St. Francis of Assisi NEWSLETTER

From the Priest's desk - July 2004

My dear parishioners...
Pax et Bonum !

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi celebrates its silver jubilee this year 2004.  It is indeed the year of the Lord's favour.  In fact all jubilees point to the "fullness of time" that is when God in the incarnation came down into human history and refers to the Messianic Mission of Christ who came as the "Anointed" by the Holy Spirit and "sent" by the Father to proclaim the Good News to the poor not only by his words but above all by his actions.  Thus proclaiming "the year of the Lord's favour" (cf Mt. 11:4-5)

The Jubilee we celebrate is "a year of the Lord's favour".  It characterizes all the activity of Jesus; it is not merely the recurrence of an anniversary in time.

The words and deeds of Jesus represent the fulfilment of the whole tradition of Jubilees in the Old Testament.  The jubilee year was meant to restore equality among all the children of Israel, offering new possibilities to families which had lost their property and even their personal freedom. (cf Leviticus 25:1-28).

The foundations of this tradition is strictly theological.  God the Creator, in his Providence had given the earth to humanity, that meant to everyone.  Therefore the riches of creation were to be considered as a common good of the whole family.  Those who possessed these goods as personal property were really stewards, ministers charged with working in the name of God, who remains the sole owner in the full sense, since it is God's will that created goods should serve everyone in a just way.  Thus the Jubilee year was meant to restore social justice.

For the Church, the Jubilee is precisely this "year of the Lord's favour", a year of the remission of sins and of the punishment due to them, a year of reconciliation between disputing parties, a year of manifold conversions and of sacramental and extra sacramental penance and for the granting of special indulgences.

The Church respects the measurements of time: hours, days, years, centuries.  She goes forward with every individual helping everyone to realise how each of these measurements of time is imbued with the presence of God and with his saving activity.  In this spirit the Church rejoices, gives thanks and asks forgiveness, presenting her petitions to the Lord of history and the King of the Universe.

In the lives of individuals, especially Christians, Jubilees and anniversaries take on a religious character.  In fact, in the Christian view, every Jubilee - the twenty-fifth of Marriage or Priesthood, known as "silver", the fiftieth, known as "golden", or the sixtieth, known as "diamond" - is a particular year of favour for the individual who have received one or other of the sacraments.  What is said about individuals with regard to jubilees can also be applied to communities or institutions.  In the Church, we celebrate jubilees of parishes and dioceses.  All these personal and community Jubilees have an important and significant roles in the lives of individuals and communities.

In the Church's history every jubilee is prepared for by Divine Providence.  This is also true for the Church of St. Francis of Assisi and the Archdiocese.  With this conviction, we look today with a sense of gratitude and yet with a sense of responsibility at all that has happened in human history since the birth of Christ.  But in a particular way, we look with eyes of faith to our own century and our parish history, searching out whatever bears witness not only to man's history but also to God's intervention in human affairs.

I invite you my dear parishioners to raise fervent prayers to obtain the light and assistance necessary for the preparation and celebration of the forthcoming Jubilee so that we may celebrate the Jubilee year with renewed faith and generous participation.


Fr. Joe Matthews


Matthew. 11:4-5
Jesus said to them in reply, "Go and tell John what you hear and see:  the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
(Back to top)


Leviticus 25:1-28
The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,  "Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, let the land, too, keep a sabbath for the LORD.  For six years you may sow your field, and for six years prune your vineyard, gathering in their produce.  But during the seventh year the land shall have a complete rest, a sabbath for the LORD, when you may neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.  The aftergrowth of your harvest you shall not reap, nor shall you pick the grapes of your untrimmed vines in this year of sabbath rest for the land.  While the land has its sabbath, all its produce will be food equally for you yourself and for your male and female slaves, for your hired help and the tenants who live with you, and likewise for your livestock and for the wild animals on your land.  "Seven weeks of years shall you count--seven times seven years--so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years.  Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month let the trumpet resound; on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo throughout your land.  This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, every one to his own family estate.  In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee, you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines.  Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you, you may not eat of its produce, except as taken directly from the field.  "In this year of jubilee, then, every one of you shall return to his own property.  Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly.  On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee shall you purchase the land from him; and so also, on the basis of the number of years for crops, shall he sell it to you.  When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more; when the years are few, the price shall be so much the less. For it is really the number of crops that he sells you.  Do not deal unfairly, then; but stand in fear of your God. I, the LORD, am your God.  "Observe my precepts and be careful to keep my regulations, for then you will dwell securely in the land.  The land will yield its fruit and you will have food in abundance, so that you may live there without worry.  Therefore, do not say, 'What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we do not then sow or reap our crop?'  I will bestow such blessings on you in the sixth year that there will then be crop enough for three years.  When you sow in the eighth year, you will continue to eat from the old crop; and even into the ninth year, when the crop comes in, you will still have the old to eat from.  "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine, and you are but aliens who have become my tenants.  Therefore, in every part of the country that you occupy, you must permit the land to be redeemed.  When one of your countrymen is reduced to poverty and has to sell some of his property, his closest relative, who has the right to redeem it, may go and buy back what his kinsman has sold.  If, however, the man has no relative to redeem his land, but later on acquires sufficient means to buy it back in his own name, he shall make a deduction from the price in proportion to the number of years since the sale, and then pay back the balance to the one to whom he sold it, so that he may thus regain his own property.  But if he does not acquire sufficient means to buy back his land, what he has sold shall remain in the possession of the purchaser until the jubilee, when it must be released and returned to its original owner.
(Back to top)