Download Bulletin 9th August 2020

Homily for 19^th Sunday

Apparently Archimedes leapt out of his bath when he discovered his Principle and ran down the street shouting ‘Eureka’, I have found it.  For many people discovering Christ truly for the first time it can have the same sort of effect.  Over the last few weeks the gospels have been about what sort of ground we might be, dry, thorny, fertile?  But there is always the chance that we will have a ‘leap out of the bath’ moment, or like Peter, out of the boat.  Peter has been with Jesus for some time already, but today he really ‘sees’ him.  In the gospels when it says ‘see’ it usually means something more than just sight. It is about seeing with the eyes of faith.  So Peter leaps out of the boat, on Jesus’ assurance that he can, and starts to move across the water.  But there is always that moment, however we come to faith and however fervent, and perhaps particularly when our discovery is fervent, that we stop and begin to say to ourselves.  Am I really sure Jesus is there?  I mean, I cannot see him really.  Am I just fooling myself? ……

Complete Homily for 19th Sunday

 

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.

 

Readings for 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 19

Download Bulletin 2nd August 2020

 

Homily by Fr Hugh

We don’t really understand suffering, especially when the innocent suffer.  It is an old complaint that surely a loving and all-powerful God would never let the innocent suffer, and it is one we often make when we believe we have just suffered or witnessed it.  I have no answers to that directly, and no one does, though it has been discussed many times.  But I do want to approach suffering from another angle today.  Without suffering we would be without the virtue of compassion, literally ‘suffering with.’  You could say, well let’s give up that virtue in exchange for the loss of suffering.  But compassion has a tremendous power, is a tremendous power for good, and it is good that we are looking for.  In the film ‘Rendition’ the young CIA man is finally moved to leave and help others when he sees and is drawn into the suffering of one of their prisoners at the hands of his own organisation. This sudden, almost shock, of feeling compassion turns his life around, restores his natural goodness, and he then finds the courage to risk everything and free others.  The power of compassion can break through our fear and hardened prejudices.  It can remind us of a humanity lost, distorted, through the pressures laid upon us to conform to what the world expects…. 

Complete Homily 18th Sunday Ordinary Time

 

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.

 

Readings for 18th Sunday Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 18

Download Bulletin 26th July 2020

 

Homily by Fr Hugh

In every age people have dreamt of being rich.  I can remember when the lottery first began I used to go in and get a ticket for myself (though my enthusiasm soon ran out.)  Many of us from children upwards have chatted about what we would do if we won the lottery.  What would we spend all that money on?  And sometimes, in an idle moment, wonder what footballers do with all that money, and occasionally announce that it is immoral to pay anyone that much, but whether we would be so righteous if we had it is another matter.  Do you remember Jack and the Beanstalk?  If you have children or grandchildren you might have come across it recently.  The seemingly stupid hero Jack, the cow, the magic beans, the outraged mother, and then the adventure with the massive beanstalk, battle with the giant and, at the end of the search, the goose laying the golden eggs.  Apparently a similar story was being told 4500 years ago.  Again it is about wealth, and then adventure and risk, and trusting in, and facing, the unknown, also of course comedy, with the selling of the cow and the magic beans, the irate mother, the precious goose and the giant.  Every age has these stories.  Ireland has its rainbows, pots of gold and leprechauns, who apparently wore red coats originally.  So when Jesus is talking in parables to his crowd, he knows the sort of thing they talk and joke about.  The stories they have…..

Complete 17th Sunday Homily

LIVESTREAM CONTINUES of the 10AM SUNDAY MASS.  There will be no further livestreaming of Wednesday Evening Prayer.

To watch the 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.

 

Readings for 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 17

Download Bulletin 19th July 2020

 

Homily by Fr Hugh

Nobody likes being called weak.  The number of school reports I have had that began, Hugh has had a good term, they always seemed to begin encouragingly, until we got to the ‘unfortunately’ or ‘however,’ he has been weak in Maths this year, it was usually at least Maths, and not surprisingly that was the bit everyone focused on.  Then there is the post mortem about what to do about my ‘weakness’ even though I knew I was unlikely ever to be ‘strong’ in Maths, and strong is usually the opposite  to weak.  It is amazing how our culture, or perhaps it is just something within us as human beings, always focuses on what is weak and not our strengths.  Sometimes in trying to help the young especially, for the best reasons, we harp on about what they need to improve, not what they are good at, which feeds them with a sense of not being good or worthwhile.  But what do we do to avoid being weak, in our own eyes or those of others?  Where do we find our strength? …..

