PARISH LITURGY – MASS TIMES and INTENTIONS

Saturday 6.00 pm Elsie and Frankie O’Sullivan

Sunday 9.30 am People of the Parish

Monday [Feria]

9.00 am Jim Bourke

Tuesday [St Wulstan, bishop]

9.00 am Albert Lees

Wednesday [Feria]

9.00 am Intentions of the Poor Clares

Thursday [St Agnes, virgin]

9.00 am Lorraine McVeigh

Friday [Feria]

9.00 am Intentions of Denis McCarthy

Saturday [St Nicholas Owen, martyr]

9.00 am Well-being of Joanne McGrory

Confessions: Saturday, 4.30-5.00 pm

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please pray for the sick in our parish and for those who have died: Albert Lees; Fr Edward Kirner (former parish priest); Enid Lockyer; Doris Ward; Eva Spink (anniversaries)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins tomorrow.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------One of our parishioners, Finn Warby, is preparing to receive the Sacraments of First Confession and First Holy Communion later this year. He has written something about himself, and this will be found on the notice board towards the back of church. Finn is also seeking prayer sponsors; if you could promise to pray for him, please sign your name.

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Last Week’s Collection: £378.50. Thank you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Annual Finance Meeting will be held immediately after Mass on Sunday, 14^th February. It is an opportunity to look at the parish’s income and expenditure during 2009 and at the economic outlook for the present year. Everyone is welcome to attend; the meeting usually lasts about 30 minutes.

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‘Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, subsists I the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time’. Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, but the Church must also pray and work to maintain, reinforce and perfect the unity that Christ wills for her. This is why Jesus himself prayer at the hour of his Passion, and does not cease praying to his Father, for the unity of his disciples: ‘That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, … so that the world may know that you have sent me’. The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit.

Certain things are required in order to respond adequately to this call:

- a permanent renewal of the Church in greater fidelity to her vocation; such renewal is the driving force of the movement towards unity;

- prayer in common, because ‘change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians, should be regarded as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement, and merits the name “spiritual ecumenism”’;

- fraternal knowledge of one another;

- ecumenical formation of the faithful and especially of priests;

- dialogue among theologians, and meetings among Christians of the different churches and communities;

- collaboration among Christians in various areas of service to mankind.

Concern for achieving unity ‘involves he whole Church, faithful and clergy alike’. But we must realise ‘that this holy objective – the reconciliation of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ – transcends human powers and gifts’. That is why we place all our hope ‘in the prayer of Christ for the Church, in the love of the Father for us, and in the power of the Holy Spirit’.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 820-822