​​​Many thanks to all who contributed to the collection for the SVP last weekend, which raised an impressive £2189.44.  Next weekend, we have the collection for the sick and retired priests of the diocese.   As we read on the Westminster Diocesan website, “Our priests have dedicated their lives to serve us. They have baptised and confirmed our children, celebrated our marriages, consoled us when we lost a loved one and guided us in times of need. Now it’s our turn to be there for them.”  Envelopes are available this Sunday to be taken away and returned next weekend with your donation.  Thank you in advance!  I don’t yet fall into the category of “sick and retired”  but perhaps I will before too much longer, so I feel I have a particular interest in this collection.

 

The weather seems to have turned distinctly chilly.  There is a strong sense that summer is over and winter, including Christmas, is not far off.  In three weeks from now, the season of Advent will begin, the season of preparation for the feast of Christmas.  In the meantime, this final month of the Church’s year is the time when we pray especially for the dead.  Every day during November, Mass will be offered for those whose names have been submitted for the “November dead list”, which are all contained in the box that is placed on the altar for every Mass during this month.

 

Pope Leo has set off for south America.  We pray that his health will hold out, following his recent operation for cancer.  His medical team assure us that the cancer has been successfully removed and had not spread, so his ten-day visit is going ahead.  We pray for the Church in Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, including the Holy Father’s former diocese of Chiclayo, which he is due to revisit.  So it is a homecoming of a kind.

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Monday of the coming week sees a feast in the Church’s calendar, when the whole world celebrates the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  Contrary to popular belief, this magnificent church is actually the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome, while the better-known Saint Peter’s is the basilica that expresses his universal apostolic ministry rather than his local ministry.  This is why, traditionally, the Holy Thursday evening Mass has been held at the Lateran Basilica rather than at Saint Peter’s.  So this feast is a moment to celebrate our communion with Rome, which guarantees the apostolicity and catholicity of our faith and sacraments.  It is also a time when we give thanks for all that we receive through the Church.  

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Tuesday sees the first of three liturgical memorials, falling on successive days.  The first is that of Saint Leo the Great, the 5th-century Pope and Church Father who is revered as a Doctor of the Church, on account of his seminal theological writings.  He is one of only three Popes to whom the sobriquet “the Great” has been assigned.  The first to choose the name of Leo, meaning “lion”, he initiated a long line of Popes who have taken the same name, including our present Holy Father, the fourteenth in the series.

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Wednesday is the feast of Saint Martin of Tours.  It is on account of this feast that a warm November is known as a “Saint Martin’s summer”.  It remains to be seen whether we will have one this year.  Saint Martin was revered as a holy man during his lifetime. Founder of the ancient monastery of Ligugé, he somewhat reluctantly accepted the episcopate in Tours when he was given little alternative.  He is often held to have been the first “confessor”, i.e. non-martyr, to be celebrated as a saint in the post-New Testament church, although the claim is disputed.

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Thursday sees the feast of Saint Josaphat, a great patron of the Ukrainian Catholics.  A son of the Eastern Church, he believed passionately in communion with Rome, and gave his life for his adherence to the 1596 Union of Brest-Litovsk, which effectively established the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, of which the Cathedral on Duke Street is the local incarnation.  Eastern in its liturgy and discipline, this Church is nevertheless in communion with Rome.  Fittingly, Saint Josaphat’s mortal remains are now venerated in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, although it was in Vitebsk that he was killed by a mob.

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A pre-Advent retreat is being offered at the Christian Heritage Centre, Theodore House, in the grounds of Stonyhurst College in Lancashire.  For more information, see https://theodorehouse.com/retreats/, where information can also be found regarding retreats in 2027.

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Please pray for the candidates who have begun their preparation for baptism or reception into the Church and confirmation at the Easter Vigil through the parish RCIA programme.  And please pray also for the Catholic members of the parish who are preparing for confirmation.  It is most encouraging to see good numbers coming forward seeking to deepen their relationship with the Lord through his Church.

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Please pray also for the children and young people who are to make their First Holy Communion and to be confirmed in the parish in the coming year.  While the preparation sessions for these sacraments begin in the new year, there will be welcome ceremonies, respectively on 8 December and 22 November, when there will be an opportunity to meet the catechists, and parents will be free to ask any questions they may have concerning the process.  It is likely that both the First Holy Communion and the Confirmation will take place during Pentecost weekend, 15th and 16th May.  Further information will follow.