PARISH NEWSLETTER 1st March 2015 (Cycle B) 2nd Sunday in Lent PARISH PRIEST Fr. Nicholas Wetz OSB Tel: 01432 - 277319 email:[email protected] www.belmontparish.org.uk Parish Deacon Rev Deacon Eddie Wyman Tel: 01432 - 263575 Parish Hall 01432 - 374781 Safeguarding Representative Gabrielle Stanley 07939 472059 Items for the Newsletter to [email protected] or The Parish Office Today’s gospel reading is of the Transfiguration. At the end of this extraordinary event, when the voice from heaven commands us to "listen to him", we are challenged to be transfigured by the divine presence in our own lives. This should prompt us to deepen our prayer lives and our lives of love and charity. This is the hall mark of our Lenten Season. The second collection today is for Cafod. God created a world of abundance with enough food for everyone, but we have turned it into a world of want: each night, one in eight people goes to bed hungry due to lack of food. Let’s share the abundance of God’s creation with our global family by supporting Cafod’s Lent appeal. Cafod tells us that Storms, droughts and floods are having a devastating impact on the poorest communities in the world right now. CAFOD works with local organisations to ensure that people are not only able to survive, but to thrive. Every £1 donated by supporters this Lent, up to the value of £5million, will be matched by the UK Government! This means that even more of the world’s poorest women, men and children will be able to cope with the effects of extreme weather. Any donations received between Ash Wednesday and 17 May 2015 will be covered by UK Aid Match. Fr Nicholas 1 Last Sunday’s 1st Collection £312.56 The Real Easter Egg Company Standing Orders: £533.00 Over a million FAIRTRADE/REAL EASTER EGGS were sold last year. These are produced by the Meaningful Chocolate Company and are the only Easter Eggs with the Easter Story in the box. See poster in porch for more information. 2nd Collection £156.75 Abbey Maintenance - Thank you. V V V V V Exposition V V V V V During Lent there will be an opportunity for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament Justice & Peace every Friday Morning in the Oratory between 11 am and 12 noon. Do pop in We wish to thank the young members and spend a little time in the presence of the Justice & Peace Group who of the Lord. handed out CAFOD envelopes after Mass last week. Don’t forget to put V V V V V them in the second collection this week! Wednesday Mass V V V V V The Wednesday Midday Masses during Week of Prayer & Awareness for Lent will be in the Church to accommo- Dementia: 12th to 19th March 2015 date the larger number of peoples joining us for the Lenten Days of The Annual Archdiocesan Mass with the Recollection. Sacrament of the Sick for Dementia Sufferers and their carers, will be V V V V V celebrated on Thursday 19th March at 12:00 noon in All Hallows Church, Jumble Sale Miskin, CF72 8PG. Please come together and pray for all who experience the 1.30pm on Saturday 7th March at effects of Dementia. OLQM - same time - same place as always but we need items for the jumble - so please start looking and V V V V V leaving things in the Parish Hall Porch. Many thanks! Wednesday in Lent at Belmont Abbey V V V V V To be a Christian is to discover the joy of a personal encounter with Jesus. 2 Using the writings and example of the White Rabbit popes we reflect on what it means to be a follower of Christ in our Following the success of last year’s contemporary society. production Soldier to Saint by RISE Theatre, we have invited them back to 4th March: Christians in Dialogue Paul perform their latest offering White VI: Abbot Paul Rabbit in Hedley Lodge at 7.30pm, 11th March: Rich in Mercy St. John Paul Friday 20th March 2015. II: Abbot Paul 18th March: A Reasonable Faith This is a tale of faith, love and selfBenedict XVI: Dom Andrew discovery, of two people lost in a 25th March: In Joyful Hope Pope grown-up world of work, normality and Francis: Dom Andrew disappointment - a place with no time for fairy tales or childhood dreams. Morning Coffee 10.00, Talk 10.30, Mass Jenny cannot STOP, her fast-paced at 12 noon. 1.00 Simple Bread & Soup work life spiraling out of control. Tom Lunch. Talk 2.00. Afternoon Tea cannot START, his life as an artist now at 3.30pm. Suggested Offering £10.00. a complete standstill. Suddenly an Includes Lunch. unexpected encounter with a stranger sets them on a life-changing journey. V V V V V Could this be the White Rabbit of their childhood? Experience for yourself the Lent Study Lunches at Ewyas Harold: message of hope and forgiveness in this ‘A Heart for Mission’ imaginative and moving play by singersongwriter and director Charley Pinfold. On five Thursdays beginning 26th February at 12noon in the Ewyas Harold Tickets are now on sale from the Parish Baptist Hall Office (see Chris Moore or Fr Nick) £8 (with soup lunch from 1pm - donations) for adults, £6 for under 18s. 5th March – To teach, baptise & nurture V V V V V new believers 12th March – To respond to human Wales and the Marches Catholic need through loving service History Society 19th March – To seek to transform unjust structures of society Seán Cleary, a local historian and a 26th March – To safeguard and sustain member of WAMCHS will be giving a Creation. talk entitled - "Bute, Llanisien and the Early Nineteenth Century Irish" at 3pm V V V V V on Sunday March 8th