APRIL IS THE MONTH OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST
THE FIFTH WEEK OF LENT
Dear parishioners,
PASSION SUNDAY: ‘Active’ participation in the mass?
Do we need to comprehend everything in the mass in order to ‘actively’ participate? Absolutely not. Does it matter that you can’t parse and translate a Latin sentence and don’t understand that collect in the new translation even in English? You would not be alone. At the mass it is God who comes to us: our participation need not be more than being in God’s presence, before his altar, with the Real Presence of Christ in the tabernacle and adoring God and contemplating him. At the mass, just by being there, we will participate in the sacrifice because at the altar of sacrifice, we are at the foot of the Cross.
Perhaps you can’t see enough. Perhaps you can’t hear enough. Perhaps you can’t sing well enough. Perhaps you can’t concentrate enough. Perhaps you can’t take Holy Communion. Perhaps you don’t understand. None of that matters because it is solace to know, that at the mass, just being there with God is enough. ‘For the knowledge of Jesus Christ does not come merely by learning; it comes, not from without but from within, not from study but from the heart, as does the knowledge of anyone we love’ so wrote Archbishop Goodier. The receptivity of silence may well be our best response and is our ‘active’ participation in God’s presence. Archbishop Goodier continues ‘No -one repeats this more than St. Augustine, who sought God everywhere, by every sort of study, and failed to find Him, until at last he sought and found Him within himself. The light is given: love makes us follow it and it leads us on to more. For love responds to love: the love the Father to the creature’s love, the coming of the Father and the Son to the coming of the creature even when he is yet ‘a great way off’. They come to him: and all is known that the creature at that moment can know’.
Coming to God at church, being at mass, is enough, you don’t have to comprehend it all. If it were the case, even St Augustine himself, one of the greatest minds in the church ever, would have failed and I would certainly not have made it past my first year of seminary. Another great religious mind, the monk St Romuald wrote ‘Empty yourself and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother gives him’. That’s all we have to do. As we sing to Our Blessed Lady in the Stabat Mater at Stations ‘By the cross with you to stay, there with you to weep and pray, this I ask of you to give’. Let that be our participation in the mass. Come and kneel at the altar of God, be at one with the Mother of Jesus who knelt at the foot of the Cross: for in the holy sacrifice of the mass, Our Lord will come to be with us on the altar as on the cross he hung before her on Calvary.
(quotes from ‘The Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ’ by Archbishop Goodier S.J. 1933, p83-84, St. Romuald’s Brief Rule and verse 14 of the Stabat Mater).
CONGRATLULATIONS TO OUR PRIMARY SCHOOL FOR WINNING THE BEXLEY CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS CHOIR COMPETITION. When I heard them I didn’t think anyone would come close. They were superb… we should go national. Next stop the Barbican?
Friday Lent Group. Sentence of the week:
‘Seek first the kingdom of God'. Mtt6: 33
(or in NJB ‘Set your hearts on his Kingdom first’. Or NRSV catholic Bible ‘But strive first for the kingdom of God’)
All are welcome to The House after Friday morning mass for a short time of reflection on the Scriptures. Every Friday in Lent.
THE UNION OF CATHOLIC MOTHERS:
Next meeting on Sunday 1st May, 12.00 noon.
The Repository.
The repository will now exist on an occasional basis, with perhaps a stall of cards, rosaries etc in the hall when we have a coffee morning and if there is a volunteer to run it.
First Holy Communion 2022
Next class: 10. 30 a.m. Saturday 4th April in Church Hall.
Obligation of attendance on
1. GOOD FRIDAY, 15th April, 11.00 a.m. ‘CHILDREN’S STATIONS OF THE CROSS’ in Church.
2. EASTER SUNDAY MORNING 9.00 a.m. or 11.00 a.m.
Please read the newsletter every week and listen out for notices at the end of Sunday mass. Don’t forget to bring your mass attendance cards to Sunday mass!
CONFIRMATION 2022
Next sessions. The Sacred Triduum (Thursday 14th, Friday 15th & Saturday 16th April with practices) Parents to be emailed.
