Frs. Jonathan, Ambrose and Paul, with Sister Veronica and all the Priory House team would like to thank you for all you do for us and the support you give us in many different ways. We have received many cards and many presents for which we thank you. Some people who deal with our Church closely have been working very hard over Christmas whether it is in cleaning, arranging flowers, putting up the crib, serving, providing music, keeping the grounds tidy, providing hospitality or other things, and we thank you very much for all you do for us. It is a very pro-active parish and we are very grateful that together we run St. Marys for the good of our parishioners and many others. Please keep up your own initiatives in furthering God’s Kingdom, MAY WE ALL HAVE A BLESSED AND HOLY NEW YEAR
|
The Flower Arrangers have managed to excel themselves this year at Christmas with floral decorations because of the generosity of your donations in memory of your loved ones.....
Elizabeth Francis Knight, Brian Richards, Alan and Hilda Sutch,The Hilliard Family, Michael Sheeran, Bernard Robinson, Meadows and Miller families, Jack Gallagher, Glen Eckersley, Ken Gore, The McCall family, John Vernetta, Mary McCall, The Beattie Family,William & Margaret Ainsworth, George and Elizabeth Kendall, Helen Marie Moore, The Purcell Family, The Fletcher Family, Bridie McGough, The Fryer Family
|
On Christmas Eve, Fr Jonathan listened on the Vatican Radio website to the story of the only priest in the Gaza Strip. He has a tiny flock among the huge Moslem Palestinian population, yet though so insignificant in numbers he has a great influence for good. He sent a message of Peace and Good-will to everyone in the world. On Christmas Day the main Palestinian Political and Civic leaders of Gaza all come to join him and his tiny flock for a Christmas lunch. They have so many problems but somehow they manage. Below is an account taken from a website about this good man. Let us pray for him and his flock for they live in constant danger.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (CNS) = Of the 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip, through which the Holy Family probably travelled on its escape to Egypt, nearly all are Muslim. There are about 3,000 Christians, including 200 Catholics served by one priest. His name is Msgr. Manuel Musallam, though he jokes that hes also called the = Pope of Gaza.= It was a position for which there were no other contenders. Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem asked him if hed be willing to take the post. = When I said yes, he was very perplexed,= Msgr. Musallam, 68, recalls.
The narrow 25 mile long Gaza Strip is fortified on three sides by a double prison fence reinforced by guard towers. The fourth border is the Mediterranean Sea. There are two guarded entrances only. Israel controls the strips airspace as well as northern and eastern borders and seacoast. Msgr. Musallam, who was ordained in 1968, has been pastor of Holy Family Parish since August 1995. His Israeli identity card expired at the time he moved to Gaza and he says the Israeli government refuses to renew it. As a result, since that time till now, I have had the opportunity to go only twice outside. Even when his mother died in 2000, and when his father died in 2002, he was denied permission to accompany their bodies back to their hometown of Bir Zeit, near Ramallah in the West Bank, for burial. How I do this work, I do not know, he said. But I am a priest, and because I am a priest, I am a sign of the Church among the people. So you will never find me without hope. I struggle with my whole force. I work the whole time, he continued. I am imprisoned with my people. Despite the persistent violence he has seen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he maintains peace is possible. We Christians say that there are seven sacraments, but in Gaza and in the Holy Land, we say we have eight sacraments, he said. The eighth sacrament is the Sacrament of Hope. Without this sacrament, you cannot survive in this land. I cry at times against the crimes of the war, he said. We cannot go. We cannot come. Everything is closed. It is a big prison. Fear, stress, hunger, lack of work, lack of electricity, lack of water. And more. lack of police, lack of law, lack of justice, lack of freedom. We haven't a government, he added. Noting the divisions between the Hamas and Fatah factions in the Palestinian Authority, he said, We know that a kingdom which is split in two will not survive. We know that. And this is what we are living. Msgr. Musallam, in poor health with what he says are bad legs, said he will stay in Gaza because this is where God wants him. In addition to being pastor, he oversees two Catholic schools run by the Rosary Sisters. One, at his parish, has 650 students in first through 12th grade. One hundred of the students are Christian; the rest are Muslim. At the second school, offering kindergarten to 10th grade, there are 550 students = 35 of them Catholic, the rest Muslim. He also works with the Missionaries of Charity, who operate a health clinic, a house for disabled children and a home for older women. He said it is difficult to convince people to remain faithful, to accept the word of God, to accept the Gospel, to accept the principles of the gospel = which are so hard in a world of daily conflict. He said one parish employee had just gotten home when a bullet ripped into her house, hit her in the chest and killed her. One of his teachers works despite having a bullet lodged in his thigh. One of his 10th grade students took two bullets, in the chest and an arm, as he was eating with his family in their home. I am the hope of my people. I cannot give up. = I keep my faith, my hope, and my charity toward everyone everywhere. I preach peace, I preach hope, I preach charity and I preach faith, he said.
|
