parish of ascot vale
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PARISH OF ASCOT VALE ST MARY’S CHURCH, 123 ST LEONARDS ROAD, ASCOT VALE
ST MARGARET’S CHURCH, BARB STREET, MARIBYRNONG
Parish Priest: Rev Fr Justin Ford
Assistant Priest / Lithuanian Chaplain: Rev Fr Joseph Deveikis
Presbytery / Parish Office: 123 St Leonards Rd, Ascot Vale (Postal: PO Box 468 Ascot Vale 3032)
Telephone: 9370 6688
Website: www.stmaryschurch.org.au
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: [suspended during lockdown] Tue & Fri, 10am – 3pm. Secretary: Carmen D’Rosario
Principal, St Mary’s School: Mr Paul Hogan T: 9370 1194
Principal, St Margaret’s School: Mr Gavin Brennan T: 9318 1339
Mass
Public Masses are currently
suspended in Melbourne,
until after 2 September.
Live streaming of our 10:30
Sunday Mass is continuing,
accessible on our parish website.
Priests continue to offer Masses
personally, for the praise and
worship of God, for the needs
of the faithful and of the world.
Reconciliation
(Confession)
By appointment - no name
required. Arrangement will
be made for the confession
to be anonymous, not face-to-
face, with suitable distancing.
Baptisms at St Mary’s
Baptisms are on hold until
the end of the lockdown,
unless in an emergency.
If the lockdown ends as
hoped on 2 September,
baptisms may be able to proceed
on 5 and 12 September
as originally scheduled.
Baptism Information Sessions
are also again on hold.
The next session will be at
7:30 pm Thursday 4 November.
To discuss baptisms already
scheduled for September-
October, or if you wish to have
your child baptised before
November and have not yet
attended an Information Session,
please ring the parish office.
Weddings at St Mary’s
For information on weddings
please ring the parish office.
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 29 August 2021 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In our First Reading Moses affirms the necessity of keeping God’s commandments to
have life and inherit his promises; and Jesus teaches in our Gospel that the good
commanded by God concerns in the first place the heart, not mere external rituals.
God placed his law about right and wrong in every human heart from creation: the
natural law, discerned by natural human reason. But the natural law was partly
obscured because of sin, so God re-affirmed it in his supernaturally revealed law
(the Old Law, given to Israel, fulfilled in the New Law manifested in Christ).
Jesus teaches that love of God and neighbour (made in God’s image) is the unifying
principle and motivation of God’s whole Law; and he imparts supernatural grace
and charity through the Holy Spirit, inscribing the Law on our hearts and enabling us
to fulfil it freely and joyfully. The Ten Commandments sum up true love’s minimum
requirements (along with other essential laws that can be grouped under these Ten,
found elsewhere in Scripture and Church teaching). Gravely violating any of God’s
laws rejects the charity by which we love him supremely and do his will – removing
us from salvation, unless we are redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness.
From the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: ‘The Moral Law’:
What is the moral law? The moral law is a work of divine Wisdom. It prescribes
the ways and the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude and it forbids
the ways that turn away from God.
In what does the natural moral law consist? The natural law which is inscribed by
the Creator on the heart of every person consists in a participation in the wisdom and
the goodness of God. It expresses that original moral sense which enables one to
discern by reason the good and the bad. It is universal and immutable and determines
the basis of the duties and fundamental rights of the person as well as those of the
human community and civil law.
Is such a law perceived by everyone? Because of sin the natural law is not always
perceived nor is it recognised by everyone with equal clarity and immediacy. For
this reason God “wrote on the tables of the Law what men did not read in their
hearts.” (St Augustine)
What is the relationship between the natural law and the Old Law? The Old
Law is the first stage of revealed Law. It expresses many truths naturally accessible
to reason and which are thus affirmed and authenticated in the covenant of salvation.
Its moral prescriptions, which are summed up in the Ten Commandments of the
Decalogue, lay the foundations of the human vocation, prohibit what is contrary to
the love of God and neighbour, and prescribe what is essential to it.
What place does the Old Law have in the plan of salvation? The Old Law
permitted one to know many truths which are accessible to reason, showed what
must or must not be done and, above all, like a wise tutor, prepared and disposed one
for conversion and for the acceptance of the Gospel. However, while being holy,
spiritual, and good, the Old Law was still imperfect because in itself it did not give
the strength and the grace of the Spirit for its observance.
What is the New Law or the Law of the Gospel? The New Law or the Law of the
Gospel, proclaimed and fulfilled by Christ, is the fullness and completion of the
divine law, natural and revealed. It is summed up in the
commandment to love God and neighbour and to love
one another as Christ loved us. It is also an interior
reality: the grace of the Holy Spirit which makes
possible such love. It is “the law of freedom” (Gal 1:25)
because it inclines us to act spontaneously by the
prompting of charity. “The New Law is mainly the same
grace of the Holy Spirit which is given to believers in
Christ.” (St Thomas Aquinas)
Where does one find the New Law? The New Law is
found in the entire life and preaching of Christ and in the
moral catechesis of the apostles. The Sermon on the
Mount is its principal expression.
“Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?”
(Mt 19:16) To the young man who asked this question,
Jesus answered, “If you would enter into life, keep the
commandments”, and then he added, “Come, follow
Me” (Mt 19:16-21). To follow Jesus involves keeping the
commandments. The law has not been abolished but
man is invited to rediscover it in the Person of the divine
Master who realised it perfectly in himself, revealed its
full meaning and attested to its permanent validity.
How did Jesus interpret the Law? Jesus interpreted
the Law in the light of the twofold yet single
commandment of love, the fullness of the Law: “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the
greatest and first commandment. And the second is like
it: you shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these
two commandments depend all the Law and the
Prophets” (Mt 22:37-40).
What does “Decalogue” mean? Decalogue means “ten
words” (Ex 34:28). These words sum up the Law given by
God to the people of Israel in the context of the
Covenant mediated by Moses. This Decalogue, in
presenting the commandments of the love of God (the
first three) and of one’s neighbour (the other seven),
traces for the chosen people and for every person in
particular the path to a life freed from the slavery of sin.
What is the bond between the Decalogue and the
Covenant? The Decalogue must be understood in the
light of the Covenant in which God revealed himself and
made known his will. In observing the commandments,
the people manifested their belonging to God and they
answered his initiative of love with thanksgiving.
What importance does the Church give to the
Decalogue? The Church, in fidelity to Scripture and to
the example of Christ, acknowledges the primordial
importance and significance of the Decalogue.
Christians are obliged to keep it.
Why does the Decalogue constitute an organic unity? The Ten Commandments form an organic and
indivisible whole because each commandment refers to
the other commandments and to the entire Decalogue.
To break one commandment, therefore, is to violate the
entire law.
Why does the Decalogue enjoin serious obligations? It
does so because the Decalogue expresses the
fundamental duties of man towards God and towards his
neighbour.
Is it possible to keep the Decalogue? Yes, because
Christ without whom we can do nothing enables us to
keep it with the gift of his Spirit and his grace.
Compendium of the Catechism, 415-21, 434-41 _______________________________________________________________
‘My God, give what you command and command what you will.’
St Augustine, Confessions (X, 29)
SAINT OF THE WEEK 28 August: St Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (354-430)
St Augustine, most influential of ancient Church Fathers,
was born on 13 November 354 at Thagaste in North Africa
[present-day Souk Ahras, eastern Algeria,.then in the Roman Empire in its
later days]. Raised Catholic by his mother St Monica, as a
teenager he turned away from his upbringing both in faith
and morals. He joined the Manichean religion and for many
years lived with a woman outside marriage, with whom he
had a son. In his Confessions he tells how the grace of God,
and the prayers of his mother, brought him back to the
Catholic Church aged 32. Baptised by St Ambrose in Milan
(Easter Vigil 387), he was ordained priest in Hippo Regius
[Annaba, eastern Algerian coast] (391), then made bishop there (395).
His writings and sermons cover most of theology, with
special influence on such doctrines as the Trinity, original
sin, and the nature and cause of evil. Combating the heresy
of Pelagius, who denied the need of God’s grace for
salvation, St Augustine is known as the ‘Doctor of Grace’;
like St Paul, possibly his personal experience of
redemption led to a deeper awareness of this reality.
In 410 the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire
reached Rome itself when the city was sacked (for the first
time in 800 years) by Alaric, king of the Visigoths. To
place the calamity in the perspective of faith, St Augustine
wrote The City of God: ultimately it was the City of God,
the Church, that mattered, not the earthly City of the World.
In 430 the Vandals, having crossed into Africa from Spain,
laid siege to Hippo, and on 28 August, in the third month of
the siege, St Augustine died. The Vandals would go on to
sack Rome itself in 455, and the Western Empire would
finally collapse in 476. But from its ruins would rise the
Catholic civilisation of the Middle Ages, built intellectually
upon the foundations that St Augustine had helped to lay.
Apart from Scriptural authors, only St Thomas Aquinas
(1225-74) has comparable influence on Catholic theology,
and Aquinas himself was much influenced by Augustine.
(Aquinas especially drew on Greek philosopher Aristotle (d.
322 BC) whereas Augustine drew more on Plato (d. c. 347 BC),
Aristotle’s teacher. Plato concentrates on things of the soul,
the intellect, the world of universal truths; Aristotle affirms
these things but blends in more the things of the body and
the individual realities known by the senses and by science
– aspects that help give a more complete and incarnational
view.) Even the Protestant reformers respected and were
influenced by Augustine with his emphasis on divine grace.
Since the Middle Ages, Augustinian orders have followed
Augustine’s semi-monastic Rule of living. Tradition named
him Doctor of the Church, along with Sts Ambrose, Jerome
and Gregory the Great. In 1567 St Thomas Aquinas was
the first to be added to their number, and today there are 36
Doctors of the Church. [The word Doctor is simply Latin for ‘teacher’.]
St Augustine’s ‘Confessions’, the world’s first psychologically introspective autobiography, tells the story of his early life, far from God and searching for happiness in created things, learning in the end that only the Creator fulfils our desire:
‘You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is
your power and your wisdom is without measure. And
man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you:
this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the
evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud.
Despite everything, man, though but a small part of your
creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him
to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself,
and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’ (I, 1)
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‘I must now carry my thoughts back to the abominable
things I did in those days, the sins of the flesh which
defiled my soul. I do this, my God, not because I love
those sins, but so that I may love you. For love of your love
I shall retrace my wicked ways.’ (II, 1)
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‘I was willing to steal, and steal I did, although I was not
compelled by any lack…For of what I stole I already had
plenty…and I had no wish to enjoy the things I coveted
by stealing, but only to enjoy the theft itself and the sin…
Late one night a band of ruffians, myself included,
went off to shake down the fruit and carry it away…
Perhaps we ate some of them, but our real pleasure
consisted in doing something that was forbidden.’ (II, 4)
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‘To Carthage I came, where I found myself in the midst of
a hissing cauldron of lust. I had not yet fallen in love, but
I was in love with the idea of it…So I muddied the stream
of friendship with the filth of lewdness and clouded its
clear waters with hell’s black river of lust. And yet in spite
of this rank depravity, I was vain enough to have ambitions
of cutting a fine figure in the world.’ (III, 1)
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‘I fell in with a set of sensualists, men with glib tongues who
ranted and raved and had the snares of the devil in their
mouths [the Manichean religion]... During the space of those
nine years, from the 19th to the 28th year of my life, I was led
astray myself and led others astray in my turn.’ (III, 6; IV, 1)
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‘At Rome I was struck down by illness, which all but carried
me off to hell…I came close to dying, close to losing my soul.
…I began actively to set about the business of teaching
literature and public speaking……In Milan I found your
devoted servant the bishop Ambrose…My heart warmed to
him, not at first as a teacher of the truth, which I had quite
despaired of finding in your Church, but simply as a man
who showed me kindness.’ (V, 12-13)
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‘I had lost all faith and was in despair of finding the truth.
By now my mother had come to me, for her piety had
given her strength to follow me over land and sea…
I told her that I was not a Catholic Christian, but at least
I was no longer a Manichee.’ (VI, 1)
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‘All this time I had been howling my complaints not against
the Catholic faith but against something quite imaginary
which I had thought up in my own head……From now on
I began to prefer the Catholic teaching…’ (VI, 3, 5)
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‘Meanwhile I was sinning more and more. The woman
with whom I had been living was torn from my side as an
obstacle to my marriage and this was a blow which
crushed my heart to bleeding, because I loved her dearly.
She went back to Africa, vowing never to give herself to
any other man, and left with me the son whom she had
borne me…Because I was more a slave of lust than a
true lover of marriage, I took another mistress, without
the sanction of wedlock.’ (VI, 15)
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‘I had prayed to you for chastity and said “Give me
chastity and continence, but not yet.” For I was afraid
that you would answer my prayer at once and cure me
too soon of the disease of lust, which I wanted satisfied,
not quelled. I had wandered on along the road of vice in
the sacrilegious superstition of the Manichees, not
because I thought that it was right, but because I
preferred it to the Christian belief, which I did not
explore as I ought but opposed out of malice.’ (VIII, 7)
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‘I felt that I was still the captive of my sins, and in my
misery I kept crying “How long shall I go on saying
‘tomorrow, tomorrow’? Why not now? Why not make an
end of my ugly sins at this moment?” I was asking myself
these questions, weeping all the while with the most bitter
sorrow in my heart, when all at once I heard the sing-song
voice of a child in a nearby house. Whether it was the voice
of a boy or girl I cannot say, but again and again it repeated
the refrain, “Take up and read, take up and read”…
I had put down the book containing Paul’s epistles. I seized
it and opened it, and in silence I read the first passage on
which my eyes fell: “Not in revelling and drunkenness, not
in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather,
arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more
thought on nature and nature’s appetites.” (Rom 13:13-14)
I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an
instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as
though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and
all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.’ (VIII, 12)
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‘It was [my friend] Alypius’ wish to be reborn in you at the
same time… With us we took the boy Adeodatus, my natural
son…You took him from this world early in life, and now I
remember him without apprehension… We were baptised,
and all anxiety over the past melted away from us. The days
were all too short, for I was lost in wonder and joy…’ (IX, 6)
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‘Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new;
late have I loved you! For behold, you were within me,
and I outside; and I sought you outside and in my ugliness
fell upon those lovely things that you have made.
