Thursday Club
Absolutely Free to everyone! Whatever your nationality; German, French, Polish, Latvian, Croatian, Irish, Scottish, English, Welsh or Cumbrian!
Whatever your religion or none! Male or female of any age! We have one man aged 92 years and
never misses a Thursday Club meeting!
What’s on offer ? a range of refreshments, lovely cakes, and scones, sometimes home made, various savouries. In fact a sort of afternoon tea, with as many cups of tea as to satisfy the most thirsty.
But then there is also the opportunity for a good chat among a very friendly bunch of folk. (Fellowship?)
Just in case you are getting bored, the volunteers from our church
clear away all the crockery, and any food leftovers and wait for it, yes
they provide us with some form of entertainment! This can be
anything covering a wide range of activities such as one or more of
the following:
-Quizzes from very easy, to others which might stretch your brain
power.
-Music for a singalong.
-Armchair exercises.
-Christine providing us with music and showing us how to do simple
dances. If you are not up to this just sit and watch. Always an
amusing affair.
-Bingo with prizes.
-Maybe a beetle drive.
-Francis thinks he is a magician and might do some magic.
-Slide show with someone describing their holiday snaps.
-Talks by a member of Kendal Civic Society about some aspect of
Kendal’s interesting past.
-Age UK can give a talk above the services they can offer.
-Peter comes to play popular music on his Electronic/acoustic
Accordion, He invites us to join in with maracas and various other
rattles which he provides.
-Sometimes one of the helpers will tell a story or relate a monologue.
Do please come along and join in the fun. We think it is far better
than sitting at home alone, of course, if you have a partner or a
friend do bring them with you.
We start at 2 pm every Thursday and finish at about 3.30 pm.
If you find it difficult to get here, no problem, just ring the parish
office (01539 720063) and our volunteer drivers will pick you up and
take you home.
Note:
The parishioners who look after the running of the Thursday Club are
on a sort of five week cycle. So we get a different group of about six,
every week. They seem to enjoy it and join in all the activities.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR ? COME AND JOIN US!
This note was compiled by Francis the Magician on 7th April 2019
Altar Servers
Altar Servers help to bring life to our liturgical celebrations, allowing the whole community to praise God, and we want all parts of our community to be represented. The minimum requirement is that the servers should have received their First Holy Communion. Full training is given, with regular outings for lunch afterwards. We know that mistakes do not matter because God loves the service, and we serve the altar, the priests and the congregation equally. But of course we try not to get things wrong.
After a year of membership servers are enrolled in the Guild of St Stephen, for Altar Servers everywhere (and of all ages).
For more information please talk to Jill Clough at Mass or email her when it is convenient (jill@clough.me.uk). And of course you can talk to Fr Hugh or one of the Deacons about how to get involved.
Music Group
“Natural religious instinct urges us to honour God by means of music as well as by the other arts, and to heighten our religious exaltation by joyous singing” (the Catholic Encyclopaedia).
Well, religious exaltation might seem a tall order on a wet November Sunday morning in Kendal, but that’s why we have a Music Group. We’re a group of musicians whose aim it is to encourage all the congregation to join in joyous singing. We aren’t there to give a performance in front of an audience – we’re there to lead the congregation by example, and to keep the music fresh by gently introducing new hymns alongside the old favourites.
We are always delighted to welcome new members. If you play an instrument – keyboard, string, brass, woodwind, percussion – welcome. Singers of all types are welcome. You don’t have to be able to read music: as long as you can sing out, more or less in tune, the Holy Spirit can do the rest.
Our full group meets for the 10am Mass on Sunday, but we are keen to extend this to other Masses. You don’t need to be able to turn up every week. We don’t expect you to spend hours rehearsing; if we’re learning something new, or there’s a “big do” coming up, we’ll stay behind for ten minutes or so after Mass.
SVP
The St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP) is an international Christian voluntary organization dedicated to tackling poverty & disadvantage by direct practical assistance to those in need. It tries to assist on a person to person basis, regardless of faith, colour, race or status. The SVP respects religious liberty and values all people. It is non-discriminatory and non-judgemental.
The Society aims to help anyone in need if it is within the local membership’s capability while maintaining their confidentiality and dignity.
What does the SVP do?
Local visiting is our core work. Building relationships based on trust and friendship gives the SVP its unique character. Visits are made to individuals, families, the sick at home or in hospitals, hospices and residential homes. Loneliness – especially among the elderly – is growing. Members devote time to visiting housebound people to prevent them feeling isolated. Support may include doing shopping, decorating, gardening, filling in official forms and ensuring they receive their statutory benefits. Our SVP provides taxis for Sunday Mass, First Friday Masses and the monthly Parish Lunch. We hold an Annual Party New Year Party each January.
Does the SVP help developing countries?
