2023 Lent Project – ‘Bread of Life’

This Sunday (2nd in Lent) we are launching our Lent Project, which this year will be for the Charity ‘Bread of Life’.
The Sons of Divine Providence community in Hampton Wick, under the direction of Fr John Perrotta have had this outreach for some time now, Registered Charity: 1088675. I have come to know Fr John quite well in recent years and the work he does for this charity. Some of you may also know him and his church community.
The charity works, mainly in Africa, to help children who are homeless, orphans, victims of war  or disabled and needing suport for basic education. These are the things we take for granted, such as homes, education, living in peace and so on.
In Malawi, little Nelson had a wheelchair purchased for him so that he could go to school and church and be able to meet with his friends. Also in Malawi, a bag of maize was given to a family to enable them to eat for a month. Food and clothing were provided in Sri Lanka following heavy rain and flooding. A teacher, Rose, was helped to qualify in Meru, Kenya. These are just some of the ways in which Fr John’s charity has helped the needy.
Any Lenten Alms we collect will be given to the project. We have decided to add the Ash Wednesday collection to the LentProject as well. Dr David Kennedy will also be giving talks soon and contributions from listeners can be added. Our Wednesday Group has also helped the Lent Project in the past. If you have any ideas for helping the collection, please let me know.

Pope Benedict XVl RIP

Pope Benedict died peacefully on New year’s Eve at 9.30am. at the age of 95.  His secretary Archbishop Gaenswein said that his last words were ‘Lord, I love you’.

Archbishop John wrote the following

‘It is with great sadness that we received the news that the Pope Benedict XVI has finished his earthly pilgrimage and returned to the Father, to the place prepared for him by Christ, the Lord he served faithfully through this life and ministry.

We are profoundly grateful for his remarkable example of faith and discipleship, and his witness of service to the Church, both in his home country and to the Church Universal. He was gifted uniquely as a preacher and teacher of the Catholic faith. His intellectual legacy of writing is part of the Church’s treasury for the future.   

We thank God for his gentleness as a humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard; and for his willingness to address pressing issues in the Church. We now accompany him with our prayers that he may know eternal joy and peace.”

Pope Benedict’s Personal Spiritual Testament

“When, at this late hour of my life, I look back on the decades I have wandered through, I see first of all how much reason I have to give thanks. Above all, I thank God Himself, the giver of all good gifts, who has given me life and guided me through all kinds of confusion; who has always picked me up when I began to slip, who has always given me anew the light of his countenance. In retrospect, I see and understand that even the dark and arduous stretches of this path were for my salvation and that He guided me well in those very stretches. 

I thank my parents, who gave me life in difficult times and prepared a wonderful home for me with their love, which shines through all my days as a bright light until today. My father’s clear-sighted faith taught us brothers and sisters to believe and stood firm as a guide in the midst of all my scientific knowledge; my mother’s heartfelt piety and great kindness remain a legacy for which I cannot thank her enough. My sister has served me selflessly and full of kind concern for decades; my brother has always paved the way for me with the clear-sightedness of his judgements, with his powerful determination, and with the cheerfulness of his heart; without this ever-new going ahead and going along, I would not have been able to find the right path. 

I thank God from the bottom of my heart for the many friends, men and women, whom He has always placed at my side; for the co-workers at all stages of my path; for the teachers and students He has given me. I gratefully entrust them all to His goodness. And I would like to thank the Lord for my beautiful home in the Bavarian foothills of the Alps, in which I was able to see the splendour of the Creator Himself shining through time and again. I thank the people of my homeland for allowing me to experience the beauty of faith time and again. I pray that our country will remain a country of faith and I ask you, dear compatriots, not to let your faith be distracted. Finally, I thank God for all the beauty I was able to experience during the various stages of my journey, but especially in Rome and in Italy, which has become my second home.I ask for forgiveness from the bottom of my heart from all those whom I have wronged in some way. 

Finally, I humbly ask: pray for me, so that the Lord may admit me to the eternal dwellings, despite all my sins and shortcomings. To all those who are entrusted to me, day after day, my heartfelt prayer goes out.” 

