Dearest friends,
Last week we celebrated the feast or Our Lady of Lourdes – In 2018 I took my first pilgrimage to Lourdes. I was expecting – as many people had told me – the Disney Land of the Roman Catholic world.
A place rammed full of souvenir shops and tourist traps – not a place of prayer and healing.
‘Many people’ were entirely wrong (as they often are). From the moment Fr. Sam and I arrived in this tiny Pyrenees town we felt the powerful sense of prayer.
Prayer that has happened for so long and so hard that it had worn the world between this one and the next thin.
A sense that God was listening, that Our Lady was there with Her hand held out to take us to Her son.
Each evening we would gather for the Rosary walk. This procession had thousands and thousands of people – all praying the same prayer in their own language. It gave me a real sense of the world-wide faith of Jesus Christ and it was powerful!
As we journey into Lent, Our Lady gives us an opportunity to give thanks for all of those people who have traveled to any Marian Shrine and found healing in the waters, who have found healing in the prayer, who have found healing in the peace.
As I return from my own pilgrimage to another Marian Shrine (Walsingham) – another place worn thin through prayer – I will continue to pray for each of you, for your health, your peace, you care, and most of all, that your love may be known amongst your friends and family as that of Christ himself.
In love,
Fr. Matthew
Notices
New Mass Setting
We launched our new mass setting a few weeks and I thought it went really well. If you’d like to practice, head to the website at www.slsj.co.uk/newmass/ where you can find the sheet music and music to sing along to.
Dates for the diary
Looking further ahead a few dates for your diary.
- 10th April, Bingo at St. Luke’s – eyes down 7pm.
- 2nd May, Quiz with fish & chips, 7pm, St. Luke’s.
- 5th September, Glastonbury Pilgrimage
Dates for the Newton Abbot Team Evensongs:
- January 25th at All Saints’;
- March 29th at St Bart’s;
- May 31st at St Luke’s
- July 26th at West Ogwell;
- September 27th at St Mary’s;
- November 29th at Abbotsbury.
Lent Course
Our Lent Course this year will be “Bread of Life’ – a six-week look at the Eucharist and why it forms the model of a good Christian Life.
I would be grateful if you could sign up on the website at
www.slsj.co.uk/bread
or let me know in person.
Sunday 15th February
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
9am – BCP Mass [SJ]
11:15am – Sung Parish Mass [SL]
4pm – Evensong [SJ]
Psalter Week 2, A(II), Sunday next before Lent
Upcoming Dates
February
18th – Ash Wednesday, Mass, 10am [SL], 6pm [SJ]
19th – Lent Course, Bread of Life, 7pm [WH]
21st – Table Top Sale, 10am [WH]
22nd – Stations of the Cross, Adoration & Benediction with Evening Prayer, 4pm [SL]
26th – Lent Course, Bread of Life, 7pm [WH]
March
5th – Lent Course, Bread of Life, 7pm [WH]
Stations of the Cross, 6pm [SJ]
8th – Explorers, 3pm [SC]
Stations of the Cross, Adoration & Benediction with Evening Prayer, 4pm [SL]
12th – Lent Course, Bread of Life, 7pm [WH]
15th – Solemn Evensong with Adoration & Benediction, 6pm [SJ]
19th – Stations of the Cross, 6pm [SJ]
Lent Course, Bread of Life, 7pm [WH]
21st – Table Top Sale, 10am [WH]
Rosary Group, 10:30am [SL]
22nd – Stations of the Cross, Adoration & Benediction with Evening Prayer, 4pm [SL]
26th – Oswestry Chrism Mass, Exeter Cathedral, 11am – 3pm
Lent Course, Bread of Life, 7pm [WH]
28th – Easter LIVE!, 2pm [SL]
29th – Palm Sunday Processions 10am [SL & SJ]
April
2nd – Maundy Thursday, 6pm Joint Mass [SL]
Watch at both churches until 10pm
Light arrives and Watch begins at St. John’s, 8:30pm
3rd – Liturgy of Good Friday, 3pm [SL & SJ]
4th – Vigil Mass of Easter, 7:30pm [SJ]
5th – Dawn Mass of Easter & Breakfast, 5:30am [SL]
Easter Sunday Mass, 10am [SL & SJ]
18th – Table Top Sale, 10am [WH]
25th – Oswestry Regional Festival, Truro Cathedral
St. Luke’s Women’s Group meets first Wednesday of every month.