JUNE IS THE MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART.
Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time.
Dear parishioners,
BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS
On Thursday we celebrate the Holy Day of St Peter and St Paul and on Friday, the First Martyrs of Rome. The church is founded on the blood of these martyrs, and our first pope, St Peter, followed his Lord to the end, not giving in to the beliefs of the world around him. He believed and trusted totally in the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord and in his own self- sacrifice, St Peter’s blood was one with the most Precious Blood of Our Lord who gave himself for us. All our sacrifices and Good Works are sanctified in their union with the sacrifice of the Lord, for our good and the good of others, including the souls in purgatory. Last week, in school and church, we celebrated our own parish patron, St Thomas More, who like those first martyrs, joined his sacrifice to his Lord’s.
St Thomas More, the patron of our parish and school, followed his Lord to the end. He was a wealthy important man. All he had to do was sign a piece of paper saying he accepted that King Henry VIII was the Head of the church. St Thomas More could not do this. He understood that Jesus had said Peter was the rock on which the church is built . All popes have followed one after the other after St Peter and from St Peter to the current pope, there have been 266 of them. Our St. Thomas More was faced with a choice. The first meant living happily in his big house with his family and the second meant his death. The first meant giving up his catholic faith and the church he loved and the second meant following Jesus by staying in the Catholic Church and that unbroken history of popes from St Peter. St Thomas More made his choice. He chose God and The Church and gave his life for his choice. He followed Jesus to the end, putting God above home, wife, family and king. He gave up everything for God and his Catholic faith.
Being a Christian is not an easy choice, Jesus tells us. If we choose to follow Him, we will have difficult choices to make in life and this can mean choosing the Lord above all other things and people. It means being guided by Scripture, the Catechism and all the Teaching of the Church through the Ages, and not embracing the ungodly trends of the world as we see in the Church today. This will not bring people back. In fact, every statistic shows, that it is only churches which remain true to Scripture and God’s laws that remain strong. If St Thomas More had given into the world, he would be simply another figure in a turbulent period of English History, but not the great man whose star shines in the pantheon of English saints.
The world around us is telling us today that many things are right which are wrong. We may think that our family, our country, our football team, and nowadays, the choosing our own identity, is the most important thing in life, but we are absolutely wrong. God is the most important thing in life and all the difficult decisions we have to make, must be right with God. We know what is right with God because he gave everyone a conscience and then gave his Commandments to Moses to inform it. These are the basis of all moral law, all the decisions we make about what is right or wrong.
But most of all, God sent us his Son Jesus Christ who told his disciples, that anyone who wants to be saved, must follow him. And that’s not just saying ‘yes, Lord’, not just saying you are his follower, but taking up your cross and following him. This can mean making hard decisions and often saying no to your self; choosing what is difficult, so that what we do is not always what I want, but what God wants. That’s called self sacrifice and is why St Thomas More is a saint and what the Church is founded on in St Peter and St Paul. The Church of Rome was founded on the Blood of those Martyrs which poured from them in witness to Jesus Christ against the godless ways of the world.
We ask St Thomas More to pray for our parish and school that like him, we will always choose God’s way above all things and faced with a choice between the church and the world, we choose God’s church. Jesus Christ is our King above anyone or anything on earth, and to his Most Sacred Heart, like St Thomas More our patron, we give our love and total allegiance.
Solemnity of Corpus Christi. There will be a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the church grounds following 11 o’clock mass on Sunday 11th June concluding with Benediction.
Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. Mass at 10.00 a.m. on Friday 16th June and An Hour of Adoration to the Sacred Heart in song, the Litany, Act of Consecration and Benediction on Sunday 18th June at 4.00 p.m.
First Communion thanksgiving Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. Sunday 25th June, 3.00 p.m.
High Mass for the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ at 11.00 a.m. on Saturday 1st July.
Devotions to the Most Precious Blood: with Sung Litany and Benediction, Sunday 30th July, 4.00 p.m.
God bless, Fr Jonathon
UPCOMING EVENTS
PARISH PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES .
Monday 23rd October to Friday 27th October 2023.
Please contact the parish office if you are interested in joining us.
Enjoy an evening out St Thomas More Parish Club Presents a social evening for all the family Music by Annie G. Friday 7th July 2023 8.00pm to 11pm Admission - Adults £3 at the door. For more information call Jenny 07710 527692 or Mary 07369 252072 , everybody welcome
THURSDAY LUNCH CLUB
The Lunch Club are meeting this Thursday, 29th June at 12.30 p.m.
See you then.
PARISH NOTICES
PARISH YOUTH NOTICES
DEATHS
MASSES AND INTENTIONS FOR THE TWELFTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
JUNE PRAYER