Download Bulletin 28th February 2021

Read the March Catholic Voice here

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 2nd Sunday in Lent

Did you know that this is London Fashion Week?  Apparently 5000 journalists turn up for this, or I guess, watch online this year.  Looking at the clothes, it is hard to see how, unless you were a model or a certain age and size, you would be able to wear much of it, but it makes a lot of money, so plenty of people must be interested.  I have to admit that I have never been at the height of fashion, unless somehow fashion has come round in full circle.  I don’t think my 70s velvet jacket that I was so proud of then has ever made it back though.  Yet what we wear is important to the extent that it says something about us, even if we do not realise it or want it to.  People judge us by it, and comment upon it.  Sometimes fairly, sometimes not.  Did you have to wear that?  Could you not have made a bit more effort?  Or, like my Mum, ‘I am not taking you to town in those trousers.’ (That was some years ago I have to say.)  All of these I have had said to me.  We can see whether people are interested in looking smart.  Does it matter?  In some cases it does, it is a matter of respect.  It shows that we have made an effort for them.  Then sometimes we wear clothes as a statement about ourselves, to make a point that this is me.  Perhaps as a protest.  So clothes can be important.  The Bible refers to Jesus’ clothes at certain important moments.  They become an outward expression of what is happening to him….

Complete Homily for 2nd Sunday in Lent

Readings for 2nd Sunday in Lent

Daily Prayers Week 2 LenT

Download Bulletin 21st February 2021

Pastoral Letter for the First Sunday of Lent 2021

LENT FAMILY FAST DAY is Friday 26^th February:  Abdella lives in an extremely remote and mountainous part of Ethiopia. It takes him ten hours a day to collect water. He says his life is being wasted as he has no time for anything else.  Give today to reach vulnerable communities around the world with water and to provide other vital support.

Readings for 1st Sunday in Lent

Daily Prayers Week 1 Lent

Download Parish Magazine Winter and Lent 2021

The parish website now has a new ‘Stations of the Cross’ section. There are photos of all 14 stations in the church each with a voice recording by Fr Hugh.

To view this devotion, please visit the parish website and click on  ‘Stations of the Cross’ in the menu bar or click the link below.

Click Here for Stations of the Cross

Ash Wednesday Mass is at 12.15pm in church and is open for everyone. The Mass can also be watched on YouTube Livestream from the parish website in the usual way.

Read the Bishop‘s piece on Cumbrian Coal Mine

Download Bulletin 14th February 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are two Ben Hur films, both usually on the TV at Christmas and I much prefer the old one with Charlton Heston even if they say that if you watch the chariot race carefully you can see a red Fiat in the corner.  But at one point he goes off to find his mother and daughter who have been exiled to the leper caves (his sister somehow still managing to look very beautiful), and much to their horror he goes in and carries his Mum to Jesus for healing.   It is hard for us to imagine the fear that leprosy instilled in people.  Today’s fear of Covid is nothing like the terror leprosy provoked in people.  So any one showing symptoms was immediately chased out of the community.  They rang bells as we know shouting, unclean, unclean, giving people time to avoid them.  In the church at St. Michael’s-on-Wyre there is a leper’s squint in one corner where communion or simply food could be left for lepers to collect. This was and is nothing new.  500 years before Jesus, possibly more, the same instructions to leave the community are being given in the first reading, and for reasonable medical reasons at the time.  So when the leper approaches Jesus, and he would still be kneeling at a distance, when he asks, ‘Do you want to heal me,’ it is not just about does Jesus want to but will he actually do it.  Will he get close enough even if it makes him unclean and may infect him? ……

Complete Homily for 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

SUNDAY MASS LIVESTREAM IS AT 10AM ON 14TH FEBRUARY FROM HOLY TRINITY AND ST GEORGE YOU CAN WATCH THE LIVESTREAM FROM THE PARISH WEBSITE BY GOING TO: CLICK HERE FOR LIVESTREAM ON YOUTUBE

Readings for 6th Sunday

Daily Prayers Week 6

SUNDAY MASS LIVESTREAM IS AT 10AM ON 7th FEBRUARY FROM

HOLY TRINITY AND ST GEORGE

YOU CAN WATCH THE LIVESTREAM FROM THE PARISH WEBSITE BY GOING TO:

CLICK HERE FOR LIVESTREAM ON YOUTUBE

Download Bulletin 7th February 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Just typical, those men heal mother-in-law just so that she can get supper on the table.”  That can be an immediate response to this gospel story.  However let’s look at the whole picture.  Concentrate on the last part for a moment. Jesus goes up to a lonely place to pray.  Always a distant place, one where he can find some peace.  What is prayer for him?  We know from the number of times he does this that he cannot manage without it.  The peace he finds gives him the opportunity to be at one with his Father.  It is clear that this relationship is Jesus’ powerhouse.  Just him and his Father together.  This is him recharging his batteries.  It gives him strength.  After facing a sea of sickness, of poverty and worry, days of being with the mentally ill, as with any person, it takes its toll.  More so because of his love for each of these people.  Because of his understanding, his compassion for each, which the disciples don’t really understand as they are often happy to send people away, Jesus is very much alone in his compassion and connection with each person in the deepest sense…..

