March 2016 Year 21 — No. 3

Holy Cross Catholic Church Newsletter

Paphos Gate, 1010 Nicosia; PO Box 21964, 1515 Nicosia, Cyprus

Tel. (357) 22 662132; Fax: (357) 22 660767

Email: holcross@logos.cy.net; URL: www.holy-cross-nicosia.com

Parish Priest: Fr. Zacheusz Dulniok, ofm

Have mercy on me in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offence.

SUNDAY MASSES

7:30 am Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday - English

7:30 am Tuesday - Greek St. Anthony Devotion

8.00 am Wednesday - English

6:30 pm Every day - English

4:00 pm Polish: Every 1st Saturday of the month

4:00 pm Spanish: Every 2nd Saturday of the month

6:30 pm English

WEEKDAY MASSES

SATURDAY VIGIL MASSES (For Sunday)

MASSES IN NORTH CYPRUS

12:00 nn St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Kyrenia - Every Sunday - English

7:00 pm Famagusta - Every Sunday -English

8:00 am English

9:30 am Greek

10:30 am English

12:00 nn French: Every 1st Sunday of the month

12:00 nn Tagalog: Every 2nd Sunday of the month

12:00 nn Indian: Every 3rd Sunday of the month

12:00 nn Sinhala: Every 4th Sunday of the month

5:30 pm English (Children/Families)

The Holy Father's Intentions for the Month of March 2016

Universal: That small farmers may receive a just reward for their precious labor.

Evangelisation: That Christians in Africa may give witness to love and faith in Jesus Christ amid political-religious conflicts.

My Dear Parishioners and Friends, Some of us may be disappointed that we celebrate the Lenten and Easter seasons in Cyprus so late this year. But I would say that we are a visible sign in our world today that Christians can live together and pray together, accepting each other, in spite of differences in their traditions. One thing is certain: it is not that important if we celebrate Easter all together or at various dates. What is the real essence of Lent and Easter? It is our Christian and spiritual predisposition and human attitude during this period of forty days when the Church invites us to practice works of mercy towards the poor and the oppressed. This Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy invites us even more strongly to practice spiritual and corporal works of mercy. In his Lenten message Pope Francis encourages us with these words: “For all of us, then, the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year is a favourable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practising the works of mercy. In the corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy – counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer – we touch more directly our own sinfulness. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated. By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realising that they too are poor and in need”. Spiritual poverty and indifference are more pitiable than material poverty. Let us see in our brothers and sisters the image of our Lord. May we all have a very blessed and fruitful Lenten time which will lead us towards the victory over sin and over our human weaknesses. Fr. Zacheusz M. Dulniok, ofm

O wash me more and more of my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.

C ELEB RA TIONS

Wednesday 16 March Ash Wednesday

Saturday 19 March St. Joseph Solemnity

Friday 25 March

The Annunciation of the Lord Solemnity

March Calendar

HOLY CROSS COMMUNITY

LENT 2016 PREPARATION

Weekdays (Monday-Thursday) at 5:30 pm: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with the Evening Prayer (Vespers)

The Way of the Cross: Every Friday at 6:00 pm, before the Mass. For those who cannot come on Friday, every Sunday right after the 10:30 Mass.

For the Sri Lankan Community, every Sunday at 3:30 pm.

Parish Recollection and Penitential Day: It will be held on Sunday 27 March from 12 noon till 3:00 pm.

Sacramental confessions will take place immediately after the meditation.

Lenten Pilgrimage: Friday 1 April 2016, to the old church of St George in Kormakitis [See details, p. 3].

LENT: FORTY DAYS In the New Testament we find Our Lord fasting and praying

for forty days and forty nights in the desert in preparation for

the public ministry that would end in his redeeming death

(Luke 5:35). He is the new Adam who overcomes the temptations of the devil and remains

faithful to God; the new Israel, who reveals himself as God’s Servant by his total obedience to

the divine will, in contrast to those who provoked God in the desert. The Church sets aside the

forty days of Lent in order that we might imitate Our Lord by our fasting, prayer, self-denial and

good works, and thereby prepare our hearts for an Easter renewal. “By the solemn forty days

of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert.” (Catholic

Catechism #540). [excerpt from Catholic Culture]

St. Joseph, Spouse of the blessed virgin mary

“Just as Saint Joseph took loving care of Mary and gladly dedicated himself to Jesus Christ’s upbringing, he likewise watches over and protects Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, of which the Virgin Mary is the exemplar and model.” (Redemptoris Custos, 1)

The Annunciation of the Lord

After receiving the Good News told to her by the Archangel Gabriel, Mary, in her Magnificat, prophetically sings of the mercy whereby God chose her. The Virgin of Nazareth, betrothed to Joseph, thus becomes the perfect icon of the Church which evangelises, for she was, and continues to be, evangelised by the Holy Spirit, who made her virginal womb fruitful. In the prophetic tradition, mercy is strictly related – even on the etymological level – to the maternal womb (rahamim) and to a generous, faithful and compassionate goodness (hesed) shown within marriage and family relationships. (Message of Pope Francis for Lent 2016)

