Thursday, January 21, 2010
Forthcoming Days of Prayer
Wednesday 27th January
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY
Sunday 31st January
EDUCATION SUNDAY
WORLD LEPROSY DAY
Thursday, January 14, 2010
St Martin Apostolate Trade Show
St Martin Apostolate invite you to visit their Trade Show (cards and gifts) at the Assembly Rooms, Salford Cathedral (250 Chapel Street, Manchester M3 5LL): Monday 25th January to Wednesday 27th January (10.00 am - 5.00 pm), and Thursday 28th January (10.00 am - 1,00 pm).
St Joseph’s Players 2010 Pantomime
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
20th January - 30th January
Includes 3 matinees on 23rd, 24th & 30th
St Joseph’s Hall, Chapel St, Leigh
£7 Adults, £4 for 16yrs and under
Available from Radcliffes Bike Shop, Leigh
Many thanks for your support
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
Support for Catechists
Wednesday 3rd February 2010, 7.30 to 9.15 pm (Tea/Coffee at 7.00 pm)
St Mary’s Lowe House, St Helens, WA10 2BE
Please note that there is no charge for the evening, but as places are limited, bookings will be accepted on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. Contact: Mrs Julie Cassidy at The Pastoral Formation Dept. LACE, Croxteth Drive, L17 1AA, or email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
EMERGENCY APPEAL FOR HAITI
Tens of thousands of people are feared dead after the earthquake in Haiti this week, and many thousands have been injured, bereaved and left homeless and hungry. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and is still struggling to recover from the devastating hurricanes of 2008.
Pope Benedict XVI has urged generous international aid for the victims of Haiti’s earthquake and has pledged concrete help from the Catholic Church. There will be a Second Collection at each church this weekend for CAFOD who are already providing support in Haiti. The money we give will help to supply water, food, medicines and shelter to the most vulnerable in the worst affected areas.
Other Ways of Giving
Call Freephone 0500 858 885; or send a cheque to CAFOD, Romero Close, Stockwell Road, London SW9 9TY; or donate online http://www.cafod.org.uk/giving/emergency-appeals
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Statement issued by the Most Reverend Patrick Kelly, Archbishop of Liverpool
We have good reason to be very grateful for all those in the media, particularly in Local Radio at this time. I think we will be concerned above all for those who are sick and those who serve them.
The weather affects every aspect of our life. I have spoke with Bishop Brian Noble of Shrewsbury and we together offer this advice: unless you are certain it is safe for you to do so, whether it is by foot, car, or public transport, do not attempt to go to Mass; if in doubt stay at home and pray there, especially for those most affected at this time.
I ought to be in the Holy Land today, but cancelled flights have made that impossible. Also, at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool, the Epiphany celebration, planned for 1.45 pm tomorrow, Friday 8 January, and involving many schools, has been cancelled in the interest of the safety of the children who had hoped to take part.
I also encourage you at this time to be very understanding about funerals, if it is impossible, as many of you would wish, for the body to be carried into the church and the undertakers are only able to use their specially designed trolleys.
Care for one another is the priority in these days.
+ Patrick A Kelly
Archbishop of Liverpool
A Prayer by Fr Richard Rohr
Let us be present to the now.
It’s all we have
and it’s where God will always speak to us.
The now holds everything,
rejects nothing and,therefore,
can receive God, too.
Help us be present to the place we’re most afraid of,
because it always feels empty,
it always feels boring,
it always feels like it’s not enough.
Help us find some space within
that we don’t try to fill with ideas or opinions.
Help us to create inner space,
because you always show yourself best
where we are hungry and empty.
Keep us out of the way,
so there is always room enough for you.
(Richard Rohr in his book ‘Hope Against Darkness’)
Christmas Season Reflection
God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him.
Pope Benedict XVI
Christmas Homily 2006
Pastoral Area Lourdes Pilgrimage
Monday 7th to Friday 11th June 2010.
Departing from Manchester.
Accommodation at the Hotel St Georges on full board.
Price £465.00 (Insurance and single room extra).
Please contact: Mary Barton (01942 889388) if you are interested.
