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'Christ has no body now but yours' St Theresa of Avila
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Parish News
Our very latest news updates and information about Parish activities.
Please could you bring flowers and plants to our church that we could then place them on the sanctuary for Easter, as signs of the joy we feel at the Lord’s Resurrection from the Dead. Please bring them any time next Saturday before about 5.00pm and leave them in the porch of the church. Thank you.
Dear Parents, please note that the Children’s own reflection of the Liturgy of God’s Word, takes place during School Term times. Please, of course, continue to bring the children to holy Mass, come early and sit near the front of the church so that children can see and better understand the holy Mass. The children’s own Liturgy of the Word begins again on Sunday 26th April. Dear Parents, please bring the children to the Holy Week Services especially on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil/First holy Mass of Easter on Saturday evening. During this week, the Lord speaks powerfully of his saving love, through the Liturgy, to all our hearts.
To everyone who bakes or provides cakes for our Olde Forge Cafe. Please let me know if you could join our rota of very kind people who occasionally bake or provide cakes for the Cafe. Thank you to Margaret Fuller who provides the cakes this week. Also, thank you to Bridget Saunders who will let us have some delicious Irish Soda Bread on Tuesday, to celebrate the Feast of St.Patrick.
Thank you to Patricia for all her very good work as a Catechist in our parish. Thank you to Lorenza for leading Stations of the Cross, last Friday. Thank you to Angela for helping parents with the Faith development of their children
Everyone who came to our meeting last Sunday afternoon to discuss the frequency and times of Sunday holy Masses in our parish. Archbishop John asks all parishes in the Archdiocese to reduce their Sunday holy Mass schedule, during the Summer, by one holy Mass and to revise the times of Sunday holy Masses. Thank you also to those who sent me emails and texts. Thank you especially, to those who asked what would help me if there was to be a change in the times and the frequency of our Sunday holy Masses!
PARISH CELEBRATION - THANK YOU, WITH ALL MY HEART What an amazing, quite wonderful Celebration we all enjoyed, last Sunday. It was an occasion full of joy and happiness, as we thanked the good Lord for all his loving kindness. It reminded me of the description, in the Acts of the Apostles, of how the first Christians lived - sharing and caring, as they rejoiced in their awareness of the risen Lord alive in their midst, by the power of the Holy Spirit. There isn’t enough space on this Newsletter to thank so many people by name, who in so many ways, made the Parish Celebration a huge success. Thank you, with all my heart, to everyone for everything you did. The memory of my Golden Anniversary of Priesthood will remain with me for ever. Please send me, digitally, your photographs. Unless you instruct me otherwise, I would like to publish some of them on our parish website, as a permanent reminder of a quite wonderful moment in the life our parish. Thank you for all your gifts and cards and best wishes. I am deeply honoured to be your priest. Thank you for your generous Collection for me which raised £1,596.00.
Parish Priest Notices
Important notices and items. These will contain news elements & important requests and parish notices
The Collections on Easter Sunday (basket in church, on-line and the Card Reader) are your personal gift to your priest. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.
Please could you join us next Saturday morning at 9.30, to tidy and clean the church for Easter. Parents, please bring the children too. Whatever age we are, whether man or woman, young or not so young, there is always some little thing we can all do. Humbly cleaning, tidying the church is a real prayer in itself.
Mon: Giannina Tue: Marian
Please do your best to bring members of your family, your friends, neighbours and colleagues who normally have little, if any contact with our Catholic parish, to the Olde Forge Cafe. Please remember that those you bring with you DO NOT give a donation for their coffee and cake. Only us, who are regular members of our parish, are asked to give a donation, each time, to cover the cost of the Coffee machine, coffee beans, heat, light etc. Dear Bakers and those who provide milk, please remember to take your expenses from the donations received.
Please note that the Cafe is only licensed to provide hot drinks and cakes. We are not insured for the cooking or provision of hot food. There are regulations around hygiene and food safety which we would have to meet, before we would be able to offer cooked or heated food to Visitors to the Cafe. Also, only someone with the required Health and Safety certification is permitted by Law, to prepare food for public consumption. We can, of course, apply for permission to provide cooked or heated food in our Cafe and as long as we can satisfy all the requirements, we would receive permission to do so. This is what we have done in the past for special occasions. If we were to use the cooking facilities and equipment in our Cafe and provide food, without the required permissions, we could be in difficulty. If an accident occurred in the kitchen or someone became unwell after consuming food, we could well face a very large fine or even the compulsory closure of the Cafe. Please speak with me, well in advance, if you would like to suggest an occasion when we could provide cooked or heated food. We would need to satisfy all requirements and seek the approvals needed, which we could do. Many thanks.
Thank you so much to all the wonderful people who act as Hosts in our Olde Forge Cafe. If you are not yet a Host, please speak with me. It would be great to increase the team of Hosts. All training to operate the Coffee Machine, will be given.
Parish /
Diocesan Events
May I invite you to join me for a short ‘Walk of Witness’ along our High Street on the morning of Good Friday. We will walk from our church, at 11.00am, to the ‘Gruffy’, stopping occasionally to meditate and pray. One of our parishioners, dressed in similar clothes to Jesus, will carry a large cross. We will be finished by 11.45am. Please bring the children too. I’m hoping that some of our friends from other Christian Churches will join us.
We will have a short Penance Service, followed by an opportunity for individual reconciliation with the Lord, on Tuesday 31st March at 6.00pm
Deep in the human heart is a longing to be connected to others, to love and to be loved. I am leading this Workshop from 10.00am until 2.00pm on Saturday 11th July . The Workshop will help us to understand the reasons why we sometimes feel lonely and what a devastating effect Loneliness can have on us. I’ll suggest effective ways to ensure that your experience of Loneliness can actually become the means of finding deep, satisfying ways of being close to the Lord and to other people. The workshop will take place at the London Jesuit Centre. If you would like to attend this Workshop, please book now on the London Jesuit Centre website.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE ABOVE ICON FOR A GUIDED MEDITATION
PRAY FOR OUR ARCHBISHOP - JOHN WILSON
As a parish we encourage our community to pray for our shepherd