All posts by 3 churches

Serving Jesus in the poor and the needy

newsletter

This 25th Sunday, the Church enjoins us to reflect on our attitude towards money, material things and our relationship with the poor and marginalized. If there is anything that has perpetuated poverty all over the world, it is injustice and inequality in the social class. Hence, Amos in today’s first reading decries the injustices meted out against the poor of the land. He wrote at a time when the rich took all the land, enslaved the poor in their farm lands, and exported food that could have been used to feed the entire citizens because of their gains in foreign currencies. The same situation menaces us today. If we look around we see poverty and the poor all around us. Sometimes the excuse we give to exonerate ourselves from the injustice they suffer is that , “they are lazy and not hard working!”I do not buy this opinion in-toto. Rather, a majority of them are where they are because of our greed and selfishness.
This is why Paul implores us to pray for everyone especially, Kings, Rulers, Leaders and all those In- charge. This prayer is necessary to pray for conversion because, once we are converted we eschew corruption, injustice, greed and oppression of the poor from our system. Once we understand this then, selfishness and egocentrism will disappear. We shall no longer think of ourselves alone to the detriment of others. We shall begin to consider the common interest and good of all. In the gospel, Jesus brings to light the fact that money and material things do not last forever, and therefore advises us on how to make use of them without losing our salvation. “The best way to invest,” a saying goes, “is to invest in human beings, especially the poor”. We should therefore learn from St Lawrence the martyr, patron of the poor and cooks, who presented to the Prefect of Rome fifteen hundred poor people he maintained as the Church’s treasure, instead of silver and gold. Therefore, we are not to manipulate the poor and needy for economic gains. Jesus Christ who is their defender will surely fight their course because of the injustices meted out on them. He has sacrificed himself for humanity, the poor inclusive, and therefore any form of injustice or oppression of the poor or weak as Amos decries will cry out to Jesus for vengeance as the blood of Abel did from the earth against Cain.

September Pilgrims 2016

newsletter

By the time you are reading this, our annual September Pilgrimage group will be in Norfolk, where the centre of this year’s visit is to the English National shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. However, like every other of the 25 years the group has travelled, we are visiting other places of spiritual or cultural (or fun) interest too!

We arrived on Friday at King’s Lynn, where we are staying for the week. On Saturday we visit Norwich, for Mass in the Catholic cathedral and a visit to the Norman Anglican cathedral and city, and especially to the shrine of Dame Julian of Norwich, the famous medieval mystic. On Sunday we visit the pretty seaside resort of Wells-next-the Sea. After Mass and a stroll around, we move on to the local stately home, Holkham Hall.

Monday finds us at the heart of our pilgrimage – at Walsingham itself. We will join the other pilgrims for midday Mass at the modern Reconciliation Church next to the Slipper Chapel, and visit the other beautiful places of interest and spiritual tradition. On Tuesday we visit the world famous university city of Cambridge. There we will see some of the sights, including King’s College Chapel, home of the famous Christmas Carol Service. We will join the community at the Catholic University Chaplaincy, Fisher House, for Mass with the Chaplain, who will also speak to us about St John Fisher, former Chancellor of the University and martyr with St Thomas More.

On Wednesday we spend time, including Mass, at the traditional resort of Hunstanton, before checking out the Queen’s country retreat at Sandringham. On our last day we go to the small cathedral city of Ely, where we will combine Mass at the local Catholic church with a visit to the second great Norman cathedral on our pilgrimage. This is dominated by its marvel of medieval architecture and engineering, the Octagon, built when the central tower collapsed.

As always, our outward pilgrimage will hopefully lead us to the real, inner journey, where, with the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham and saints like John Fisher and Julian of Norwich, we will draw just a little closer to the Father of Mercy and his Redeemer Son. We will be praying for all your intentions.

Fr Matthew

“I believe in the holy catholic church”

youth

World Youth Day 2016 (part 1)

Here Allen, one of our two young people at the recent World Youth Day, tells us about the experience….

When I set out to Krakow along with the diocesan team of 37 on 19th July, I honestly wondered what was in store. Indeed, the World Youth Day was remarkable in several ways. Imagine 3 million hands raised to heaven calling out ‘Our Father’!
At Bialystok where we spent the first four days, we explored the city and met many World Youth Day pilgrims. We attended a welcome Mass celebrated by the local bishop, which was followed by a procession from the stairs of the cathedral to a church dedicated to Jesus’ Divine Mercy. During this walk we sang hymns, prayed and met people from all over the world; an experience to cherish for ever.

Whilst visiting the church of St. Anthony of Padua, we observed a red dot in the host exposed for adoration. In fact in 2009, while the parish priest was saying Mass, he accidentally dropped the host on the floor. He put the host in a bowl of water and left it locked away in the chapel which only he and a senior nun had access to. After 3 days, they expected the host to have dissolved. However, they were very surprised to see that instead of dissolving, it developed a red dot in the middle. Immediately, the parish priest informed his bishop and eventually they sent it for testing to a lab. The investigations revealed that the red dot consisted of a small piece of heart muscle which had undergone extreme pain and it was AB type blood. Even though I have heard of many Eucharist miracles, it is the first time I have come so close to one. The sheer sight of it had an intense effect on me that is difficult to express in words.

More than 1.5 million people attended the opening Mass. It was a spectacular sight which proved to be a real reminder of how universal and rich the Catholic Church is, and that we are not alone in our journey. Although we affirm our faith in the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church in every creed, we often do not realise that we do so along with a billion people. (to be continued…)

Allen Mathew