Newsletter – 4th Week of Eastertide
This week I will be away from this Sunday afternoon 8th May until the morning of Wednesday 11th May taking a little time away from the parish to reflect and to pray. I will be staying with the community at Ampleforth Abbey. This will mean that there will be no Public Worship on Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th May this week. On Wednesday 11th May there will be a change in the normal Mass time just for this day. We will offer a period of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament from 6 pm, concluding with Benediction at 6.45 pm. Mass will be celebrated in the evening that day at 7 pm.
This Sunday is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because, in each year of the liturgical cycle, on the 4th Sunday of Easter, the Gospel is always taken from the tenth chapter of John where Jesus speaks of himself as the “Good Shepherd.” Today at Mass we contemplate Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
Deep within each one of us is the great capacity to love and be loved, a well of real compassion. We are made for love, for generosity, and for kindness. Jesus is the one who can teach us how to really love. When we are living closely to Christ, so we learn more fully how to receive love graciously, give generously, forgive compassionately and care especially for the lost and most vulnerable in our midst. Such radical kindness is of the Kingdom of God. It is the very heart of the sheepfold into which Jesus the Good Shepherd gathers each of us. Such love and compassion make us safe and gives us life.
This theme is closely linked with the second theme for this Sunday: World Day of Prayer for Vocations (Vocations Sunday). We pray this weekend that the Church may be provided with good and compassionate leaders needed to do her work of spreading the Gospel. We know that at the present time there is a critical shortage of such leaders, at least in the traditional sense – ordained ministers (priests and deacons) and religious. The purpose of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations is to publicly fulfil the Lord’s instruction to: “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest” (Mt 9:38; Lk 10:2).
As a climax to a prayer that is continually offered throughout the Church, it affirms the primacy of faith and grace in all that concerns vocations to the priesthood and to the consecrated life. While appreciating all vocations, the Church concentrates its attention on this Sunday towards specifically praying for vocations to the ordained ministries (priesthood and diaconate), consecrated life in all its forms (male and female religious life, societies of apostolic life, consecrated virginity), secular institutes in their diversity of services and membership, and to the missionary life.
Let us pray this Sunday that Christ the Good Shepherd will guide and strengthen each of us in our own particular vocation in life, and that he will raise up from amongst us more vocations to the priesthood, diaconate and religious life. Let us pray too that Christ will continue to strengthen each of us in the pathway of constant kindness and that he will restore in us a deep sense of our vocation to be with him, to live in him and to work through him each and every day of our lives.
With prayer and best wishes,
Your parish priest and friend,
Fr Jonathan
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The online version will not include the Sunday Message
The Sunday Message and Newsletter will be available to download but this will be password protected – the password can be obtained from the Parish.
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2022 8th May – Newsletter – Download
2022 8th May – Newsletter (Including Sunday Message – Password Protected)– Download
2022 8th May – LOOK – (Password Protected)– Download