Newsletter- 3rd Week of Christmastide
This weekend we keep the Epiphany of the Lord at all our Sunday Masses on 6th/7th January followed on Monday 8th January by the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which marks the end of the liturgical season of Christmas. On Tuesday this Week we enter the First Week of Ordinary Time. The first epiphany was to the Magi when Jesus was revealed as Saviour of all people. The second was his Baptism at the Jordan when Jesus was revealed as the Anointed One sent to redeem the world. The Baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of His public ministry as he identifies Himself with all of humanity. Jesus’ Baptism at the Jordan was not a private moment of revelation and blessing but a public commissioning to his important work of redemption.
This weekend as we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord and as we prepare to move from the Christmas season and back into Ordinary Time let us remember the baptism of Jesus, His public embrace of His mission from the Father, and his solidarity with each of us and as we do so let us also recall our own baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon us, and we were commissioned to do God’s healing work. Let us recommit ourselves to our own baptismal call, however long ago our baptism might have been! That call is still there, indelible, irrevocable, unerasable and irreversible. In the sight of God, it remains the deepest truth of our lives. If that mission of our baptism has lain dormant, this past year, now is a good time to bring it back to life. It is always there, ready to spring back to life we just must allow God’s grace to work in us and through us and seek the ways that we can be His modern-day disciples in the world in which we live. Whatever else may come and go in our lives, the commission to do the work of Christ lasts as long as we do!
Changes to the Mass schedule for this coming Week:
- Monday 8th January at 6 pm I will celebrate Mass for the Baptism of the Lord.
- Tuesday 9th January I shall be taking my day off and there will be no Mass today and the church will remain closed.
- Friday 12th January, we welcome St Marys School to Mass in church. The Mass will be celebrated that morning at 10 am and the children will be helping with our Liturgy.
With prayer and best wishes,
Your parish priest and friend,
Fr Jonathan
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2024 7th January – Newsletter – Download