O come all ye faithful

O come all ye faithful

Scotland’s bishops have asked Catholics to use the forthcoming Christmas season to make the decision to return to Sunday Mass.

The appeal follows new figures which show the impact of the Covid pandemic on Mass attendance across the Archdiocese – a significant 30 per cent drop, with some parishes losing more than half their Sunday Mass attendees.

The unsurprising drop in numbers attending Mass followed the suspension of the Sunday obligation last year and the repeat waves of Covid 19 which left many people afraid to come to Mass.

From the start of the New Year the Bishops have restored the Sunday obligation, though the current decision came before the new variant of Covid was discovered.

The Bishops acknowledge the difficulty of making their decision in a pastoral letter: “We have often been asked about reinstating the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holydays of obligation. In our fluid situation, this is not an easy judgment to make. Thanks, however, to the effort and good sense of so many, our churches have proven to be safe places. So, saving any serious worsening of the situation, we believe that Christmastide provides an opportune moment to restore the obligation”.

They add: “In accordance with the common teaching of the Church this obligation does not bind those in ill health or those otherwise impeded from attending Mass.

“Nor, in the context of Covid, does it bind those showing symptoms of the virus or with underlying health conditions, or those with responsibilities for people in need of special care. The obligation to keep the Lord’s Day holy by attending Mass should not be seen as a burden. It is a summons addressed to our human freedom and to the heart of every baptised member of the Church.”

The scale of the challenge facing parishes across the Archdiocese is huge. All but one parish have shown significant drops in the numbers attending since the start of the pandemic, though in some cases people are choosing to attend Mass on a weekday rather than a Sunday to avoid crowds.

Red-letter day for St Helen’s

By Brian Swanson

A Southside church has been illuminated in red as part of a global campaign to raise awareness of Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith.

St Helen’s Langside joined famous buildings including the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Manila Cathedral in the Philippines, and Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro which were also lit up in support of Red Wednesday, which was marked on November 24.

Awareness

The annual global awareness campaign was organised by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) which supports Catholics and other Christians who are persecuted or oppressed.

The day was marked by a special Mass at St Helen’s celebrated by Parish Priest Monsignor Paul Murray during which a red candle was lit in solidarity of those unable to practise their faith for fear of persecution.

Attracta O’Reilly, chairperson of St Helen’s Parish Pastoral Council, said: “Red Wednesday is now an annual feature in our parish calendar, which has provided the opportunity over the years to send our prayers, love and messages of hope along with solidarity expressed by many of our parishioners on special ACN cards to communities enduring persecution for their faith.

“This year we are encouraging people to sign ACN’s Red Wednesday petition calling on the UK Government and the United Nations to take action to stop the abduction, forced conversion and sexual enslavement of Christian women and girls as young as 12 years of age.

“After hearing about the work of Aid to the Church in Need in Syria, we decided to involve our parish with the ACN annual Red Wednesday campaign.

So, in St Helen’s we found a way to light up our church building in red to join many other churches and buildings throughout the world shining a light on Christian persecution. Red of course being the Christian colour of martyrdom, a symbol of the innocent victims of religious persecution, but also highlighting the injustices perpetrated against other faith groups and we as a parish community are only too pleased to add our voice to the campaign.”

Carry forward good intentions of COP26

By Bishop Bill Nolan

The poor are the first to suffer when things go wrong and they the ones that suffer the most – whether it’s the economic crisis of 2008 or the pandemic we have suffered for the past two years or the ongoing environmental crisis that we face just now.

And when it comes to the environment it’s not just individuals who suffer but also societies, whole countries, the people with low incomes where the people live more in harmony with nature than we do, when the people who have not caused the pollution suffer from our pollution and from our addiction to the consumption of fossil fuels.

It should not be that way, of course.

If we go to the Gospel of John it starts by saying in the beginning was the Word and then a few verses later it says it is through the Word that all things were made

John refers back to Genesis, and it’s there we hear God speak the word and we are told that God looks on creation and sees all that was made and indeed it was very good.

Today though as we look around at God’s creation we have to hold our heads in shame as we see how a creation that has been damaged and destroyed by human activity,

We step outside our building and breathe in polluted air, we see plastic filling our seas, rivers and oceans and we know of the exploitation of the world’s resources which are dug out with no concern for the indigenous people who live there, without a care for preserving the diversity of nature or giving a thought for future generations or what we are going to leave behind for them.

