eanc VOL. 44, NO.9- Friday, March 3, 2000
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASsACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly - $14 Per Year
FALL RIVER, MASS.
Millennial Ecumenical service planned .
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.~ March 19 service that will include representatives and members from many Christian communities across the area will be 1)eld in St.Mary's Cathedral. FALL RIVER - Clergy, church leaders and members from various Christian communities across the Southeastern Massachusetts area will join in a Millennial Ecumenical Service at St. Mary's Cathedral here on March 19 at 7 p.m. Bishop Sean P. O'Malley, OFM Cap.; who has asked for the service to mark the Jubilee Year observance of the new millennium, will preside and lead the recitation of the Creed, reported Father Marc H. Bergeron, ecumenical officer for the Diocese of Fall River and pastor of Saint Anne's Church. Homilist will be the Rev. Edward Dufresne, executive minister, New Bedford Interchurch Council. Included among many others to take part in the service are the. Rev. David S. Hill, president of the Greater Attleboro Council of ChUrches and Carolyn Bronkar, executive director of the council; the Rev. Susan Scribner, executive director, Cape Cod Council of
RULES FOR
LENr路 .
Wednesday, March 8, is Ash WedIiesd~y. The Church's regulations for the Lenten season follow: - abstinence from meat 路on Ash Wednesday, all Fridays during Lent and Good Friday for those aged 14 and older; ., . - Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are to be observed as days of fasting for those aged 18 to 59. Fasting is defined as eating only one full meal and two lights meals during the day. Eating between meals is not permitted; however, liquids are permitted.
Churches; and Dr. Anne Ierardi, spiritual director of 'pastoral Counseling Services of Yarmouthport. "We will have a participation from many Christian churches that encompass the areas of our diocese," said Father Bergeron, "inclusive of religion, sex, race, nationality and color as best we can across the Christian spectrum." , The official title of the service is, "An Ecumenical Celebration of the Word of Christ, Marking the Beginning of the Third Millennium of Christianity." The source of Scripture to be focused on at the service is Ephesians 1:3-14, particularly, "Praised be God, who has blessed us in Christ and healed us in the Spirit." That was selected, said Father Bergeron, "Because it marks our gratitude for the gifts of the Spirit as we enter. this new millennium. It was initially chosen as part of the prayer for the Week of Christian Unity and we opted to use it for our celebration. We have taken it for a different time." He added that, "The celebration has about it the jubilee theme that we need to have the courage to leave something behind, that is, our lack of faithfulness to Christ's prayer, his dream that all may be one. We all have some guilt, some reasons if you will, to repent ... to repent of the divisions of Christianity." "So there is that dimension to it as well as the dimension of celebrating the fact that this is the 'now' time of grace and we celebrate the faith authority in us, the new life of Christ," said Father Bergeron. "But we also have to leave something behind." According to Father Bergeron, the planning has been going on for some time for the service. ' "It was made easier by the fact that within the areas of our diocese, there are four very well established councils of churches," he said. "With those people in place it gives us wide access to a broad spectrum of churches, Tum to page five -
Service
BLESSINGS - Bishop Sean P. O'Malley blesses one of the remodeled facilities at 55. Peter and Paul School as Father Stephen A. Fernandes, pastor of 55. Peter and Paul Parish at Holy Cross Church, joins in the prayer. (Photo courtesy of Len Bouchard)
Bishop blesses new, remodel~d chapel, facilities at school By JAMES N. DUNBAR FALL RiVER - Teaching the message behind St. Mark's Gospel account of Jesus and the Rich Man, Bishop Sean P. O'Malley, OFM Cap., told fourth-graders of SS. Peter and Paul School on Dover Street that "it is our faith that will lead us to true happiness," as he blessed the new chapel and . facilities there on ,Monday. The children and many parishioners attended the 9 a.m. Mass celebrated by the bishop and then accompanied him as he blessed new classrooms, the Parish Conference CenTum to page 11 - School
Pope John Paul II's 2000 Lenten Message VATICAN CITY (CNS)Here is the Vatican text of Pope John Paul II's Lenten message for 2000, released at the Vatican. I am with you always, to the close of the age (Mt 28:20). Dear brothers and sisters, 1. This year, the celebration of Lent, a time of conversion and reconciliation, takes on a particular character, occurring as it does during the Great Jubilee of the Year ,2000. The time of Lent is in fact the culminating point of the journey of conversion and reconciliation which the jubilee, the year of the Lord's favor, offers to all the faithful, so that they can renew their fidelity to Christ and proclaim his mystery of salvation with renewed ardor in
the new millennium. Lent helps Christians to enter more deeply into this "mystery hidden for" ages" (Eph 3:9): It leads them to come face to face with the word of the living God and urges them to give up their own selfishness in order to receive the saving activity of the Holy Spirit. 2. We were dead through sin (cf. Eph 2:5): This is how St. Paul describes the situation of man without Christ. This is why the Son of God wished to unite himselfto human nature, ransoming it from the slavery of sin and death. '
This is a slavery which man experiences every day, as he perceives its deep roots in his own heart (cf. Mt 7: 11). Sometimes it shows itself in dramatic
Lent 2000
and unusual ways, as happened in the course of the great tragedies of the 20th century, which deeply marked the liv'es of countless communities and individuals, the victims of cruel violence. Forced deportations, the systematic elimination of peoples, contempt for the fundamental rights of the person: These are the tragedies which even today humiliate humanity. In daily life, too, we see all sorts of forms of fraud, hatred, the destruction of others, and lies of which man is both the victim and source. Humanity is marked
by sin. Its tragic condition reminds us of the cry of alarm uttered by the Apostle to the nations: "None is righteous, no, not one" (Rom 3: 10; cf. Ps 14:3). 3. In the face of the darkness of sin and man's incapacity to free himself on his own, there appears in all its splendor the saving work ofChrist: "God appointed him as a sacrifice for reconciliation, through faith, by the shedding of his blood, and so showed his justness" (Rom 3:25). Christ is the Lamb who has taken upon himself the sin of the world (cf. Jn 1:29). He shared in human life "unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8), to ransom mankind from the slavery of evil and Tum to page 13路- Lent