You were with me and I was not with you.
I was kept from you by those things, yet had they not been
in you, they would not have been at all.
You called and cried to me and broke open my deafness:
and you sent forth your beams and shone upon me
and chased away my blindness:
you breathed fragrance upon me,
and I drew in my breath and do now pant for you:
I tasted you, and now hunger and thirst for you:
you touched me, and I have burned for your peace.’ (X, 27)
22ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
FIRST READING Deut 4:1-2. 6-8
A reading from the book of Deuteronomy
Moses said to the people: ‘Now, Israel, take notice of the
laws and customs that I teach you today, and observe them,
that you may have life and may enter and take possession
of the land that the Lord the God of your fathers is giving
you. You must add nothing to what I command you, and
take nothing from it, but keep the commandments of the
Lord your God just as I lay them down for you. Keep them,
observe them, and they will demonstrate to the peoples
your wisdom and understanding. When they come to know
of all these laws they will exclaim, “No other people is as
wise and prudent as this great nation.” And indeed, what
great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord
our God is to us whenever we call to him? And what great
nation is there that has laws and customs to match this
whole Law that I put before you today?’
The word of the Lord. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 14
R. The just will live in the presence of the Lord.
1. Lord, who shall dwell on your holy mountain?
He who walks without faults;
he who acts with justice
and speaks the truth from his heart. (R.)
2. He who does no wrong to his brother,
who casts no slur on his neighbours,
who holds the godless in disdain,
but honours those who fear the Lord. (R.)
3. He who keeps his pledge, come what may;
who takes no interest on a loan
and accepts no bribes against the innocent.
Such a man will stand firm for ever. (R.) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SECOND READING Jas 1:17-18, 21-22, 27
A reading from the letter of St James
It is all that is good, everything that is perfect, which is
given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all
light; with him there is no such thing as alteration, no
shadow of a change. By his own choice he made us his
children by the message of the truth so that we should be a
sort of first-fruits of all that he had created. Accept and
submit to the word which has been planted in you and can
save your souls. But you must do what the word tells you,
and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves. Pure,
unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is this:
coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need
it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.
The word of the Lord.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION Jas 1:18
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Father gave us birth by his message of truth,
that we might be as the first fruits of his creation. Alleluia! _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
GOSPEL Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark
The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from
Jerusalem gathered round Jesus, and they noticed that some
of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is,
without washing them. For the Pharisees, and the Jews in
general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat
without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on
returning from the market place they never eat without first
sprinkling themselves. There are also many other
observances which have been handed down to them
concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes.
So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your
disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their
food with unclean hands?’ He answered, ‘It was of you
hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage
of scripture:
This people honours me only with lip-service,
while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.
You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human
traditions.’
He called the people to him again and said, ‘Listen to me,
all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man
from outside can make him unclean; it is the things that
come out of a man that make him unclean. For it is from
within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge:
fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit,
indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things
come from within and make a man unclean.’
The Gospel of the Lord. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEMORIAL ACCLAMATION We proclaim your Death, O Lord,
and profess your Resurrection, until you come again. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SPIRITUAL COMMUNION (for those unable to receive sacramentally)
My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the Most Holy
Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire to
receive you into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment
receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my
heart. I embrace you as if you were already there and unite
myself wholly to you. Never permit me to be separated
from you. Amen.
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Hymns: Entrance – CWB 448 All people that on earth do dwell Offertory – CWB 454 Be still, for the presence of the Lord Communion – CWB 553 Love is his word Recessional – CWB 595 Seek, O seek the Lord
Recently Deceased: Russell Bradley Meerwald
Anniversaries: Caterina & Francesco Spagnolo; Rosario Catanzariti; Bruno Mezzatesta; Emilio Sessarego; Alberto Velsecchi; John Fogarty; Stephen Lowe; Leven Puno; Eulogio Mallari
Feast Days: 3 September: St Gregory the Great, Pope
Readings Next Week: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Is 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mk 7:31-37 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Caritas Australia – Appeals for Haiti, Afghanistan and Lebanon Please donate to Caritas Australia’s Emergency Response
Appeal at www.caritas.org.au / www.caritas.org.au/afghanistan / www.caritas.org.au/lebanon / or call 1800 024 413 toll free. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We are now in a stricter lockdown situation, required to have only the same five ministers at Mass until the end of
lockdown, forming a ‘bubble’. We thank those who are providing their services for our live streamed Mass each week.