Next meeting in house: Sunday 24th April 4.00 p.m.
If you missed the Stations of the Cross, come next Friday or on Good Friday evening.
‘CHILDREN’S LITURGY’
There will be a break for the Easter holidays.’ Children’s Liturgy’ will begin again next term. Date to be confirmed.
Deaths
For all our brothers and sisters who ate the Body of Christ, the bread of Life, that they may be raised up on the Last Day. (Drawn from the intercession of the Funeral Mass)
Please pray for the soul of:
William Churchill, husband of Rita, who died on 24th February, aged 55. A Requiem will be said on Tuesday 15th March and his committal will be on 30th March.
Fr Jean Icher, died in France on Friday 4th March aged 92. Fr Jean used to come to St Thomas More parish with French exchange students and said mass here. Mass will be offered for him on Friday.
Michael Gilmer RIP who died on the 17th of February just three days after his 80th birthday.
Lilian Rose Francis who died on 8th March 2022 aged 81 whose funeral will take place at Eltham Crematorium on Monday 11th April 2022.
May the divine assistance remain with them always, and may their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
MASSES AND INTENTIONS FOR THE COMING WEEK: THE FIFTH WEEK OF LENT
Saturday 2nd April FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT ‘Passion Sunday’ (C)
6.00 p.m. Confessions
+ 6.30 p.m. SAID Paul & Val W.B.
Sunday 3rd April
8.30 a.m. The Daily Rosary.
+ 9.00 a.m. SUNG John Joe Corbett R.I.P.
+ 11.00 a.m. SOLEMN LATIN MASS (with English Readings/ missa XVII In Dominicis Adventus et Quadragesimae) The people of the parish.
7.30 p.m. Parish Social Evening in Church Hall.
Monday 4th April Lenten feria with collect of St Isidore, bishop & doctor of the church.
9.30 a.m. The Daily Rosary
+ 10.00 noon. Bosco Gomes R.I.P. (1st anniversary)
Tuesday 5th April Lenten feria with collect of St Vincent Ferrer, priest.
9.30 a.m. The Daily Rosary
+ 10.00 a.m. Muriel D’Souza W.B.
Wednesday 6th April Lenten feria
The Daily Rosary at home.
NO PUBLIC MASS TODAY
Thursday 7th April Lenten feria with collect of St John Baptist de la Salle, priest.
9.00 a.m. The Daily Rosary
+ 10.00 a.m. Michael Gilmer R.I.P.
1.00 p.m. No Lunch Club today
Friday 8th April. Lenten feria
The Daily Rosary at home
Sorry no mass again today. Please check website for tomorrow and Sunday.
10.45 a.m. Lenten Reflection.in the House.
6.00 p.m. choir practice.
7.30 P.M. St. Alphonsus Ligouri’s traditional Stations of the Cross.
Saturday 9th April Lenten feria
9.30 a.m. Confessions/ The Daily Rosary
+ 10.00 a.m.[Latin] Michael Akhidenor R.I.P. To be confirmed.
[ + 6.30 p.m. To be confirmed. Please check website. PALM SUNDAY OF THE PASSION OF THE LORD (C) Paul & Val W.B. )
APRIL PRAYER OF DEVOTION TO THE MOST HOLY EUCHARIST. ‘O Jesus Christ Remember’(to be said before The Most Blessed Sacrament or after receiving Holy Communion)
O Jesus Christ, remember, when you come again, upon the clouds of heaven, in glorious rays of light; when every eye shall see your deity revealed, that here at this altar in silence you’re concealed.
Remember then, O Saviour, as I submit to you, that here I bowed before you on my bended knee, that here I owned your presence, and did not you deny, and glorified your greatness, though hid from human eye.
Accept, divine Redeemer, the homage of my praise; be you the light and honour and hope for all my days. Be you my consolation when death is drawing nigh: be you my only treasure from every age to age.
(after Edward Caswell 1814 -1878)
Blessings and God’s peace to you all,
Fr Jonathon
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