Come back for Sunday

newsletter

Dear friends and parishioners

At their recent plenary meeting in Cardiff, the Bishops of Wales and England revisited the question of Sunday obligation, and decided to return to the normal situation from next Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost.

You can read their full statement at – www.cbcew.org.uk/spring-plenary-2022-resolution-returning-to-mass-at-pentecost but meanwhile here is a relevant extract…

“Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, until the present time, we have shared with you our judgement that the situation of the last two years has meant that the Sunday Obligation has been impeded and has needed to be fulfilled in other ways. We thank God that this situation has now changed. The pressing challenges of the pandemic have lessened significantly. Most people have resumed the wide range of normal activities, no longer restricted by the previous Covid measures. We therefore believe that the reasons which have prevented Catholics from attending Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation no longer apply.”

Fr Matthew

Back to normal

newsletter

So here we are – back to our “normal” format for our 3 Churches newsletter. Another sign that things are getting back to normal. There’s that word again – “normal”. Will anything ever be normal? What was normal anyway? And in any case do we want to go back to where we were before? Friends, these are all questions raised by the extraordinary times we have been living through these last few years. But our newsletter has endured – hooray!

The word ‘communication’ comes from the Latin for ‘one with’. It’s related to ‘communion’ and ‘community’. Through good communication we help create good community, leading hopefully to good communion with each other.

So good communication is important in the Church, and this came out strongly in our recent Synod consultation. There are many ways we can all help improve our communications. For example, if you submit something for this newsletter, remember to specify if it is for one of our churches or for all of them – it can be confusing otherwise. Don’t write too much, as people’s attention span isn’t very long – and Luke the editor might give you the chop!

As we go along we’ll be looking at different aspects of communication to build up the community of faith.

Fr Matthew

Confirmation 2022

Confirmation,

We are planning our Confirmation Programme for those who would like to be confirmed this year – that is current year 8 and up.

If this is you, please download, save and complete this Microsoft Word form and then email your completed form to Ansti Corellis at anstic2018@yahoo.com so we can contact you.

If you are unable to download and edit the above Word form, you can send an email to Ansti with the details as shown in this pdf version of the form (non-editable).

The new Archbishop, Mark O’Toole, will celebrate the Confirmation on Friday 22 July at 6.30pm at St Brigid’s Church. Further information can be obtained from Canon Matthew at matthew@3churches.org .

We are always looking for people to help run the course. If you think you could help in this important stage of our young people’s formation then please let Canon Matthew know.