This Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and the Holy Father has addressed a Message to the universal Church on this occasion.  He shares some reflections on “the interior dimension of vocation, understood as the discovery of God’s free gift that blossoms in the depths of our hearts.”   The full text can be found at https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/vocations/documents/20260316-messaggio-vocazioni.html.  After all Masses this weekend, there will be a collection for the Priest Training Fund, and just before the collection is taken, there will be an address given by James Surry, the seminarian who has been assisting us in the parish this year.   

 

The Priest Training Fund supports the formation of men who are responding to God’s call to serve as priests in our diocese.  Their journey involves years of preparation - human, spiritual, and pastoral - equipping them to serve parish communities in the years ahead.  Your support helps make this formation possible.  It is a direct way of strengthening the life of the Church and ensuring that future generations will continue to receive the sacraments and pastoral care.  If you are able, please give generously in today’s collection.  You may also donate via rcdow.org.uk/PriestTrainingFund or through the “Second Collection” option on the contactless machines in the church [this option will not enable Gift Aid].  Please also continue to pray for vocations and for those currently in formation, especially our own James Surry.

​

We also have a pastoral letter on Vocations from our Archbishop, which is available at the back of the church for you to take home with you.  The Archbishop invites us to devote the month between this Sunday and Pentecost to praying for Vocations, and he asks us to make weekly Holy Hours for this intention.  This coming Friday being the First Friday of the month, we hope to expose the Blessed Sacrament for adoration between the lunchtime and evening Masses, and this seems an excellent opportunity to come together in prayer for this most important intention.  Please take a moment to sign your name against one of the timed slots on the list at the back of the church, because we have to ensure that the Sacrament is never left unattended.  

​

Another opportunity to pray for Vocations comes with the recitation of the Rosary, which will take place in the Lady Chapel after weekday evening Masses in May.  If you would like to help lead this devotion, please contact Mark Carter at spanishplacelegion@rcdow.org.uk or else leave a message with the parish office.  

Besides praying for vocations to the priesthood, particularly important for our parish if we are to maintain the generous provision of Mass and Confessions to which we have become accustomed, it is important to continue praying for those who were baptised, received, or confirmed at Easter and those who will be baptised or confirmed in the coming months.  We also continue to pray for the children who will make their First Holy Communion on Saturday 9 May and the young people who are to be confirmed by Bishop Michael Campbell the following day.  The sacraments of Christian initiation, as they are called, are particularly important milestones in the faith lives of these good people, and we are honoured that so many candidates have come forward in our own parish.

 

We have been asked to draw your attention to a couple of concerts fast approaching.  On Thursday of this week, the Friends of Westminster Cathedral welcome members of the Orion Orchestra to play Mozart and Schubert (see elsewhere on the newsletter) while on Tuesday 5 May, the Schola Cantorum of the London Oratory School perform “Sacred Treasures of the Renaissance” at Holy Trinity Sloane Square (cf. www.londonoratoryschola.com).  Our minds and hearts will be raised to contemplation by these glorious sounds.

 

I myself will be away on a pilgrimage to Lourdes with the Order of Malta from 1 to 7 May, so I do ask you to pray for all our pilgrims, especially the sick who will be accompanying us.  Apologies, too, that I will not be available to see parishioners during that time.

 

During the week ahead, we have the feast of one of the Patrons of Europe, Saint Catherine of Siena, a lay Dominican 14th-century mystic, who was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI almost 600 years after her death on account of the extraordinary value of her spiritual writings even today.  Facetiously, I often think she could be the patron saint of people who take a long time to obtain their doctorates!  For almost a century she has been a patron of her native Italy, but she was one of three second-millennium women chosen by Pope John Paul II in 1999 to become patrons of Europe alongside Saints Benedict, Cyril and Methodius.  We entrust our continent to her prayers, particularly on her feast-day this coming Wednesday, 29 April.

 

Then on Friday 1 May we honour Saint Joseph the Worker, in a celebration instituted by Pope Pius XII in the 1950s in order to provide a spiritual counter-narrative to the Marxist-inspired secular celebrations of International Workers’ Day.  Human labour is held in great esteem by the Church, as is clear from Catholic Social Teaching.  Previously, 1 May had been the feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles, but since the 1950s their feast has been transferred to 3 May, which means that we do not celebrate it this year, as their feast is displaced by a Sunday.  

 

This should not deter us from praying to Saints Philip and James, along with Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Joseph the Worker and Saint Athanasius, as we seek to proclaim Christ’s resurrection joyfully and confidently to the people of our day.