Dear Parishioners,
With the arrival of another weekend I am pleased to be able to send you this coming week’s Newsletter together with the Readings for our celebration of the weekend Masses. Having asked for prayers for our primary school last weekend in preparation for the beginning of the new academic year, I am delighted to report that when the school opened it had its best attendance for about three years with just a single absentee, due, sadly, to a broken arm. Life in school is getting back to a routine, albeit that some elements are necessarily different. It has been good to see our Year 5 children gaining some life-skills by undergoing Road Safety training on their bicycles initially in the playground, and then graduating to the roads of Heckmondwike. Helmeted and forming a human caterpillar as they pushed their bikes out of the school grounds, they were clearly ready for any challenge !
As in previous e-mails I do encourage parishioners to consider attending one for our weekday Masses as a starting point to your return to church. We are stringent in relation to the Covid-Safe guidance that we receive from our Health and Safety Officer to ensure that everyone feels comfortable in a setting that is very familiar but at the same time somewhat different. That said, difference is a part of most things – if not everything – that we now do, in comparison to how we were living our lives at the beginning of the year.
As always I assure you of a remembrance in affectionate thought and above all in prayer. It is good to hear how many of you, still not back with us in person, pause in your day at the time Mass is being celebrated in our churches so that you can be united to those gathered there. As a family of faith, this unity makes us a community.
As ever,
Fr. Nicholas