Benedictus PP XVI

Talk by Lucy Underwood-Healy

At 6pm on 16 October, we are pleased to welcome Lucy Underwood-Healy to give a talk on her novel, The Guest of Night, and how she came to write it. Lucy is a Catholic historian and novelist. She will have books available on the night for purchase at a small event discount. Alternatively, it can be purchased online through Amazon.

Three teenagers are drawn into the hidden underside of Elizabethan England: a world where how you pray can get you hanged and misplaced trust can kill.  Catholicism is forbidden in this world and Catholics walk the line between faith and fear. Protestant Stephen distrusts treacherous Papists but values his friendship with Catholic Hugh; Hugh and Bridget resent Protestant tyranny but find themselves relying on Stephen’s help – and his silence.  All of them understand both less and more than their parents realize of the dangers hovering on the margins of their lives.  And this is the kind of volatile mix that can put nooses round necks.

St Titus Brandsma, Martyr for a Free Press – A Saint for Our Times

Catholic journalist Amanda C Dickie will speak about this exceptional new saint, who was canonised by Pope Francis recently and is so relevant to our own time. The talk will take place  in Alexander House on Sunday 11th September at 6.00pm.

The Dutch Carmelites’ opposition to Nazi propaganda cost him his life in Dachau concentration camp. A journalist and broadcaster, pioneer ecumenist, university professor and Carmelite mystic his outreach to people of faith and none is inspirational – even in the Nazi prison camps.

“To win the world for Christ, one must have the courage to come in conflict with it!”

His words resonate clearly for us today.

The Sunday Mass obligation has been restored from Sunday 5th June – Pentecost Sunday

Please see below a letter from the Bishops of England and Wales

This is the bread come down from heaven (John 6:58)

A beautiful hallmark of the Catholic faith is the profound desire to participate in the Holy Mass and share in the Eucharist. We do so with deep gratitude and joy. The Eucharist gives the Church her identity – “The Eucharist makes the Church, and the Church makes the Eucharist.” It enables us to worship Almighty God, to support each other on our journey of faith, and to be a visible sign of faith in the world. This hallmark is supported and strengthened by the precept that our fundamental Christian duty is to worship God by participating in the celebration of Mass. Attending Mass on Sundays and Holy Days is the greatest of all privileges, sometimes referred to as “the Sunday Obligation.”

Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, until the present time, we have shared with you our judgment that the situation of the last two years has meant that the Sunday Obligation has been impeded and has needed to be fulfilled in other ways. We thank God that this situation has now changed. The pressing challenges of the pandemic have lessened significantly. Most people have resumed the wide range of normal activities, no longer restricted by the previous Covid measures. We therefore believe that the reasons which have prevented Catholics from attending Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation no longer apply.

We understand there will still be some members of our congregations who, for reasons of health, do not feel safe enough to return to Mass. It has always been the understanding of the Church that when the freedom of any Catholic to attend Mass in person is impeded for a serious reason, because of situations such as ill health, care for the sick or legitimate fear, this is not a breach of the Sunday Obligation.

Our Catholic people and parishes have benefitted during these difficult times from the online streaming of Mass and other services. “Virtual viewing” of Mass online does not fulfil the Sunday Obligation. It may, however, be a source of continual spiritual comfort to those who cannot attend Mass in person, for example those who are elderly and sick, for whom the obligation does not apply. In this context, we recognise gratefully the ministry of those who administer Holy Communion to the elderly, sick and housebound.

We are grateful to our clergy, religious and lay faithful who have served our parishes, schools and communities with dedication and distinction throughout this pandemic. Now we look forward with renewed faith and confidence.

In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord Jesus entrusted to us the precious gift of Himself. With humility, we glory in being a Eucharistic people for whom attendance at Mass is essential. Looking forward to the forthcoming feast of Pentecost, we now invite all Catholics who have not yet done so to return to attending Mass in person.

As the Church needs the witness of the presence of each person, so too each believer needs to journey in faith and worship with their fellow disciples. Nourished by our encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus, fed with His Word and His Body and Blood in Holy Communion, and supported by the presence of each other, we receive strength week by week, to serve the Lord and glorify Him with our lives.