Churches Together in Boothstown
Tuesday 19th January at 7.00 pm at Holy Family, Boothstown
‘Praying with Pictures’ - Pondering pictures of some inspirational sculptures of the family life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Nazareth
Thursday 21st January at 7.00 pm
Compline at St John’s, Mosley Common
Friday 22nd January at 9.30 am
Prayer Service at Boothstown Methodist Church
Sunday 24th January at 6.00 pm
Songs of Praise at St Mary’s, Ellenbrook
Astley Churches Together
To celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, ACT will be holding a number of joint services lasting about 30 minutes) as detailed below:
Monday 18th January at 7.00 pm at St Stephen’s Church
Tuesday 19th January at 7.00 pm at St Ambrose Barlow Church
Thursday 21st January at 7.00 pm at Astley Independent Methodist Chapel
The week will be brought to a close with a short service at St Ambrose Barlow on Sunday 24th January at 4.00 pm. Your attendance at any or all of these services will be most welcome.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
New Coadjutor Bishop of Shrewsbury
Last Tuesday, the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Monsignor Mark Davies, Vicar General of the Diocese of Salford, as the new Coadjutor Bishop of Shrewsbury. As Coadjutor, he will have right of succession to Bishop Brian Noble, Bishop of Shrewsbury, upon his retirement at a future date. In the meantime, the new Bishop will assist Bishop Noble within the Diocese.
Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
Please note: this year’s Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on Sunday 3rd January 2010. The feast was transferred to the nearest Sunday in 2008.
Prayer for the Feast of the Holy Family
Loving God,
guardian of our homes,
when you entrusted your Son
to the care of Mary and Joseph,
you did not spare them the pains
that touch the life of every family.
Teach us to rely on your word,
so that in our trials and in our joys
we may be clothed in gentleness and patience
and united in love.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
(adapted from ‘The ICEL Collects’)
Pastoral Letter for the Feast of the Holy Family
My dear People,
Jesus went down with Mary and Joseph and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority; he was obedient to them. And in the Carol ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, many of us will have sung in recent days: ‘Christian children all must be mild, obedient, good as he’.
But obedience is a tricky thing.
Watch very carefully today’s story about Jesus, Mary and Joseph for this Feast of the Holy Family. We must not rush to obedient Jesus as if he justifies a parental demand: ‘do it because I tell you to’. The Mary to whom Jesus is obedient, the Mary under whose authority he lived, is the Mary who ‘stored up all these things in her heart’. Always she is the woman who ponders, searches, learns; her relationship to her Son is always in heart and mind and body. And today we are reminded that she ponders this: a Passover feast; the city of Jerusalem; Jesus, lost for three days; and lost to her because he was accomplishing the will of his Father. This is Mary opening her heart to a Passover Feast she will later face; it will again be in Jerusalem but this time on Calvary’s hill, lost to her for three days because by dying he accomplished his Father’s saving will. And Jesus lives under this woman’s authority. He is attentive, obedient, and learns from those who are open to the pain of giving him all the space he needs to accomplish his life’s work and purpose: to die in selfless love and so rise again. This is why we also receive today the story of Hannah and the child she longed for; she gives him all the space in the world: she makes him over to the Lord for his whole life. He is made over to the Lord. And Samuel would accomplish wonderful things.
This all makes me begin to wonder: we proclaim God is holy; but every line in the New Testament has one purpose: to enable us to know, love and follow the God who is love. And I begin to see: Holiness and love mean exactly the same: for God who is Holy, at peace, with no desires to manipulate or dominate or control; the Holy One untouched by envy or pride, is precisely the God who is love; love rejoices in the greatness and uniqueness of others; love creates space to breathe and learn and grow. I find it helps me to describe the life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in this way: each one rejoices to give the others space to be ever more creative in showing love and mercy to sinners. They love each other; they are love, so space is their secret and this is the way of holiness.
And we rejoice on this day in Christmastide because the child of God became the child of Mary that we might all become the holy, loving children of God. We are able to be holy; we are able to reject the temptation to dominate, control, manipulate, to reject envy and pride; instead to be holy means this loving is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit: a love that rejoices to create space.
Because you are keeping this feast today I am certain: spacious love will be the blessing you will bring to this New Year. I ask you now to receive words often proclaimed at a wedding, well-known words of Saint Paul about love; today receive them as about being holy and about being those who create space:
‘Love is patent and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; love does not insist on its own way; it is nor irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, hopes all things endures all things.’
This is a good day to give you advance notice of our annual celebration of Marriage and Family life at the Cathedral at three o’clock on the afternoon of Sunday 14 February. Archbishop Vincent Nichols will be leading our prayer this year. We will celebrate the holiness, love, space that is the heart beat of affectionate, secure, joyful Family Life. This year it is the children who will have pride of place and of course we will rejoice with those celebrating significant anniversaries of married life. More of that nearer the day.
But for now: ‘Christian children all must be mild, obedient, good as he’. Yes, obedient indeed, because their parents learn from Mary and Joseph and Hannah to offer them the space and opportunity that is God’s plan for them.
Because today you are here to receive as your bread of life him who is holy, who is love, with confidence I wish you and those dear to you a joyful, blessed New Year.
+ Patrick Kelly
Archbishop of Liverpool