at St. David’s 3 Catholic Sixth Form College in Tygwyn Rd., Cardiff. Everyone is welcome. For further information: Email: [email protected] Phone:02920595899 http://www.wamchs.btck.co.uk decided to invite all Altar Servers from the Herefordshire Deanery. A coach will be provided at no cost to you. It will leave Belmont Abbey at 9am and return at 4pm. (You will need to bring a packed lunch). Please could you let Jo Williams know if you wish to attend, no later than the V V V V V evening of Monday 2nd March, as we need to book places. Call, text or email Jo Williams (SFX Parish) 07767046535, It is reported with shock and great 01432 850414, [email protected] sadness that one of the Kenya children has died. V V V V V Yvonne was ill for a few days only and becoming worse. She was waiting to be HOMILY seen in a hospital queue when she suddenly collapsed and died. We do not “Rabbi, it is wonderful for us to be here.” have any details of the cause of her death as the family are waiting for more Illustration information from the doctor. In 1940 Brother Roger Schutz founded a Christian community in Taizé, France. Yvonne was a valued family member, a The community grew and became a committed Catholic and server at Mass. major spiritual centre for young people, She was in her last year of secondary and now attracts 100,000 young people school and academically very bright. each year. For many of these young She planned to go to university to study people this is their first experience of medicine. Prayers are invited for intensive prayer, and they experience Yvonne and her distraught family. the presence of Christ in a powerful Monica Russell manner. This encounter can stir up deep emotions and often the young V V V V V people do not know how to react. The community at Taizé offers help and Calling all Altar Servers… guidance, which aims to help them make sense of their encounter with His Grace, Archbishop George Stack has Christ but also to reflect upon what this invited you all to attend a training day will mean when they leave Taizé and in preparation for the Paschal Triduum return to their lives. on Saturday 7th March 2015 at All Many would like to remain in Taizé and Hallows Parish, Miskin, It had been never let go of this experience of Kenya Outreach 4 Christ’s presence. Yet our vocation as Christians is not one of flight from the world. For those who do remain there is no flight from reality. Welcoming 100,000 young people each year requires a great deal of planning and work, especially when you are faced with all their needs: physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. For the Brothers of Taizé, sharing the lives of the young people requires a commitment to the cross. Many of the young people who arrive in Taizé have broken lives, and welcoming them means sharing in their sorrow and pain. cross and resurrection. We know that without the cross there can be no resurrection. It is only after Jesus has risen that the disciples will understand the significance of what happened upon the mountain. The mountain of the glorious appearance of Jesus only makes sense in the light of that other mountain, Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion. On the cross Christ shares all our pain and suffering; this is Christ’s glory. When we think of earthly glory we think of those who have risen above our ordinary human weakness and vulnerability. The great sportsperson never experiences the disappointments of the ordinary competitor. Those who are rich and famous do not share in our daily struggles to make a living. Sometimes we think that sharing in the glory of Christ will make us invulnerable to human weakness and suffering. With Peter we say that it is wonderful to be with the glorified Christ, and we wish to build a dwelling place so that Christ can stay forever with us. Yet remaining with Christ means following him to that other mountain, the place of the cross. Jesus enters into glory not through rising above our suffering, but by embracing it. Gospel Teaching This encounter of Peter, James and John upon the mountain with the glorious Christ seems out of place in the Gospel of Mark. Why are they given this vision of the glorious risen Christ before the cross and resurrection? We can, however, turn the question around. Why are the disciples not able to see the glory of Christ at every moment? He is the Son of God, the Word through whom all things are made. Why can they not see this? It is because they have not accepted that Jesus must die on the cross. After they come down from the mountain Jesus commands them to tell nobody about what has happened until after “the Son of Man [has] risen from the dead”. They do not understand what Jesus means by this saying. But we, the readers of Mark’s Gospel, are now seeing all this in the light of the Application In order to enter into his glory, Christ calls us to follow him on the path to the cross. It is very tempting to remain on the mountain, but we are called to return to our lives. Each of us is 5 confronted by suffering: the pain and disappointments of our own lives, the sufferings of those around us. Even a few moments in the presence of the risen Christ can bring us relief from such suffering. But this is not because Christ does not share in our sufferings. Rather, it is because Christ enters into and transforms our sufferings. Abraham would do whatever was asked of him. This is