SVP have a Twinnage programme for financial support from UK groups directly to SVP members in developing countries. England and Wales SVP groups are twinned with India, Grenada, Guyana and Sudan SVP groups. Members there provide “first aid” and finance projects for schemes to make local populations self-sufficient, e.g. providing bicycles, sewing machines, animals, loans for businesses or digging wells.
Kendal is twinned with an Indian SVP group.
What can I do for SVP?
- Pray for us
- Encourage us
- Tell others about our work
- Join us
- Donate money and/or furniture or household goods
Raymond Daley, SVP President. 01539 720985. jraymonddaley@gmail.com
Prayer Group
On Wednesday evenings a group of people meet in the parish centre to pray together. We sing God’s praises and pray to deepen our relationship with Jesus especially through praying with scripture. We pray for one another and intercede for others, including for all in this parish. The Holy Spirit is our guide and we encourage the use of the gifts of the Spirit.
We have continued to meet for over 30 years with many different people being part of these prayer meetings, some from other places or Christian traditions. All are welcome.
We have reached out to others, particularly by offering prayer ministry to any who would like to bring particular needs before Jesus. This has taken different forms, including special services of prayer for healing, and there is now prayer ministry after the 10am Sunday Masses.
“Baptism in the Spirit”, a prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals, is at the heart of this renewal movement. We have offered this many times over the years, in the context of Life in the Spirit Seminars.
The prayer meetings in Kendal are part of a world wide movement known as Catholic Charismatic Renewal, an expression of the Holy Spirit moving in the church, after Vatican II and similar movements of the Spirit in other churches. This work of the Spirit is expressed in a variety of ways in different contexts. Our desire is to help others to have their Christian lives renewed by an experience of the Holy Spirit who equips us with gifts for service and mission.
Justice and Peace Group
We work in the cause of justice and peace by supporting many groups. These include:
- Organising the sending of Christmas Cards for prisoners of conscience, who are imprisoned overseas.
- Raising awareness of the importance of environmental issues as they impact on our lives as individuals and members of the parish community and the things we can all do to conserve energy and resources and to reduce the carbon footprint.
- Supporting silent witnesses to global causes such as protesting against the war in Iraq (2007); commemorating the events at Hiroshima (2009) and government spending on nuclear weapons such as Trident.
- Arranging visiting speakers to talk on peace activism, for example, Pat Gaffney from Pax Christi.
- Promoting initiatives such as Fair Trade Fortnight within the church community.
- Observing Peace Sunday, Remembrance day or other special days, in Mass or in peace liturgies and reflection time.
What we believe in, our rationale.
We embrace the vision of Pax Christi and all that this international Christian organisation stands for:
“Pax Christi is an international Christian peacemaking movement based on the gospel and inspired by faith. Our vision is of a world where people can live in peace and without fear of violence, in all its forms. We believe in the power of prayer, reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and nonviolence and of the right to live in a culture which promotes these values and treats the whole of God’s creation in a respectful and just manner”.
Oratory
All Catholic parishes are Eucharistic Communities. The clergy and people of this parish, wanting to express their belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, use an Oratory (a Prayer Chapel), attached to the Priest’s House.
In this Oratory, the Blessed Sacrament is exposed between the hours of 7am and 9pm, Monday to Friday, except when Mass is being celebrated in the main Church.
The Chapel has been open for many years. It can seat 8 people and there is a rota of those who are prepared to give an hour once (and sometimes more often) each week. However, anyone is welcome to spend any length of time in the Chapel.
Access is gained via a keypad, the code for which is available from our parish priest.
Overseas Aid Group
In about 2001 a group of our parishioners, having, for some years directed their efforts to supporting CAFOD, felt that the Parish needed to be more closely involved with and aware of the causes we were supporting and so formed the Parish’s own Overseas Aid Group, the O.A.G., in order to have some personal contact with and feedback from the recipients.
Parishioners were asked to propose deserving causes to be helped for a limited period of say three years or a target of an agreed sum for each project before moving on to a fresh cause.
Over the years the O.A.G. directed the generosity of our parishioners at around £6000 each year. We have also benefitted from extremely generous bequests that have allowed us to make more substantial donations. Examples include:-
The Hodova Refugee Village, £1000, The Little Way Association,£6000, Jospice £3000, Aid to the Church in Need, £3000, Mary’s Meals (Haiti), £6000, Sr. Julie (Notre Dame Society) £6400, Society of the African Missions, £6000, the Pakistan Flood Disaster via Aid to the Church in Need. £5100.
The O.A.G. meet on a very informal basis as the need arises but we’re all getting older. How about joining us in these, so rewarding endeavours?
Eucharistic Ministers
As extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion the team of Eucharistic Ministers assist with the distribution of the Body and Blood of Christ both in the Church and by taking Communion to the sick in the community.