26th June 2016 - The Holy Name of Jesus - 13th Sunday in Ordinary time Year C

We have a full team on SS102fm this week with John, Lorraine, Anne and Shane all back on air! Lorraine takes us through a reflection on the Holy Name of Jesus and we have our regular reflection on the Sunday gospel as well as liturgical odds and ends including our weekly celestial guides.

 

You can listen to the podcast of this weeks programme HERE.

 

The Holy Name of Jesus

 

Lorraine leads us in a reflection this week on the Holy Name of Jesus. You can listen to the podcast of the reflection excerpted from the main programme HERE.

 

To pray the holy name of Jesus is a very simple way of praying always. There is power in a name and it calls up the very presence of Jesus. Nowadays it is profaned in so many ways, that it is very pleasing to the Lord when it is used with love and devotion. We are told that "all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father". So, not only is it a very intimate way of praying and being in the presence of the Lord, it is also very powerful, because it has authority, both in Heaven, on earth and in the underworld.  

• Poor Clare's - Galway - webpage on the Holy Name
• Fisheaters - Devotion to the Holy Name
• Apostleship of Prayer - The Name, the Heart, and the Blood

Gospel - Luke 9:51-62

Reflection from Limerick Diocesan Weekly Newsletter:

I will follow you anywhere ...
but just let me just pop home for a moment first ...

This Sundays Gospel concerns Jesus 'resolutely' on the road to Jerusalem. We hear that he meets lots of people who think he is interesting, inspiring - worth following even. These people deeply mean their words ... until action is required. Then commitments and questions arise. A weaker man might be slowed in his journey to reason or argue with each point. Jesus does not slow - he is resolute.

You and I are followers of Jesus Christ who want to live our lives according to his teaching. We are committed, inspired and determined ... but don't we all seem to have 'special circumstances' where being a Christian doesn't apply!!

- perhaps we have special reasons for not praying or going to Sunday Mass, we just have to do something else first...
  - perhaps we have special reasons for ignoring the call to justice, mercy and compassion for the vulnerable ... we just have to secure our own place in the world first...
  - perhaps we have special reasons for disrespecting our neighbour, or family or friends ...

The truth is that there are no special reasons to put off being a follower of Jesus: we either are or we are not. The wonderful thing is that we are not trapped by the past - at every moment we can choose again to follow Jesus. In this time, in these circumstances we can ask for the grace to take one step on the road to Jerusalem, and another ...

'We know the whole law is summed up
in the single commandment
to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Yet we create fences around ourselves to keep neighbours outside
and tell ourselves we have no responsibility.
Even in our own back yard we “bite and devour” one another.

 We wish it were different.
When Jesus calls us to follow him,
we find every excuse to instead go home
or to the workplace to finish something more important first.
Yet we yearn to be more centred on You.

Despite our resistance,
we can be assured that God’s strong arm redeems the people.
God calls us back to God’s realm, and encourages us
with a love we can never lose no matter how hard we push back,
no matter how often we forget, no matter how far we stray.
We need but ask and we are forgiven.'

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Reflections on this weeks gospel:

Word on Fire

Centre for Liturgy

English Dominicans

Sunday Reflections

Liturgical odds & ends

Liturgy of the Hours - psalter week 1; 13th week in ordinary time

Saints of the Week


27th June - St Cyril of Alexandria
28th June - St Irenaeus
29th June - Ss Peter & Paul
30th June - The First Martyrs of Rome
1st July - St Oliver Plunkett
2nd July - Blessed Giovanni da Fabriano Becchetti

Pope Francis grants indulgence for Holy Name Year

From Catholic Ireland.net:

A special year long religious celebration launched this month by Poor Clare nuns and Franciscans friars in Ireland has received a major boost with the news that Pope Francis has bestowed his seal of approval on the event.

Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, who holds the Church’s title of the Cardinal Penitentiary, has informed the Irish friars and the Galway city-based nuns that the Pope has decreed that a plenary indulgence will be granted to the Irish faithful who participate in devotions honouring the Holy Name of Jesus over the course of 2014.

Pope Francis’s interest in the Irish year of devotion is believed to be linked to his special affinity with the Franciscan charism and his own devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. On election last March, he chose to include the monogram IHS in his papal crest.

In addition to the granting of a plenary indulgence, the Pope has also decreed that the celebrations will have the status of a jubilee year.

Responding to the news, the mother abbess of the Poor Clares in Galway, an enclosed community, said they were “thrilled”.

Sr Colette told CatholicIreland.net that the jubilee was even bigger than the indulgence as it was “a sign of God’s lavish mercy. It is like the celebration of a wedding anniversary.”

“We never dreamed that this centenary would get such recognition from Pope Francis. We had applied for the granting of a special indulgence but the granting of Jubilee Year status is far beyond what we expected,” she added.

The Roman office responsible for granting indulgences, stated that, Pope Francis … “most willingly expressing his paternal benevolence, grants a Jubilee Year with the attached Plenary Indulgence”.
 

Continue reading HERE.

Our previous post about the Year of the Holy Name of Jesus.

Year of the Holy Name - 2014

2014 is the Year of the Holy Name of Jesus in Ireland for the Franciscans and the Poor Clare Federation and the wider Franciscan family. The aim of the Year is simple -- to foster a renewed reverence and devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, and in so doing to deepen personal love for the Lord Jesus and faithfulness to His Gospel among all people.

The Year commemorates the centenary of the renewal in Ireland of devotion to the Holy Name initiated by Fr Francis Donnelly, OFM, of the Galway Abbey community, the Galway Poor Clares and by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, Loughglynn, Co. Roscommon.

Devotion to the name of Jesus has been a strong element in Franciscan prayer and ministry stretching back to the time of St Francis, but was particularly fostered by St Bernardine of Siena in 15th century.

It is hoped that through personal prayer and reflection, preaching, catechesis, and prayer events during this year there will be a new appreciation of the hope that the Holy Name of Jesus represents for our times.

The website of the Year of the Holy Name is HERE with reflections, prayers and other resources.

The Franciscan and Poor Clare Facebook page will be kept updated on events throughout the year.

UPDATE:

Jubilee Year of the Holy Name

 

 

 

 

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From Catholic Culture:

Today the universal Church [(as opposed to Limerick Diocese :) which celebrates the feast of our diocesan patron)] celebrates the optional memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite this feast is celebrated on January 2. In the liturgical revisions of Vatican II, the feast was removed, though a votive Mass to the Holy Name of Jesus had been retained for devotional use. With the release of the revised Roman Missal in March 2002, the feast was restored as an optional memorial in the Ordinary Form on January 3.

The Church reveals to us the wonders of the Incarnate Word by singing the glories of His name. The name of Jesus means Savior; it had been shown in a dream to Joseph together with its meaning and to Our Lady at the annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel.

Devotion to the Holy Name is deeply rooted in the Sacred Scriptures, especially in the Acts of the Apostles. It was promoted in a special manner by St. Bernard, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. John Capistrano and by the Franciscan Order. It was extended to the whole Church in 1727 during the pontificate of Innocent XIII. The month of January has traditionally been dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus.

 
You can read more about the Feast of the Holy Name HERE, HERE and HERE and Devotion to the Holy Name HERE.