Ash Wednesday Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy. And Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lent fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast. It cannot be otherwise, as it forms part of the great Easter cycle. (Thomas Merton)

WOMEN’S WORLD DAY OF PRAYER

Women’s World Day of Prayer, an international, ecumenical

prayer movement will hold the prayer meeting in Holy Cross Catholic Church, Paphos Gate on Friday 4 March at 10 am. An estimated 3 million people from 170 countries will gather to observe this day of prayer. This year, the prayer service was written by the Christian women of Cuba and translated into over 60 languages. It will give great pleasure to the organisers to see representatives of all the different churches participate in this service. Sr. Adeline

PA RISH NEW S

My offences truly I know them; my sin is always before me.

HOLY CROSS PARISH COUNCIL NEWS & MESSAGES The last meeting of the Parish Council was held on Saturday 20 February 2016. After the opening prayer and the approval of the minutes of the January meeting, the Council discussed and decided upon the issues included in the agenda, as follows: - The Holy Cross Movie Night for March 2016 will feature a movie on the life of one of the most inspiring saints for young and old alike, St. Maria Goretti. It will be screened on the first Friday of March at 7.15pm; - The possibility of providing parishioners with a Lenten booklet containing daily readings, meditations, prayers, etc. was discussed and will be explored further; - It was confirmed that the Holy Cross Lenten Pilgrimage will to take place on Friday 1 April 2016, a public holiday, to the Catholic Maronite village of Kormakitis and the Holy Door opened for the Jubilee Year of Mercy in the old church of St George. It will cost 10 euros per person. Names should be registered by 27 March 2016 at the latest; - The Good Friday Way of the Cross drama was discussed and a number of suggestions for this year’s drama were made; - The Holy Cross Parish Website’s (at www.holy-cross-nicosia.com) will be complemented with an application for smartphones, which the Parish Council will endeavour to create as part of its 2016 Annual Plan. - Finally parishioners who would like to receive information/news/notices from Holy Cross by email can subscribe to the “Holy Cross Information Service” by sending their email address to the email of the parish council (see below) or by writing it on the form on the Bulletin Board by the entrance of the church. The Parish Council meeting closed with prayers, a reading from the Gospel and the blessing. We pray for our parish, our priests and all its people. May the Lord bless and accompany us each step of the way, to witness Him strongly in the world in which we live today! Akis Hjiiossif (Chairman of the Parish Council – email: holcrossparishcouncil@yahoo.com)

We are Couples for Christ. We are committed to live in God’s righteousness and holiness, evangelising people through a life of love and service; we shall work for the renewal of families that will serve God and build generations of Christian leaders; and we shall pursue Total Christian Liberation through social justice, respect for life, and work with the poor. This is our mission! In line with the declaration of Pope Francis that 2016 will be the Year of Mercy and in keeping with our mission of Building the Church of the Home and the Church of the Poor, Couples for Christ-Cyprus will extend its hands to the needy in cooperation with Caritas Cyprus Migrant Center. We will focus on distressed migrant women. We will visit them and share basic needs like food, clothing and other personal necessities in addition to spiritual nourishment through talks or by simply being there to listen and give encouragement to them. We will continue with our work of evangelisation sharing the love of Christ in words and in action specially to migrant women whom we will encounter in our day to day life. We will continue to invite migrant women to our Christian Life Program and to join our community so that they can have a support group while they are away from their families and homes. We will devote time during our weekly household meetings/assemblies to pray for those who are distressed and in difficult situations. Toots & Daisy Garduce

MOVIE NIGHT

FRIDAY 4 MARCH

St Francis Hall

7.15 pm

Maria Goretti

FEAST OF SAINT JOSEPH 2016

The Sisters of St. Joseph will honour their Patron Saint on SATURDAY 19 MARCH. The Mass will be celebrated in the Convent Chapel at 11 am. Everyone is invited, refreshments will be served after Mass. On SUNDAY 20 MARCH the Sisters and members of the Social Centre will honour their protector, St. Joseph. The members of the Centre will organise some entertainment and refreshments will be served. This will be at St. Joseph’s from 2.30 – 4.30 pm. Sr Adeline

BACK TO SUMMER TIME!!!

ON SUNDAY NIGHT 27 MARCH WE MOVE

OUR CLOCKS 1 HOUR FORWARD!!!

Starting on that very day (27 March)

we will return to celebrating the Sunday evening Mass at 6.30 p.m.

LENTEN PILGRIMAGE On 1 April our Parish is organising its Lenten Pilgrimage to Kormakitis, a Maronite village in the north of Cyprus. The old church of Saint George has been selected as a “Holy Door” church during the Divine Mercy Jubilee Year. Those who wish to participate must register on the list in the sacristy (first name, family name, and passport number). Only those who present a valid passport, and a visa (if they require one), will be allowed to pass the police check points on both sides of the Green Line. The registration fee (for the bus) is 10 euros per person. The deadline for registration is Sunday 27 March. Depar ture will be from the old Cyta at 8:30 a.m. sharp. The fee is due upon registration. A more detailed programme will be announced soon.

