you at other times than this and I send out by snail mail any important correspondence to email-less members.May we never lose heart that at all times during our lifetime God needs us to keep on sowing the seeds for him and I leave you with this scripture reading from 1 Cor v 4-7:-
"There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done but always the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a particular purpose."
May you have peace and everything good
Angela McGuire Regional Minister
Our most holy FATHER Our Creator, Redeemer, Consoler and SaviorWho are in Heaven; in the angels and in the saints, enlightening them to LOVE , because you Lord, are light inflaming them to LOVE, because you Lord, are LOVE dwelling (in them) and filling them with happiness, Because you, Lord, are the Supreme Good, the Eternal Good from Whom comes all good, without Whom there is no good:
REGIONAL COUNCIL OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
REGIONAL MINISTER ANGELA McGUIRE 08 9275 5658
VICE MINISTER ANTOINETTE FRENDO 08 9297 2314
SECRETARY DAVID WARD 0400 061 106
TREASURER NOEL D'SOUZA 08 9457 4817
FORMATOR MICHAEL McGUIRE 08 9275 5658
PROMOTIONS COUNCILLOR SANDRA MARONEY 08 9349 1103
MEETING TIMES: FRATERNITYS IN W.A Anthony Porrins 0402 684 807 PERTH EVERY 4TH SUNDAY OF EACH MONTH 2.30 pm
Rev Richard Scallan 0419336389 BUNBURY EVERY 3RD SUNDAY OF EACH MONTH AT 1.30pm
Antoinette Frendo 08 92972314 MIDLAND EVERY 2ND FRIDAY OF EACH MONTH AT 1.00PM
Anne-Marie Langdon 92073691 BALCATTA EVERY 3RD SUNDAY OF EACH MONTH AT 3.00pm
Colleen Shanks 08 99213315 GERALDTON EVERY 2ND SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH AT 9.30am
Place where each fraternity meets
PERTH – OUR LADY OF POLAND CHURCH MAYLANDS BUNBURY - BUNBURY CATHEDRAL PARISH CENTRE
MIDLAND – MEETING ROOM OF ST BRIGID’S CHURCH MIDLAND BALCATTA – MEETING ROOM OF ALVERNA CENTRE ST LAWRENCES CHURCH
BALCATTA GERALDTON – ST FRANCIS XAVIER CATHEDRAL PARISH MEETING ROOM
WITH LOVE
