The Parish of "Our Lady Of Furness"

Ascension -2017

Easter 6 2017.pdf

Easter 5 2017.pdf

Easter 4 2017.pdf
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Easter 3 2017

Easter 2

We’ve been preparing for Easter through forty days of Lent, culminating in the Easter Triduum:  Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter on Saturday night.  All that waiting and preparation peaks when we gather on Saturday night for a solemn vigil.

We wait in darkness, bless a fire, process with candles, and hear the stories of our salvation through the scriptures.  The emphasis is on waiting for the culmination of the story: Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  Bells are rung, and alleluias are sung as we hear the gospel account of Christ’s rising.  Then, following this proclamation of the core of our beliefs, new members are brought into the Church through baptism and a profession of faith.  The recounting of Christ’s new life is closely connected to the Church’s renewal through the reception of its new members. This year are parish will be welcoming 14 people into full communion with the Catholic Church.

This celebration as a vigil is important because it doesn’t just commemorate something God did in the past; it celebrates something God is doing today.  Although our salvation was accomplished 2000 years ago, we are also watching and waiting to see what God is doing in our lives today.  Because our past and our future are connected, through God’s saving power.

The celebration of Easter, as a vigil, invites us to break out our most potent symbols of God’s action, and our response.  So, all the waiting, the readings, music, candles, procession, and initiation, all remind us that God has accomplished something amazing by loving us so much.  And our vigil is a statement, individually and collectively, that we are ready to be renewed and to live out of the grace we’ve received.

Come and join us tonight for the Easter Vigil 8pm St Mary’s Duke Street 

Some of our children from Holy Family church gathered this morning  to remember the events of Good Friday following Jesus on the journey to Calvary and then to the tomb

Happy Easter

EASTER 2017

​What is Good Friday and why do we call Good Friday “good,” when it is such a dark and bleak event commemorating a day of suffering and death for Jesus?

For Christians, Good Friday is a crucial day of the year because it celebrates what we believe to be the most momentous weekend in the history of the world. Ever since Jesus died and was raised, Christians have proclaimed the cross and resurrection of Jesus to be the decisive turning point for all creation. St. Paul considered it to be “of first importance” that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and was raised to life on the third day, all in accordance with what God had promised all along in the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3).

Today we remember the day Jesus willingly suffered and died by crucifixion as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. It is followed by Easter, the glorious celebration of the day Jesus was raised from the dead, heralding his victory over sin and death and pointing ahead to a future resurrection for all who are united to him by faith.

In order for the good news of the gospel to have meaning for us, we first have to understand the bad news of our condition as sinful people under condemnation. The good news of deliverance only makes sense once we see how we are enslaved. Another way of saying this is that it is important to understand and distinguish between law and gospel in Scripture. We need the law first to show us how hopeless our condition is; then the gospel of Jesus’ grace comes and brings us relief and salvation.

In the same way, Good Friday is “good” because as terrible as that day was, it had to happen for us to receive the joy of Easter. The wrath of God against sin had to be poured out on Jesus, the perfect sacrificial substitute, in order for forgiveness and salvation to be poured out to the nations. Without that awful day of suffering, sorrow, and blood at the cross, God could not be both “just and the justifier” of those who trust in Jesus. Paradoxically, the day that seemed to be the greatest triumph of evil was actually the deathblow in God’s gloriously good plan to redeem the world from bondage.

The cross is where we see the convergence of great suffering and God’s forgiveness. Psalms 85:10 sings of a day when “righteousness and peace” will “kiss each other.” The cross of Jesus is where that occurred, where God’s demands, his righteousness, coincided with his mercy. We receive divine forgiveness, mercy, and peace because Jesus willingly took our divine punishment, the result of God’s righteousness against sin. 

Join us this afternoon for the Lord’s passion 3pm St Mary’s Church Duke Street.