Newsletter- Christmastide

January 10th, 2025

Dear Parishioners

This weekend at all our Sunday Masses we celebrate the Feast of The Baptism of the Lord which marks the end of the liturgical season of Christmas. On Monday this coming 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 Baptism 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 one 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, during the past year, now is a good time at the beginning of a new year to bring it back to life. It is always there, ready to spring back to life all we must do is 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!

First Holy Communion Candidates 2025 – This weekend on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord at the Parish Mass on Sunday 12thJanuary at 9.30 am we welcome our new group of First Holy Communion candidates and their families to Mass in the parish. Catechesis will begin for them on Sunday 19th January. Please keep our young people and their families and our parish catechists in your prayers this weekend as our young candidates begin this important period of preparation and catechesis with a view to making their First Holy Communion in church later in the summer.

Peace Sunday – 18th/19th January – Since its establishment in 1967 by Pope St Paul VI, the Popes have taken the World Day of Peace on the 1st of January as an opportunity to offer a message on peace related topics. Every year, with the support of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, England and Wales, we are encouraged as Catholics to promote Peace Sunday on the second Sunday in Ordinary Time, as a way of observing the World Day of Peace and promoting the Holy Father’s message for that year. This year Pope Francis’ message for the World Day of Peace has been published and his theme is ‘Forgive us our trespasses: Grant us your peace’. The message speaks to all of us of how we must listen to the ‘pleas of an endangered humanity.’ This year in the Year of Jubilee our Holy Father inspires us to seek the liberating justice of God in our world and how by ‘opening our hearts to our brothers and sisters, we will restore God’s justice on earth’ and ‘move forward to achieve the goal of peace’.

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2025 – Grantham no longer has a Churches Together Group. But Christ church Methodist’s in Grantham have recently written to me to ask if we will lend our support to publicise and invite parishioners to attend and join with them and other Christian denominations from our local area in a joint act of Christian worship to mark the beginning of Christian Unity Week 2025. An ecumenical service following the resources offered for Christian Unity Week has been kindly arranged by them. The preacher will be the Reverend Neil Maynard, and this joint act of Christian worship will take place on Sunday 19th January at 6 pm at Christ church Grantham. I hope to attend myself and encourage as many parishioners as possible to join me there that evening as we mark this important ecumenical time of prayer and reflection with our brothers and sisters from other local Christian churches.

With my prayers for you and for your families as we celebrate together this weekend the end of the Christmas season,

Your parish priest and friend,

Fr Jonathan

2025 12th January – Newsletter – Download