Complete 16th Sunday Homily

LIVESTREAM CONTINUES of the 10AM SUNDAY MASS.  There will be no further livestreaming of Wednesday Evening Prayer.

To watch the 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.

 

Readings for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 16

 

It was lovely to have a live congregation at the weekend.  Many people are naturally cautious as yet.  So far we still have plenty of room if you are thinking of coming back to Mass, but remember that the dispensation allowing us not go to Mass on Sunday  is still in place and that you should not come if you are nervous or vulnerable in any way.  We will continue to deliver the bulletin and to livestream the 10am Mass.

Homily by Fr Hugh

Who does Jesus think is in the Kingdom of Heaven?  We might say: Well, people who have discovered God through Jesus. Catholics certainly, or possibly our view is wider, all Christians.  We are often pretty sure we know who is not likely to be included, though we know that the boundaries may be a bit woolly at times, and we may find ourselves half in and half out at times.  But when Jesus is speaking about the Kingdom of God, he is not talking about creating a Church as a super-club of humans that get it, that is made up of those who are fertile ground for the seed of the gospel, as opposed to those who aren’t.  His starting point is that we are all God’s creation.  We begin as natural members of the Kingdom regardless of who we are or what faith we profess or none.  And he comes to help us realise that our happiness is ultimately found when we once more discover our God-given roots.  There was a discussion on the radio recently where African Americans had made connections through DNA-tracing with family in Africa.  Some of you might remember Kunta Kinte and the film ‘Roots’ back in 1976. This ongoing and successful search for roots, as all said on the radio, has brought them a real peace.  They had found where they came from….

Complete 15th Sunday Homily

Download Bulletin 12th July 2020

 

LIVESTREAM CONTINUES of the 10AM SUNDAY MASS.  There will be no further livestreaming of Wednesday Evening Prayer.

To watch the 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.

 

Readings for 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 15

 

 

The Church will be reopening for Mass this weekend: Saturday 4th Vigil 6pm and Sunday 5th, 10am and 6pm.  There will be no Mass at Sedbergh this weekend.  Confessions are only as a matter of urgency for now.

Please have a read of the bulletin for further details.

Download Bulletin 5th July 2020

 

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 14th Sunday

When we hear the word ‘yoke’ these days we usually think of eggs (as in yolk) but for farmers it was, of course, what you used to bind the oxen or horses together so that they could plough as a unit, (and this is close to the original meaning of the word ‘religion’ which comes from the Latin word ‘to bind.’)   If you have never seen one, in Great Eccleston where I used to live near Blackpool, the owner of the West End Stores (an amazing hardware store) used to have a farming museum above his shop, I don’t know if it is still there.  It meant also the heavy wooden bar that milkmaids (if you are allowed to call them that these days) would carry milk pails around, or very early on binding slaves ( a good example can be seem in the film Taras Bulba where Tony Curtis spends a lot of his time in one.)  So a yoke means a burden too.  Both of these meanings Jesus could have had in mind in the gospel, whose words here only occur in Matthew’s gospel.  Matthew wrote from a very Jewish point of view, possibly for a very Jewish based community.  In their study of the Law, the Pharisees referred to the ‘yoke of the Torah,’ the ‘yoke of the Law.’  In the sense that the people of God were bound together by the Law.  Today even for many secular Jews the Law is important.  But Jesus turns this around here.  He can see that what should be uniting people to each other and to God, has become instead a burden, and to him our encounter with God should never be a burden, but exactly the opposite….

Complete Homily by Fr Hugh

 

LIVESTREAM CONTINUES…..

10AM SUNDAY MASS &  WEDNESDAY EVENING PRAYER, 8 – 8.30PM

To watch the 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.

 

Readings for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 14

 

Read the July Catholic Voice newspaper here

 

 

 

The new edition of the Parish Magazine is out now!

 

Download Parish Magazine Summer 2020

The Church is reopening for Private Prayer on Monday 29th June and Weekend Masses will begin 4th/5th July.  Please have a read of the bulletin for further details.

