Newsletter- 23rd Week of Ordinary Time
Dear Parishioners
It is good to be back in the parish again after a week away split between time spent at my Mother’s home in Southwell and staying with an old friend in Beverley, East Yorkshire. I am very grateful to all who have helped in so many ways during my absence and especially the kindness of Mgr. Hadley in offering the weekend Masses and Deacon Andrew for preaching, preparing the Introduction for the Bulletin and offering several Services of Word and Holy Communion during my absence last week from the parish.
This Sunday, the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B we keep Education Sunday. This weekend we hold in prayer all our young people within this parish but also in our local community and our local schools as well. We remember to the important work of our diocesan education department, and we pray for our diocesan Catholic schools, our governors, teachers, school chaplains and school support staff.
The readings at Mass this weekend invite us to celebrate our ‘unbounded admiration’ (Gospel) for the Lord who ‘keeps faith with us for ever’ (Responsorial Psalm). We are reminded that God makes no distinction between different classes of people, desiring to nourish us all and set us free from whatever may be holding us back from loving and being loved. The Prophet Isaiah (First Reading) has an unshakeable faith in the trustworthiness of God. Such faith allows him to see a future where God’s transforming action will enable the world to evolve to its fruition. There is a fulfilment of Isaiah’s promise in the Gospel, where Jesus not only heals the deaf man with a speech impediment, but also opens the ears of many to faith, and loosens tongues to spread the Good News of the kingdom of God. In the Second Reading, St James tells the young Christian community very clearly that this Good News means God has no partiality according to class or wealth: we are all equally His children and greatly loved by him. So, when Jesus reaches out to the poor and to those on the margins of community life, He brings into focus the kind of world that God desires and continues to long for today. The Psalmist’s hymn of praise speaks particularly of the Lord’s concern for the poorest in our midst, the marginalised, and those regarded often as outsiders from our communities and even the Church.
Adoremus, the National Eucharistic Congress and Pilgrimage is being celebrated on Saturday 14th September. Bishop Patrick has asked every parish within the diocese of Nottingham to offer a period of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament next weekend. At St Marys in Grantham, we will offer a period of Adoration and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament from 4.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m. in church, concluding with Benediction at 5.15 p.m. on Saturday 14th September. The Intention for our Parish Holy Hour is Vocations. Please do try to come and join us next Saturday if time will allow, as we unite with the National Eucharistic Procession taking place at St. Mary’s Seminary, Oscott at 4.30 p.m. that day.
Evangelii Gaudium Sunday is celebrated next weekend, 14th/15th September. A few years ago, the Bishops of England and Wales gave the day of prayer for Home Mission Sunday a new title, Evangelii Gaudium Sunday. This was to reflect the changing focus of evangelisation presented by Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation of the same name. His 2013 letter is seen by many as the way in which our Holy Father launched some of the important themes of his new pontificate, but it found its basis as the summary document of the previous year’s Synod of Bishops on the theme of The New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.
On Evangelii Gaudium Sunday we are all encouraged to firstly pray for the work of evangelisation across our countries and to see ways in which as Catholics within a parish setting, we may become more involved in this work. It is also a moment for us all to see if there is anything more that we could be doing to support each other to grow in a living faith.
The Bishops’ Conference has a mission team which is based at their secretariat in Eccleston Square in London. This office supports the bishops in their work to promote evangelisation activities across England and Wales. Alongside this work of outreach, the mission team is also involved in providing prayer resources and catechetical advice. At all Sunday Masses next weekend (14th/15th September) there will be a Second Collection, which supports this work.
At the heart of the work which the mission team engages in are the pathways offered to us all by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium creating the opportunities for all to find the space to encounter the Lord in personal prayer and to become confident in both proclaiming and living out the faith. The invitation to know the Joy of the Gospel is open to each one of us and so let us take up the call to be a pilgrim people of hope and to joyfully trust in what the Lord is offering to us day by day as individuals, as a parish community and as the Church.
Additions/Changes to the Mass/Liturgy Schedule for the coming week:
Wednesday 11th September: Mass will be celebrated by me in the parish for St Mary’s School at 10 am here in church. This first Mass of term is a chance for our parish community to welcome the young people and their teachers to Mass as they start a new academic year together. Please keep St Mary’s School in your prayers during this coming week.
Friday 13th September: Mass today will be celebrated as normal in the parish at 9.30 am. The Funeral Service (not a Funeral Mass) for Kevin Geraghty RIP will take place at 12 noon in church followed by burial at Grantham Cemetery.
Saturday 14th September: Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament – (Intention – Vocations) – 4.30 pm – 5.30 p.m. – The Holy Hour concludes with Benediction at 5.15pm after which the parish Vigil Mass for 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Evangelii Gaudium Sunday – will be celebrated as normal at 6 p.m.
As we begin a new week let us ask for the grace to be open to the power of God’s transformative love. Remembering that God always wants to work in us and through us, healing and transforming us individually, as communities, and in our institutions. May His love always remain at the heart of all we seek to be and do in life.
With my prayers for you and for your families during the week ahead,
Your parish priest and friend,
Fr Jonathan
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