Can you help by boiling potatoes (supplied and peeled) and boiling turnips, all to be taken to the hall on the Saturday. If you can help please contact Don on 872797. Tickets on sale for this event at £8.
This will take place in Rio de Janeiro and our Diocese needs to know if young people from the parishes are interested in going. Cost is likely to be upwards of £2000. There will be no diocesan funding available, so its all down to fundraising. Please let me know asap if you are interested.
By the time you read this we will have had two Journey of faith sessions reflecting on the Gospel of Saint John, the fourth Gospel. We are reading it on Wednesday evenings not primarily to analyse it or learn the history of how it came to be, but to encounter, with the evangelist who wrote it, the face of Jesus Christ, and his power-for-life which sustains disciples, and the Church, in faith. John's Gospel is unique. Written later than the other three, it takes much of the content of the other Gospels for granted, and rather than give us many incidents and parables from the life of Jesus, it skilfully concentrates on a few incidents and shows how the characters in them come to faith. Much of John's Gospel material is unique to him - for instance, the lengthy Lenten stories of the Samaritan women at the well, and the man born blind who is cured by Jesus and comes to faith, are only found in John. It is only John who tells us of the washing of feet on Holy Thursday, and only he who at great length describes Jesus as the Good Shepherd. His is a carefully crafted, poetic, and prayerful proclamation of the Word-made-Flesh whom he praises in a lengthy poem in his prologue. No wonder he can give us such an in-depth portrait of our Lord, for he is The disciple Jesus loved , he is the one who reclined on the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper and in doing so heard the very heartbeat of God.
We have a number of weeks still to dwell on this beautiful Gospel text. Why don’t you come and join us? It is for us all, it is a gift. I invite you to come and share our reflection this coming Wednesday. John's Gospel is power-for-life indeed. At its very centre, in Chapter Ten, Verse Ten, Jesus proclaims: I have come that they might have life and have it to the full.
You will receive a warm welcome at St Anne's for the Journey of faith this coming Wednesday at 7.30pm. Here is an outline of the theme for the coming weeks: Wednesday 8 February: The Book of Signs – the signs Jesus gives affords him the opportunity to teach the truth and witness to the Father – how he forms us as disciples.
Wednesday 15 February: The Book of Glory – Knowing Christ through his passion as God the Son, one with the Father.
Wednesday 29 February: Encountering the three major Lenten stories in John: Part one: The Woman at well.
Wednesday 7 March: Part two: The Man born blind. Wednesday 14 March: Part three: The Raising of Lazarus.
Wednesday 21 March: John’s Passion Narratives – Christ triumphant, ever reigning.
Wednesday 28 March: Preparing for the Easter Triduum—the once a year experience of the life-in-abundance.
Monday 6 February 9.30am in St Anne’s 10.30am in St Bride’s 11.30am in St Thomas’
Tuesday 7 January 9.30am in St Anne’s 10am in St Thomas’ 10.30am in St Bride’s
Wednesday 8 February 9am in St Bride’s 10am in St Thomas’ 6pm in St Mary’s 7pm in St. Anne’s
Thursday 9 February 9.30am in St Anne’s 10am in St Thomas’ 10.30am in St Bride’s
Friday 10 February 9.30am in St Anne’s 10am in St Thomas’ 10.30am in St Bride’s
Saturday 11 February 9.30am in St Bride’s 10am in St Thomas’
Confessions this week: After Saturday morning Mass in St. Thomas’;
Wednesday at 6.40pm in St Anne’s; Saturday 4.30pm until 5pm in St
Bride’s.
The American poet Carl Sandburg wrote that when a nation goes down or a society perishes one condition may always be found—they forgot where they came from. One of the lessons Catholics have learned over the past fifty years since the Vatican Council is that we are not so much a people of the Promised Land (yet) but an Exodus people, a pilgrim people. The people of God, our ancestors, were, as the Book of Exodus tells us, brought out of slavery by God’s mighty hand and outreached arm. Their tradition was for them one of liberation and freedom. No wonder the Jews of Jesus’ time were offended and resented it when he told them he had come to really set them free. They said to him, “We are descended from Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How dare you say ‘you shall be made free?’” (John 8:33) - a clear indication they had lost touch with what their Exodus freedom really meant. With the Exodus from Egypt was born the Hebrew people. They were not called to or given a freedom that was for their own enjoyment but were given this freedom so that they could in turn be the liberating sign of God's presence in the world. What they failed to understand is that the exodus experience is not guaranteed for any people by their past history and traditions, but that the journey out of bondage towards freedom will never be over for us until he Kingdom of God comes fully. For those who walk with the lord, Exodus is just as much a present experience as it is a glorious event in the past.