Download Bulletin 28th June 2020

 

Homily for the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul

We’ve got two very different men here.  Let’s look at the younger one first.  Saul.  Dead keen. Trained as a Pharisee, a strict Jew.  Been at the stoning of the first Christian to die, Stephen, and thoroughly approved of it as the Acts of the Apostles says.  He is an outsider in Jerusalem, coming from Tarsus, in what is now South East Turkey, but he is desperate to prove himself, he has got to be more Jewish than the Jerusalem guys.  A young zealot.  He goes of his own will, he is not asked or told, he goes to the religious leaders and gets letters to clear the Christians out of Damascus.  This is going to be the journey that is going to make his name.  And then Peter.  Also a Jew, of course, but probably not so fanatical.  I doubt Peter gave religion much of a thought, though he would have been a regular synagogue attender.  Religion was just a part of his life.  A quiet country bloke. Galilee was seen as a backwater and a lot less properly Jewish than Jerusalem.  But he was never going to travel anyway except for the big pilgrimages, and was probably dying to get home as soon as they set off (like many people, really glad to get back from holiday.)  He was married, we don’t know about children, and worked with others, partners in a way.  So his life is set, and Capharnaum and the Sea of Galilee are his horizon.  And probably pretty happy with all that.  There is absolutely no reason why these two men should become anything than what they set out to be….

Complete Homily for the Feast of SS Peter and Paul

 

10AM SUNDAY MASS &  WEDNESDAY EVENING PRAYER, 8 – 8.30PM

To watch the 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.

Readings for Saints Peter and Paul

Daily Prayers Week 13

 

Download Bulletin 21st June 2020

 

Homily by Fr Hugh

The Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission is one of a number around the country.  (Our diocesan Faith and Justice Commission has some input into it.)  The idea is that it brings people who have local power together with those who have none.  So, local councillors, police officers, M.P.s perhaps, heads of the local NHS and Social Security offices and so on, those who run things, come together with all those who have little or no say usually, such as the unemployed, single-parents, those with disabilities, little education, so that one group can listen to the other.  One of the things the commission does is help the last group to express their opinions, train them to be able to speak, have the courage to get up in front of others, and the other is to get the first group to listen.  To hear those who have had training, and with it grown in the courage to speak, is very moving.  But both have to happen.  One side has to learn how to speak, the other to listen.  When we think about it, when we go into a discussion of any kind, we do so with our own preconceived ideas about what is right or possible, and we automatically filter, and judge, what the other says through this.  By now you might be asking what this has to do with today’s readings.  Well, the gospel is a set of sayings of Jesus, put together by the writer.  The central passage is about all our worth, value, self-esteem.  And what and who threatens that.  These can come in many kinds, they could be religious, military or social ones, those within us, mental ones, spiritual ones, our lack of courage. (The lion on the Wizard of Oz.) But one of the biggest is that we are ignored, or we feel we are. No- one listens to us…..

Complete Homily for 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

LIVESTREAM is now on YouTube

10AM SUNDAY MASS

8 – 8.30PM WEDNESDAY EVENING PRAYER

To watch the 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.

 

Readings for 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time_

Daily Prayers Week 12

 

Download Bulletin 14th June 2020

 

Corpus Christi Homily by Fr Hugh

We often have First Holy Communions about now, sadly not this year, when I take out a £5 note and tear it up to entertain the children.  Why? You might ask.  Well, on all our banknotes it says, ‘I promise to pay the bearer the sum of so many pounds,’ signed by the Chief Cashier, for the Governor and Company of the bank of England.  My point is that a piece of paper (or plastic now, not so easy to tear up) can really become £5 because we have an agreement, us and the Bank.  So when we go into a shop the seller does not say, ‘I don’t want that bit of plastic.’  Through the Bank’s agreement with the people, we can all trust that it has become £5.  From there I go on to say, bread and wine can become Jesus’ body and blood, change, because we and God have an agreement which Jesus gave us at the Last Supper so that when we come together for Mass we are sharing in his sacrifice.  I think the most that the children remember is the money being torn up.  However it does sort of make a point.  However for all we can discuss how the bread and wine change, the main point is that we have an agreement, or in church language a ‘covenant’ with God.  This is the ‘new covenant’ as we pray every Sunday at Mass.  So what I want to talk about is not St. Thomas and Transubstantiation, interesting as that is, but the wider context of our Mass, because taking it out of context can mean we lose sight of what we are truly about…..

Complete Corpus Christi Homily by Fr Hugh

 

LIVESTREAM is now on YouTube

10AM SUNDAY MASS

8 – 8.30PM WEDNESDAY EVENING PRAYER

To watch the 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.

 

Readings for Corpus Christi

Daily Prayers for Week 11 Ordinary Time