18 AUGUST 2022
www.therecord.com.au
Edition #396
SUNDAY OBLIGATION RETURNS: ARCHBISHOP COSTELLOE ISSUES PASTORAL LETTER EMPHASISING IMPORTANCE OF THE EUCHARIST
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB elevates the body and blood of Christ on Holy Thursday, 14 April 2022, at St Mary’s Cathedral. PHOTO: RON TAN.
By Jamie O'Brien
Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has this week issued a Pastoral Letter, re-instituting the Sunday Obligation from Sunday 4 September. The Pastoral Letter, published Tuesday 16 August, addressed the whole Perth Catholic community, focusing on what it means for us to be a Christ-centred Church which is prayerful and Eucharistic. “One of the acclamations which we say immediately after the Consecration invites us to remember that the Eucharist is the sacrament of our salvation: Save us, Saviour of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free,” the letter explains. “In celebrating the Eucharist, we are celebrating, and being drawn into, the great mystery of our salvation: God so loved the world that he gave
his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16). “This gift of eternal life,” highlights Archbishop Costelloe, “is the fruit of the life, death and resurrection of Christ: the fruit of the paschal mystery in its fullest sense. “But all of this celebration will only make sense to us if we recognise our need for salvation and acknowledge that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot save ourselves. “This recognition will only come through an acknowledgement of the power of sin and evil at work in our lives. Such a recognition will require great honesty and courage from each one of us.” In inviting the Perth Catholic community to return to the Sunday obligation, Archbishop Costelloe said that with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, he temporarily suspended the obligation in order
to protect vulnerable people and to free them from any conscientious challenges they might have had. “I believe that the time has come to remind us all again of the centrality of the Eucharist and of our need for the Eucharist. For that reason, I am reinstating the Sunday obligation, effective from the first Sunday in September, (Sunday, 4 September 2022).” “If it is true that the celebration of the Eucharist is at the very heart of the life of the Church and is the most precious gift of God to the Church, then it is impossible to conceive of the Church without the Eucharist. Equally, it is impossible to conceive of a truly faithful, and faith-filled, living of the Christian life for a Catholic apart from regular participation in the Eucharist,” Archbishop Costelloe said. Full Text available at
www.therecord.com.au 1