Dearest friends,
I write to you from the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in North Norfolk. It’s a thin place that seems to wash away the detritus of the everyday and leave you feeling rather exposed in front of Jesus.
Our Lady has a way of looking into your soul and telling you exactly what you need to take to the altar, what you need to put down, what you need to pick up.
We’ve been very lucky to have received some wonderful lectures this week from first-class academics. The final one was on Bonhoeffer’s theology of Joy. A strange subject when you consider that he wrote about it in prison in Germany for being part of the German Resistance fighting against the Nazi Government during the War.
We were told that he understood the world and God to be one thing. You cannot retreat from the world in order to find God and you cannot retreat from God in order to discover the world.
I’ve found that to be a most wonderful thought. I sometimes preach how we sit away from, or separate from, ‘the world’ and how we as Christians are seen as other.
But actually, we must not give up that space; we must not allow ourselves to be seen as ‘other’ but as a part of the world, created, shaped, and loved by God.
That has a profound effect on how you face the day. How you respond to the things that ‘the world’ throws at you.
It rather removes the excuse to simply step aside and allow it to flow past. You have got to be in the middle of the world, you have got to be proclaiming what a life as a Christian means in the world.
For Bonhoeffer, that meant returning to Germany from the safety of New York before the inevitable War started so that he could play a part in ensuring that the message of Christianity coming from the Nazi party was not spouted without challenge. He was part of the world, and in being so, he changed it… for the better.
Where in our daily lives are we part of the world? Where can we point people to God in the world around us? It’s not shouting, it’s not big, it’s gentle, and it’s careful.
In love,
Fr. Matthew
Notices
New Mass Setting
We launched our new mass setting last week 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
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.
Funerals
We have two funerals in the coming weeks and I promised to share as soon as I had dates.
- Barbara Butler, 11th Feb’, 11am [SL]
- Linda Caunter, 12th Feb’, 11:30am [SJ]
Sunday 8th February
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time 🟢
9am – Sung Parish Mass [SJ]
11:15am – Sung Parish Mass [SL]
Psalter Week 1, A(II), 2nd 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.