one of the reasons we refer to Abraham as our ‘Father in Faith’. But before we think we have got away with it, we need to remember that during this Lent God will ask something of us that will give us an opportunity to show our faith. We won’t be asked to sacrifice our children but we will have six weeks in which we can show that we are prepared to grow in the faith we profess. How far will we go? For Lent is not simply a time for giving up things or doing something extra. It’s a journey of renewal. As Christians we are not called to rise above the pain and suffering of the world, but to follow Christ and enter into those places where people suffer. We can only do this as Christ’s disciples, allowing him to enter into our own suffering and pain, so that we can show to others this healing love. This is what it means to show the glory of Christ. There is no doubt that during Lent God will use the ordinary circumstances of our lives in order to reveal the depth of V V V V V his concern for us and to seek our loving response. This will be different for each FAITH IN FOCUS: HOW FAR WILL YOU one of us. It might be the reminder that GO? we really ought to devote more time to our prayer. It might be the nagging Imagine you felt you were called by God realisation that there is unfinished to do something that everyone else business with family members that we thought was stupid. Imagine you ought to set right once and for all. It received God’s call to up sticks and might be that during Lent we will come move from your home, travelling to the to see the selfishness that has caught middle of nowhere just to show how hold of us and take steps to remedy it. much faith you had. And imagine, when you got there, that God asked you to We each know that we are capable of prove your faith by sacrificing one of being much better people than we your children. Unbelievable? Yes, allow ourselves to be. God has given us certainly in today’s climate. But that’s a greatness that we are only too what happened to Abraham. prepared to hide. And Lent is our Mercifully, God prevented him from annual season for renewing ourselves killing Isaac once he realised that in spirit, for controlling those aspects of 6 Ministers, etc. For next Sunday 8th March: 2nd Sunday of Lent 8:30am Welcomer(s) 9:30am 11:00am Marnie Archer & Maureen Stacey Kath Parry Anne Stapleton 1st Reading Richard Batho Georgina McGurk 2nd Reading Adrian Eyre Sacristan Jeremy Hogan Jacqui Corrigan Bidding Prayer Fran Grant Offertory Ramage-Hill Family Jane Davies Peter Davies Paul Nickholds & Lucy Zammit Extra-Ordinary Frances Dees & Fran Minister(s) Smallwood Tony Archer Next Sunday - Second Collection: Priest Training Fund Next Week - Newsletter Folding: Rowena Simon Dates to be noted 20 March 2015 White Rabbit - Hedley Lodge, Belmont Abbey - 7:30pm ST BENEDICT’S EASTER JOURNEY March 13-15 (2 days mid-week registration fee £26) Inspired by his Rule we learn to run on the path of life with hearts delighting in love. Abbott Paul Stonham CHILDREN’S LITURGY 8.30 am Children's Liturgy 1 March 11.00 am Liturgy 08-Mar Pat Wood & Jan Wyman 15-Mar A Morawiecki & M Russell 22-Mar Rachel Cowdrey & Rob Blackburn 29-Mar Jacqui Moore & Pauline Gill Please pray for all who have died: May they rest in peace. DEATHS: David Ellis, Siobhan Hayes and Hugh Snell. ANNIVERSARIES: Elizabeth de Normanville, Frances Schomberg, Peter Skuse, Edith Preddy, William Rosser, Dorothy Shaw, Dom. Wilfrid Chadwick, Bessie Catherine Lee, Joseph McGurk, Ada Dobson, William Eburn, Patrick Waldron, Monica Devlin, Carolyn McEwen, Anna Panniers, Dom Bruno Reynolds, Ted Edwards, Catherine Ramlall, Mary Clay, Mgr Paul Hook, Bridget O'Toole. The SICK:Please pray for Peter Lee, Edna Ledford, Sister Trish Hayes, Derek Denyer, Will Kinsman, Toni Cornforth, Mary Carroll, Sue Rogers, Elizabeth Lloyd-Jones, Jane Shaw, Fr Michal Cronin, Elaine Campbell, Sr Catherine, Joanne Savory, Ken Harding, Brian Holberry, Vincent Hanna, and Sadie Bowyer. Belmont Abbey Parish is part of Belmont Abbey Mission Trust (Registered Charity - 226277) 7 Liturgy for Sunday 1st March 2015 Readings: Sunday Cycle B; Weekdays: Cycle 1; Divine Office: Week 2 2nd Sunday of Lent Entrance:Of you my heart has spoken: Seek his face. It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me. Acclamation:Save us, Saviour of the world… Communion: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him. Principal Celebrants, Extraordinary Ministers, Readers, etc. 8:30am Celebrant Fr Nicholas Welcomer Hayes Family 9:30am Fr Nicholas Desmond Keohane & Anne & Ross Georgina McGurk Williams Sacristan Rob Corrigan 1st Reading Richard Batho 2nd Reading Liz Norman Marion Luscombe Pat Draper Children’s Liturgy Margaret Campbell &Teresa Harriss Extra-Ordinary Sylvia Hayes Minister(s) Mass Intention Marje Hayes Margaret Rose Bidding Prayer Adrian Eyre Offertory 11:00am Monica Russell Emily Louisa Hayes RIP Benefactors Cedric Brownsword RIP Second Collection: CAFOD What’s On for the week Mon Feria: Mass at 8:00 am; Requiem Mass for David Ellis RIP 12 noon Tue Feria: Mass at 8:00 am Wed Feria: Masses at 8:00am and 12 noon in the Abbey Thu Feria: Mass at 8:00 am Fri Feria: Mass at 8:00 am; Midday Mass in the Oratory Sat Feria: Mass at 8:00 am: Sacrament of Reconciliation at 10:00 am Events for the week 07 March Jumble Sale at OLQM, Belmont Road 8
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