Month: February 2023

Dear Parishioners,

It is good to be able to greet you along with weekly offering of the Newsletter and Readings for Holy Mass on the First Sunday of Lent. 

A number of parishioners after Mass on Ash Wednesday asked for the words used during the Mass as they were invited to pledge themselves each day of Lent to its gifts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The request has also come from some who were not at Mass but who subsequently heard about the invitation to connect the Season with their baptism. I make no claim on the words – although I have slightly adapted them – as I found them personally very helpful during the Lent of 2020 which was celebrated in Lockdown. Hopefully they will once more prove a useful spiritual tool as we embrace a collective experience of Lent in 2023. 

With an assurance of daily prayerful remembrance, kindest thought and affection.

As ever, Fr. Nicholas 

Prayer for Ash Wednesday.

God our Father,
on the day of Baptism we were claimed for Christ our Saviour by the sign of his cross. 

On this Ash Wednesday, and each and every day, we come before you desiring to fulfil our baptismal promises, by dying to selfishness and by living for Christ. 

And so, we pledge ourselves, in this Lenten Season, to pray, to fast, and to give alms. 

Father in your kindness, pour out your blessing upon us, as we make this threefold pledge:

(While making the pledge the forehead, right and left hands are signed with the Cross in turn with the thumb.)

I pledge myself to a time of prayer each day – as I do so, I sign my forehead + with the sign of the Cross.   

I pledge myself to fast by denying myself some luxury – as I do so, I sign my right hand + with the sign of the Cross.

I pledge myself to give to others, by supporting CAFOD, or some other charity – as I do so, I sign my left hand + with sign of the Cross.

By your grace, may I keep this Lenten pledge, in preparation for the joy of Easter. grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dear Parishioners,

It is good to be able to send you the Newsletter and Readings for Holy Mass again this week. 

With Lent starting this coming Wednesday a wonderful and enriching opportunity is given to us all to put ourselves out for the Lord as He did for us, by taking on some form of discipline for the Season. 

Please be assured that you (and your loved ones) are remembered daily in prayer, the reassurance of which comes your way together with kindest thought and affection.

As ever, Fr. Nicholas  

Dear Parishioners,

It is good to be able to send out the Newsletter together with the Readings for Mass this weekend.

I am sure that all of us have been moved by the tragic images coming out of northern Syria and Turkey this week, making us feel so helpless in many ways, and I hope, too, hugely appreciative for what we have. The hands that we can touch deserve a longer squeeze this week, as we value their presence in our lives.

The Newsletter contains details of CAFOD’s appeal and that of the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) with whom CAFOD works in partnership in situations like the earthquake if you feel able to offer any financial help.

At times such as these we are grateful for the enormity of God’s hands, and it is into those hands that we place all of our prayers, for the nameless and unknown to us in Syria and Turkey, and the known and named much closer to home.

With an assurance of daily prayerful remembrance, kindest thought and affection.

As ever, Fr. Nicholas 

Dear Parishioners,

Once more it is good to be able to greet you and send out the Newsletter and Readings for Holy Mass this weekend. A Mass in which we will hear Jesus, continuing his Sermon of the Mount, call on us to be “light to the world.” Reflecting on the fact that it is not just about burning brightly but also the quality of illumination that we have the potential to offer, I am always struck by the tribute Adlai Stevenson, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, paid former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, on her death in 1962. He said he had “… lost more than a friend — I have lost an inspiration: for she would rather light candles than curse the darkness and her glow had warmed the world.” Quite a statement about his fellow human being.

This week may we all shine in some way that inspires others, recalling the words of a familiar hymn, that the “stars shine brightest in the darkness.”

With an assurance of daily prayerful remembrance, kindest thought and affection.

As ever, Fr. Nicholas