Our Priests for Tomorrow
Your generosity to the Priest Training Fund supports the priestly formation of men who have answered the call to Priesthood to serve the people of God.
There will be a second collection at Mass (22nd April 2018) to support this cause. Collection envelopes will be available at the back of the church.
In collaboration with Churches Together/Broxbourne Food bank, we will begin today to collect food in the Parish. A large box will be placed to the right of the altar for you to place your donations which will then be taken to the local food bank. Sadly there is an increasing need for us to support those less advantaged than us. As you may know donations should be tinned or dried foods with a good shelf life. At present they also urgently need:
We hope to continue this ‘Love in Action’ throughout the year.
If you are not already a Catholic, or have been away from the Church for some time, or just did not get around to celebrating one of the Sacraments at the “right” age, or would like to discover more about the Catholic Church, then there is a series of meetings just for you! Continue reading “Have you thought about becoming a Catholic?”
The Home Mission Office exists to help the Church throughout England and Wales to share the joy of the Gospel. It can seem daunting to share such a personal part of our lives as our faith in Jesus Christ. However, we can pray that the people we carry in our hearts will encounter him for themselves. Prayer cards and prayer maps for families are available at www.homemission.org.uk. If you would like to pray for the spread of the Good News on a regular basis, please sign up to our newsletter via www.homemission.org.uk
Cardinal Cormac’s body will be received into Westminster Cathedral at 10am on Tuesday 12 September 2017. At 5pm on Tuesday 12 September 2017 there will be Solemn Vespers of the Dead, at which Cardinal Vincent will preside and Archbishiop Bernard Longley will preach. The Funeral Mass for Cardinal Cormac will be at 12 noon on Wednesday 13 September 2017.
Continue reading “Funeral Arrangements for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor”
Thy Kingdom Come is a global prayer movement, which invites Christians around the world to pray between Ascension and Pentecost, for more people to come to know Jesus Christ. We follow the example of the Apostles who during this time, ‘prayed constantly’.
Novena Prayer Cards are available in the Porch. Further details are on the Diocesan website and at www.thykingdomcome.global. There will be a nine day Novena at the Parish between 25th May and 4th June. 9.00 am to 10.00 am each morning and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament each evening between 7:30pm and 8:30pm.
“Without the Holy Spirit”, said Ignatius of Laodicea (Orthodox Metropolitan, at the third assembly of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala, in 1968) “God is distant, Christ is merely an historical figure, the Gospel is a dead letter, the Church is just an organisation, authority is domination, mission is propaganda, liturgy is nostalgia, and the work of Christians is slave labour. But with the Holy Spirit, Christ is risen and present, the Gospel is a living force, the Church is a communion in the life of the Trinity, authority is a service that sets people free, mission is Pentecost, the liturgy is memory and anticipation, and the labour of Christians is divinised.”
The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. The feast of Pentecost is an annual invitation to the Church to look into itself and discover its soul. It is tempted, like all of us, to keep looking the other way.
In one sense it is more natural to forget about one’s inner life and to get on etc., you will not take risks or do a lot of work. A healthy person just goes to it. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, and there is a sense in which that Spirit likes to work unseen, undeclared. “It is not those who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Adapting Jesus’ words we could say, it is not those who say ‘Holy Spirit!’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven. It is those who live by the Spirit. During the 2nd Vatican Council an Eastern Bishop complained that there was little mention of the Holy Spirit in the documents. But something tells us that talking about the Spirit is not the same thing as living by the Spirit.
However, we do have to pay attention to that inner place, to see by what spirit we are being driven. If you never paid any attention to your health you would be asking for trouble. Today’s feast is a reminder.
But obviously, there is much more to it than this. Traditional images of the Holy Spirit are: Fire, Wind, Water, the Cloud, a Dove… Why such strange images? All of them (except the Dove) have indeterminate boundaries or no boundaries at all. They are reminders that we should not dare to restrict the activity of the Spirit to a few things we can understand.
O Dove, O Flame, O Water, Wind and Cloud…!
O love that life us wholly into God!
The Holy Spirit lives in us but is not confined in us. It is God; rather than being diminished in us, it “lifts us wholly into God,” as the poet said. Any soul is for expansion, not constriction. That that have no soul – sticks and stones – are restricted entirely to themselves; plants have a certain ability to reach beyond themselves, for food and for propagating their species; animals still more. But human beings are able to reach vastly beyond themselves and touch the depths of everything. This capacity is enlarged infinitely by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so that we can touch even the depths of God. “The Spirit search all things,” St Paul wrote, “even the deep things of God. For who knows the thoughts of a person except the person’s own inner spirit? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Cor 2:10).
In a daring image the same poet, Jessica Powers, wrote that silence is a sort of decoy of the Holy Spirit. Just as hunters attract the flying birds out of the sky by placing a plastic or wooden model of them on the ground, we call down God’s Spirit by our silence.
The decoy of silence, hope’s unuttered sigh, that the Ultimate Silence drift down from the sky.
We pray that through this Mass that we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
We are pleased to report that the refurbishments to the upstairs section of the church room are now complete.
Due to recent flooding this room has been out of action since the start of the year – this has meant those studying for their first Holy Communion have had to make use of the rear section of the church downstairs.
Our thanks go out to {insert name of builders} and also to Pat and Jennifer – organisers or the Catechism classes, held every Sunday in the church at 9am, for managing during this difficult period.
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