Against you , you alone have I sinned: what is evil in your sight I have done (Psalm 50)

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Notices, Contributions, etc. for Parish Newsletter

Please send your notices and other contributions for the next newsletter to Monique (moniqueburston@yahoo.com) and/or to the Parish priest (holcross@logos.cy.net), or leave them in an

envelope in the Church Library.

Deadline for submissions: 20 March

11. Let us not forget the great teaching offered by Saint John Paul II in his second Encyclical, Dives in Misericordia, which at the time came unexpectedly, its theme catching many by surprise. There are two passages in particular to which I would like to draw attention. First, Saint John Paul II highlighted the fact that we had forgotten the theme of mercy in today’s cultural milieu: “The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy. The

word and the concept of ‘mercy’ seem to cause uneasiness in man, who, thanks to the enormous development of science and technology, never before known in history, has become the master of the earth and has subdued and dominated it (cf. Gen 1:28). This dominion over the earth, sometimes understood in a one-sided and superficial way, seems to have no room for mercy… And this is why, in the situation of the Church and the world today, many individuals and groups guided by a lively sense of faith are turning, I would say almost spontaneously, to the mercy of God”.

Furthermore, Saint John Paul II pushed for a more urgent proclamation and witness to mercy in the contemporary world: “It is dictated by love for man, for all that is human and which, according to the intuitions of many of our contemporaries, is threatened by an immense danger. The mystery of Christ… obliges me to proclaim mercy as God’s merciful love, revealed in that same mystery of Christ. It likewise obliges me to have recourse to that mercy and to beg for it at this difficult, critical phase of the history of the Church and of the world”. This teaching is more pertinent than ever and deserves to be taken up once again in this Holy Year. Let us listen to his words once more: “The Church lives an authentic life when she professes and proclaims mercy – the most stupendous attribute of the Creator and of the Redeemer – and when she brings people close to the sources of the Saviour’s mercy, of which she is the trustee and dispenser”.

12. The Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person. The Spouse of Christ must pattern her behaviour after the Son of God who went out to everyone without exception. In the present day, as the Church is charged with the task of the new evangelisation, the theme of mercy needs to be proposed again and again with new enthusiasm and renewed pastoral action. It is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy. Her language and her gestures must transmit mercy, so as to touch the hearts of all people and inspire them once more to find the road that leads to the Father.

The Church’s first truth is the love of Christ. The Church makes herself a servant of this love and mediates it to all people: a love that forgives and expresses itself in the gift of oneself. Consequently, wherever the Church is present, the mercy of the Father must be evident. In our parishes, communities, associations and movements, in a word, wherever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy.

13. We want to live this Jubilee Year in light of the Lord’s words: Merciful like the Father. The Evangelist reminds us of the teaching of Jesus who says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). It is a programme of life as demanding as it is rich with joy and peace. Jesus’s command is directed to anyone willing to listen to his voice (cf. Lk 6:27). In order to be capable of mercy, therefore, we must first of all dispose ourselves to listen to the Word of God. This means rediscovering the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that comes to us. In this way, it will be possible to contemplate God’s mercy and adopt it as our lifestyle.

14. The practice of pilgrimage has a special place in the Holy Year, because it represents the journey each of us makes in this life. Life itself is a pilgrimage, and the human being is a viator, a pilgrim travelling along the road, making his way to the desired destination. Similarly, to reach the Holy Door in Rome or in any other place in the world, everyone, each according to his or her ability, will have to make a pilgrimage. This will be a sign that mercy is also a goal to reach and requires dedication and sacrifice. May pilgrimage be an impetus to conversion: by crossing the threshold of the Holy Door, we will find the strength to embrace God’s mercy and dedicate ourselves to being merciful with others as the Father has been with us.

The Lord Jesus shows us the steps of the pilgrimage to attain our goal: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Lk 6:37-38). The Lord asks us above all not to judge and not to condemn. If anyone wishes to avoid God’s judgement, he should not make himself the judge of his brother or sister. Human beings, whenever they judge, look no farther than the surface, whereas the Father looks into the very depths of the soul. How much harm words do when they are motivated by feelings of jealousy and envy! To speak ill of others puts them in a bad light, undermines their reputation and leaves them prey to the whims of gossip. To refrain from judgement and condemnation means, in a positive sense, to know how to accept the good in every person and to spare him any suffering that might be caused by our partial judgment, our presumption to know everything about him. But this is still not sufficient to express mercy. Jesus asks us also to forgive and to give. To be instruments of mercy because it was we who first received mercy from God. To be generous with others, knowing that God showers his goodness upon us with immense generosity. [TO BE CONTINUED]

Misericordiae Vultus - BULL OF INDICTION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY (5)

M O RE NEWS

Coffee Morning in the Library

17 March 2016 10.00-12.00

For more information call Rosemarie (99216007) or Monique

(99795207).