PARISH LITURGY – MASS TIMES and INTENTIONS

Saturday 6.00 pm People of the Parish

Sunday 9.30 am Helen Kenny

Monday [Feria]

9.00 am Sr Angela’s Intentions

Tuesday [The Presentation of the Lord (Candlemass)]

9.00 am Diana Holland

Wednesday [St Blaise, bishop and martyr]

9.00 am Susanna and James Sullivan

Blessing of throats at the end of Mass

Thursday [Feria]

9.00 am Intentions of Nora McStraw

Friday [St Agatha, virgin and martyr]

9.00 am Augustine Sutton

Saturday [Sts John Baptist, Paul Miki and Companion Martyrs of Japan]

9.00 am Holy Souls

Confessions: Saturday, 4.30-5.00 pm

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please pray for the sick in our parish and for those who have died: Mildred Plumbly; Florence May Ryan; James Michael Lewthwaite; Isabel Loftus; John William Pincham (anniversaries).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------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: £338.18. 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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Let us run to meet him, we who honour and venerate the mystery of the Lord with pious devotion. Let us go to meet him with eager minds. Let there be no one who does not share in this meeting, let no one refuse to carry a light.

We add to this the bright shining of candles. In this way we show forth the divine splendour of the coming of him who makes all things bright, in the abundance of whose eternal light all things are bathed in light when the evil shadows have been driven away. In this way we show the brightness of the soul with which we must go to meet Christ.

The most chaste Virgin Mother of God bore in her arms the truth light and came to the help of those who were lying in darkness. In the same way we must hurry out to meet him who is truly light, enlightened by the beams of his brightness and bearing in our hands the light which shines for all people.

Indeed this is the mystery we celebrate, that the light has come into the world and has given it light when it was shrouded in darkness, and that the dayspring has visited us from on high and given light to those who were sitting in darkness. This is why we go in procession with lamps in our hands and hasten bearing lights showing both that the light has shone upon us, and signifying the glory which is to come to us through him. Therefore let us run together to meet God.

That true light which enlightens every man coming into the world, has come. Brethren, let us all be enlightened, let us be filled with light.

Let none of us remain a stranger to this brightness, let no one who is filled with it continue in the darkness, but let us all go forth shining with light, let us all go together with that light to welcome with old Simeon that everlasting shining light. Rejoicing with him in our souls, let us sing a hymn of thanks to the Begetter and Father of the light, who has sent the true light and driven away the darkness and made us all to shine with light.

For we too have seen the salvation of God which he has prepared before the face of all peoples, and has shown forth for the glory of us who are the new Israel; and we have been freed at once from that mysterious and ancient sin just as Simeon was released from the bonds of this present life when he had seen Christ.

We have embraced Christ in faith as he came to us from Bethlehem, and have been made the people of God instead of Gentiles, for he is the salvation given to us by our God and Father. We have seen God made flesh with our very eyes and we are called the New Israel now that we have seen the visible presence of God and have cradled him in our minds. That presence we celebrate with a yearly festival; we shall never forget it.

From a sermon by St Sophronius for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord