Newsletter 9th May 2021 – 6th Week of Eastertide

Dear Friends

For the next coming three weeks we will be welcoming Saint Mary’s School year groups to join us for Mass each Thursday. Year 5 will join us this week for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord which is a Holy Day of Obligation, Year 6 attended Mass a couple of weeks ago and it was such a privilege to have them back into the church, we look forward to welcoming the other year groups as they attend Holy Mass over the next few weeks.

John reminds us in today’s Gospel that Jesus also taught that a disciple is one who had been chosen—one who had been chosen by Jesus. To be chosen by Jesus, however, is not to be set apart from the world. Instead, to be chosen by Jesus is to be sent to serve the world as he did. The disciples of Jesus were chosen and were sent into the world to bear fruit by serving others, by sacrificing for others, in love.

This reading, like last week’s, is part of Jesus’ Last Supper discourse. In the context of John’s Gospel, these words are spoken before Jesus’ Crucifixion. We read his instruction to the disciples in light of his death and Resurrection. We know that Jesus himself gives us the greatest example of the kind of love and service that he teaches to his disciples. He has, in fact, laid down his life for his friends, for his disciples, and for us. Through his death and Resurrection, we have received the grace to love others as Jesus has commanded.

The deepest joys and satisfactions of life have to do with our experience of loving and being loved. Parents live forever in the atmosphere of the love they always have for their children. Love of friends is strong and lasts. Love enables us to die for others, love spends itself for another. Only love lasts as a motive for any good we want to do. Jesus knows that and links love and joy. Prayer nourishes love, and is at the service of love, the greatest of God’s gifts.

Jesus died out of perfect love for us and because of His death we can have life in Him that brings life to others. Let us, therefore, receive the love of God and then selflessly share that love with others.

This weekend someone special has a Birthday! On behalf of everyone in the Parish, I wish Father Michael Bell a wonderful Birthday on Sunday 9th May, your holy service to the Lord touches so many hearts and inspires so many lives. God bless you with peace and joy as you celebrate your birthday and another year of faithful service in Christ. 

God Bless

Andrew

2021 9th May Newsletter – Download

2021 9th May LOOK – Download