The short excerpt from the story of Jonah which we will hear this Sunday does not tell the whole story. Jonah despised the people he was sent to convert; he thought them unworthy of his time and effort. The story of Jonah and the whale is rooted in a time, after the exile, when God's people was intent on reconstructing their former way of life, re-establishing their tradition, starting to rebuild their temple and their land. The author of the book of Jonah wrote this story to combat the growing parochialism of the people who were increasingly concerned about themselves, and the story sought to provoke a sense of “catholicism” or “universalism” which reflected God's concern for all people. So the writer created this story of Jonah, the narrow minded man. Through this caricature, the Israelites were being offered a glimpse of themselves, their short-sightedness, their short comings, and their lack of memory that they themselves had been strangers, slaves, sinners in need of God themselves when they were under the hand of Pharaoh in Egypt centuries before.
Jonah's unwillingness, his efforts to thwart God's purpose, his annoyance at the repentance of that people and his dismay at God forgiving them are all woven together in the story which is in sharp contrast to this Sunday's Gospel, where Jesus promises his chosen ones that they will be fishers of men.
God's Word often reminds us of our beginnings. Once upon a time we had very little, and no great future. But people always have a hope of better things and better times. As scripture says, we put our hopes in Christ even before he came, not knowing how, when or in what way God would save us. Paul assures us that such hopes are not disappointed. But disappointment does follow when we move in the opposite direction, when our hopes turn from God to self, forgetting our origins in him, and in our ancestors who with Joshua at their head entered a land they had not tilled, having been saved at the Red Sea by the Lord’s own glorious triumph. Already the liturgical year is moving swiftly. Lent is not far away, and with it the glorious celebration of the Easter mystery. In these Sundays leading towards Lent we are invited to take as our model the figures of the gospel - Peter, Andrew, James and John - who like Jonah were invited to leave their nets, their self, behind and turn to faith in God. The result of their efforts was remarkably similar: the message was believed the world over. Paradoxically, in moving from self to God, in moving back to our biblical roots as the pilgrim people called to be the liberating sign of God in the world, they were given everything: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, land....a hundredfold.
Journey of Faith resumes this Wednesday 25 January at 7.30pm in St. Anne’s.
Over the next few weeks at the Journey of faith we will be taking an in-depth look at the Gospel of Saint John, and will see how discovering the Jesus of John the Evangelist connects to our individual journey of faith and how God is at work in our lives and in our belonging together as a Church. No previous bible study is necessary; each person’s faith and human experience is respected; the atmosphere is informal; no question is irrelevant; please come along and invite a friend to come with you.
Saturday 28 April for Confirmation has not proved the best date for all the families so we’ll have to rethink. I’m sorry for any inconvenience. First Holy Communion is on Sunday 10 June, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord, at 12.30pm. I invite parents and sponsors to a meeting in St. Bride’s Hall at 7.30pm on Monday 13 February. The Rite of Enrolment will take place on the First Sunday of Lent, 26 February at 11.30am Mass.
Now is the time to set aside the significant dates in our Catholic life as this liturgical year unfolds. Please celebrate your Catholic identity and your belonging in our parish by making sure you keep the major festivals of the Church with us as a true parish community, especially the Easter Triduum. I cannot urge parents enough to speak with their children and teenagers about the significance of Lent and the lead-up to Easter. Pleas encourage their participation in the liturgies, help them see the great treasure which is our catholic worship, which is always and everywhere an experience of deep encounter with the Crucified and Risen Jesus, the only one by whose name we are saved.
Wednesday 22 February: Ash Wednesday and the preparatory rites of Lent.
Sunday 26 February: Lent formally opens. The Rite of Election for those adults to be Baptised/Confirmed at the Easter Vigil takes place at 3pm in the Cathedral.
Saturday 3 March: Parish Lenten Retreat day at St Anne’s: The title is Rediscovering Jesus – and is a continuation of the exploration begun at Advent Day.
Monday 12 March: Formation Evening for liturgical ministers in St Thomas’ - Welcomers, Cantors, Children’s Liturgy Leaders, Readers, MCs, Eucharist Ministers and all who wish to take part.
Sunday 18 March: SCIAF Sunday.
Sunday 25 March: Fifth Sunday of Lent and the beginning of the 40 hours’ Adoration at St. Thomas’– until Holy Hour on Tuesday 27 March at 7pm.
Sunday 1 April: Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion and Holy Week begins. Wednesday 4 April: Mass of Chrism at the Cathedral at 7pm.
Thursday 5 April: Lent ends. Easter Triduum begins with the Solemn Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, and climaxes in the Easter Vigil on Saturday 7th at 9pm. The Triduum continues until Easter Sunday evening, Sunday 8 April.
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