Complete Homily for 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Readings for 5th Sunday

Daily Prayers Week 5

SUNDAY MASS LIVESTREAM IS AT 10AM ON 31ST JANUARY FROM

HOLY TRINITY AND ST GEORGE

YOU CAN WATCH THE LIVESTREAM FROM THE PARISH WEBSITE BY GOING TO:

CLICK HERE FOR LIVESTREAM ON YOUTUBE

Download Bulletin 31st January 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Exorcism is the heart of today’s gospel.  The word ‘exorcism’ often gets people very excited, often people with no knowledge about it at all but are thrilled at the idea, perhaps after watching some Hollywood production as The Exorcist, or The Rite, or Possession.  Some Christians have no problem with this these days, but for others it is hard to relate it to today. The way possession or illness is seen in the Bible is as the result of sin or the fact that it is the devil at work, which again many find difficult these days.  When I was working with the homeless in St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London the old guys would often have fits as a result of drink or untreated problems.  One of my fellow members of staff had been an evangelical Christian but became a Catholic, bringing with him many of his old ways (not that some Catholics would not have agreed with him).  One day I found him praying over an old guy who had had a fit that the devil might leave him.  As someone who has epilepsy I suddenly found this incredibly offensive and launched into the poor guy accordingly, though he was only doing what he thought would help and was right.  And that is the problem with the gospel sometimes it can seem offensive….

Complete Homily for 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Readings for 4th Sunday

Daily Prayers Week 4

Read the Catholic Voice here

Sunday Mass Livestream is at 10am on 24th January from

Holy Trinity and St George

You can watch the Livestream from the parish website by going to:

Click Here For Livestream on YouTube

Download Bulletin 24th January 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the 1690s Mary Wharton, a very young great heiress, was pulled out of her coach, abducted by a Scottish soldier and forcibly married.  His defence was that as this was allowed in Scotland so he thought it was all right in England. Strangely that bit of his defence worked.  But then aristocratic fathers got a bit fed up with daughters being carried off, so Lord Hardwick passed a law forbidding it in 1753, but it did not apply to Scotland hence Gretna Green and getting married over the anvil, which survived in a way until 1940.  Of course for the aristocracy marriage did not have a lot to do with love, it was mainly about money and land, about possessions and possession.  In his recent letter on St. Joseph, who is often called ‘chaste,’ Pope Francis redefines chastity.  He calls it ‘freedom from possessiveness’ in every sphere of one’s life.  Only when love is chaste, free of possessiveness, is it really love.  Then he goes on to say that this is how God loves us.  He loves us but lets us be free even to go astray, and even to set ourselves against him.  The Pope calls Joseph’s love just this, a loved of extraordinary freedom that never makes himself the centre of things….

Complete Homily for the Third Sunday

Readings for the 3rd Sunday

Daily Prayers for Week 3

Sunday Mass Livestream at 9.45am on 17th January will be from St Kentigern’s, Blackpool

(there will be no livestream from holy trinity and St george this weekend)

You can watch the st kentigern’s Livestream in the usual way from our parish website by going to:

Click Here for Livestream on YouTube

DOWNLOAD BULLETIN 17TH JANUARY 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

We were on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and strolling through Nativity Square in Bethlehem and we came across a large group of people who were holding a demonstration in a very pleasant and well-ordered way.  It was Pax Christi (the UK Christian Peace Association) and Pat Gaffney, the last chair, was in the centre of the group.  They were there praying for peace in the Holy Land.  Of all the things you might associate Bethlehem with throughout its history, peace is really not one of them, except for the angels declaration at Jesus’ birth.  Every group has fought over it and to be honest though not as bad as the battles within the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the various Christian religious groups are not known for their peaceful living together.  But looking around Bethlehem that day, sitting outside the cafes, Muslim and Christian women and men, some of the women veiled some not, were sitting together enjoying a drink of some sort and more importantly a chat.  So in Bethlehem you have a town, surrounded by walls to keep people in, erected by people who might  hate you, walls that are born of violence, but within the town you find certain little oases of peace.  People of different religious faiths living together.  Not without problems, but able to talk….

COMPLETE HOMILY FOR SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

READINGS FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY

Daily Prayers for Week 2

Download Bulletin 10th January 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Walking through the National Gallery in London, as you turn into one room you are hit by the sight on the far wall of Piero della Francesca’s painting of Jesus’ baptism. It hangs alone, and though no one is looking out of the picture, directly at you, it seems to draw you to it. Remember that these artists were working for churches and Catholic leaders of society, and the painting had to hold a message, a gospel message. Just like a gospel, the painting was trying to teach the viewer about Jesus, if only because so many of the public could not read.  Jesus stands in the middle of the painting, John the Baptist to one side. Three angels are on the left, introducing us to the fact that God is directly involved here. Behind the two human figures is another young man, taking off his clothes, getting ready to be baptised. Showing us that Jesus was one among many…..

Read the Complete Homily here

Readings for The Baptism of the Lord

To watch the 10am Sunday Mass Livestream go to CLICK HERE FOR LIVESTREAM ON YOUTUBE at the top of this website. The parish YouTube channel will appear then click on the LIVE NOW video.

Daily Prayers Week 1