We have heard the cry of the earth and cry of the poor.

That is why COP 26 is taking place in Glasgow and we will hear many words spoken; many human words spoken.

In the Bible when God speaks God’s words and God’s action go together so God’s words effects what it sets out to do.

But that’s not the case with human words; human words and human actions are separate and while we hear fine human words about the environment we still hope actions will accompany these words and make a difference.

Here we see a common problem faced by the environmental movement also faced by religion.

Take Christianity as an example - many people admire the teachings of Jesus and they will say if only people lived by these teachings how much better the world would be.

But we don’t live by to these teachings and while many admire His words they do not have the courage to put these teachings into practice.

It’s the same with the environmental movement – we are all environmentalists now, we all say the right things but where are the actions that put those words into practice?

Even companies which pollute the earth try to paint themselves greener than green and many people hope and indeed expect that technology will solve all our problems so we can continue to live our current lifestyle as we always have done without making any deep or profound changes.

Do we not realise that our current lifestyle is the cause of the problem and these problems go deep?

When was the last time you heard you heard yourself called a citizen? More often we hear ourselves referred to as ‘consumers’.

What an insult to be called consumer!

As if our whole purpose in life was to be called a consumer; as if our whole purpose in life and in society was to consume because the more we consume the more we spend the greater the economic growth, the higher the GDP and how much better things will become - or at least according to a the current economic model.

But it is a flawed model and it is the cause of the environmental crisis because it is based on consumption, without recognising that the earth’s resources are limited and finite, failing to recognise that these resources are there to be shared by all and not just used by the powerful and rich.

It is true to say that even in the wider Church not everyone agrees that this is a religious issue - there are even those who would think that Pope Francis would have better things to do with his time than to write an encyclical like Laudato si …

They fail to realise that we are not talking here about the climate - we are talking about creation.

We have come to this church today motivated by our faith because we recognise that our faith urges us to do something about this because we have been commissioned by God to be guardians of creation.

Trees planted in honour of ‘our uncle Philip’

By Brian Swanson

Their faces solemn with concentration, three children plant a holly tree in memory of the man the world knew as Archbishop Philip Tartaglia but who was to them simply Uncle Philip.

Gabriel, 13, Lucia, 10, and Philip, 6, are students at St Aloysius College whose fellow pupils, with the enthusiastic support of staff, arranged the simple service which took place overlooking a small unused piece of land outside the Junior School in Hill Street now transformed into an everlasting memorial garden to Archbishop Tartaglia who died on January 13, 2021, the feast day of St Mungo.

And as members of his immediate family, including his brother Canon Gerry Tartaglia, parish priest of St Margaret’s Clydebank, looked on proudly, another significent coincidence emerged when it was pointed out that the day chosen at random to pay tribute to the Archbishop – November 19 – was almost exactly 16 years to the day that he was ordained Bishop of Paisley.

There was symbolism too in the choice of the holly tree voted for by pupils.

Headmaster Matthew Bartlett said: “The senior school recently planted a sycamore tree for the Archbishop just round the corner in Scott Street and today was the turn of the junior school to pay their own tribute.

“They voted for the holly I think because it is sturdy and robust – in many ways just like the Archbishop himself who was a great friend to our school and who truly believed in the value of young people and their education.”

Father Gerry Mitchell, the newly-appointed parish priest of St Aloysius who taught in the college almost 30 years ago, conducted the service which included this prayer:

“We pray that the this tree will take root in this soil, drawing from it water and nutrients so it may grow and blossom bringing beauty, offering shelter to birds and insects, its evergreen presence reminding us of the Archbishop’s love and goodwill; his faith and commitment to the people of Glasgow and beyond. We ask this through Christ our Lord.”

The St Aloysius tribute trees now join dozens of others in schools throughout the Archdiocese inspired by the words of Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen who in his funeral eulogy compared the death of the Archbishop to ‘a great tree felled during a storm’.

After the service Canon Gerry Tartaglia, speaking on behalf of the family said, “In various schools around the Archdiocese these trees have been planted in his memory – what a beautiful tribute to him.

“He had a great affection and admiration for Catholic teachers and schools and never tired of supporting them. Catholic schools are a wonderful gift to Scotland and everyone who participates in them is the better for doing so.”