Saturday 16 August 2014

Octogenarian Celebration 13 August 2014. Fr. Donald

 Father Donald

 80 yrs
Introduction to Mass 13 August 2014-08-16.
Welcome:
You are welcome to the Octogenarian this morning and to the other octogenarians present and to all the younger who celebrating this Holy Mass.

1.       Come adore the Lord
who is wondrous
in his saints,
and wondrous in all us saints ‘in the making’.
In our Morning Office we sang of one of the Saints.

2.       At one time in in the monastery of Sancta Maria Abbey my Ordination had a souvenir  motto phrase of the Psalm,
Psalm 26:4 in the Grail Psalms,
“There is one thing I ask of the Lord,
for this I long,
to live in the house of the Lord,
all the days of my life,
to savour the sweetness of the Lord,
to behold  his temple”.

3.       In the daily chant of the Office sings the praise of the Lord. On every Thursday Morning Office of Psalm 89.9...
“Our life is over like a sigh
Our span is sventy years
or eighty for those who are strong”.
It is not NEWS, it is EVERY DAY NEWS.

4.       From decade to decade we have a new life, exciting with grace of God.
More recently, the six years have seen me to the regular Outpatient to the Haematology Department of the Infirmary. A new experience in exciting life is the one in a thousand in the rare condition of blood and marrow of bone.I refer to the Sweeney Todd leaching of blood by the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
The Haematology experience merges into the prayer to the haematology experience of Christ’s “body and blood”.
It is best expressed in the Hymn:
“O Jesus we adore you
our victim and our priest,
whose precious blood and body,
Become our sacred feast.”

5.       It is the Mystery of Faith, (Mysterium Fidei), the Sacrfice of the Mass – the death of Christ and the Resurrection talking to each of us, the souls of the faithful.

6.       Praying for souls, the Divine Mercy Prayer of St. Faustina of Poland is beautiful, “O God, I believe, I adore I hope, I love. I ask for your mercy”.
“O God, I believe, I adore I hope, I love. I ask for ALL SOULS your mercy”.

7.       Sisters and Brothers, Let us acknowledge our sins,
and so prepare us to celebrate the sacred mysteries....
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Donald Nunraw shared these files from Dropbox:






























 Donald Nunraw shared these files from Dropbox:
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Homily by Fr. Raymond. 

CONSECRATED LIFE         Today as we celebrate Fr Donald’s 80th birthday and we have so many of his family gathered here to join us in that celebration, and especially as so many of that family are themselves consecrated to the religious life, I think it is a good occasion for us to consider something of what consecration to the religious life means.

First, we tend to think of consecration to the religious life as something quite opposite to the married life.  We think of the religious life and married life as two opposites, especially as we so often use the word Virginity to describe the religious life.  However, if we consider it carefully we will find that the consecrated life of virginity and the married life are really two sides of the same coin;    one cannot understand the one unless one understands the other.  They have so much in common.  They are both expressions of one and the same aspiration in the human spirit.  They both spring from the same fountain in the depths of the human soul. These depths are well plumbed for us by St Paul when he writes that no one can plumb the depth of a man’s own soul but his very own spirit who dwells in him; and even more so, he says, no one can plumb the depth of God but God’s own Spirit who dwells in Him, and then he adds those wonderful words: that we have received from God this very own Spirit of his; that Spirit by which we are led into the very depths of God himself.  This is that marriage to which every Christian soul is consecrated by his baptism.  This is that marriage that is witnessed to in a special way by the Church’s religious consecration of her monks and nuns.

I said a moment ago that the consecrated life of virginity and the married life are really two sides of the same coin; they are both expressions of one and the same aspiration in the human spirit.  They both spring from the same depths of the human soul.  This becomes evident when we consider that, no matter how long a couple may live together in marriage, no matter how many children they have, they are always VIRGIN TO EACH OTHER.  Their fidelity to each other is the essence of their virginity.  It is a thing of mind and heart and spirit as much as a thing of the flesh.  This is a virginity that can never be spoiled or violated by another.  In this inviolability both the married life and consecrated virginity share equally.
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