St. Joseph S Newsletter 23Rdapril 2017
St. Joseph’s Newsletter – 23rdApril 2017
Bonus Ball Winner: 45 – Tony Banks
Offertory £1981.71(inc. standing orders)
CAFOD – Next week
Sanctuary Lamp
Fiona Dellar (RIP)
Marian Candle
Jeanne Large
(Special Intention)
Lately Dead
Fiona Dellar (45), John Barnes (91), Jim Range, Gordon Graham, Dorothy Gee, Oliver Seery, Philip Anwyl,
St. Joseph’s UCM
Line Dancing – Wednesday 26th April – Kate Moss and Frances Casey
Wednesday 3rd May – Jessie Whitfield and Cath Gorman
Tickets on sale for ‘Guys & Dolls’ at the Brindley Theatre for the matinee performance on Saturday 20th May. Tickets are £16.30
Please bring your cheque book and pen!
Grandparents Group
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 25th April at 7.30pm in the small meeting room in St. Joseph’s Parish Centre. Please note that Heather Hall’s hand massage demonstration has been postponed to a later date. Please join us for an evening of prayer, chat and a cuppa.
Legion of Mary
Mass will be celebrated at St. Joseph’s on Tuesday 25th April at 7pm. All are welcome to attend.
Mass for the Sick and Houseboundwill be held on Tuesday 16th May at 2pm at St. Joseph’s.
Brightlights Festival is an annual event for Catholic young adults (ages 16-30) taking place June 23rd – 26th in the beautiful grounds of Alton Castle in Staffordshire. Come and join us for a weekend of live music from artists including One Hope Project and Guvna B. To journey together in Faith through liturgy and worship. And to hear simulating input the possibilities of living life: UNLIMITED. To find out more information or book tickets, visit our website: brightlights.org.uk, call 0300 075 0115 or find us on social media: T/FB/IG: BLFestival
Day Trip to Llandudno - Wednesday 17th May
There are some seats available to join the ‘Over 60’s’ Club to Llandudno, leaving St. Joseph’s car park at 10am, returning from Llandudno at 4.30pm. The cost is £12, any enquiries, please call Angela on 728763.
St. Joseph’s Gardening Team
Will be meeting on Saturday, 29th April from 8am onwards.
Usual T’s & C’s apply. All new gardeners welcome.
Gospel Reflection for the Second Sunday of Easter
Moving Mountains
We live in an age where everything has to be ‘seen to be believed’. If we haven’t heard about it in Breakfast News or read it on the front page of ‘The Independent’, then it can’t be true. For a scientist to act in faith rather than on proven fact, or for a detective to make an arrest without hard evidence would be deemed negligent. Faith is the domain of the non-scientific. Faith is reserved for when we follow our hearts and our instincts. The solely scientific see no validation for faith, and yet we are told that faith has the power to move mountains.
The story of ‘Doubting Thomas’ is interesting in that it addresses doubt in the first place. If Jesus wasn’t expecting us to suffer doubts, why address the subject in the first place? We are brought up to think of faith as good and doubt as bad, but would God really want us to bury our doubts and fake our religious experience? For all of us who do not have the benefit of Thomas’s first hand experience, the good news is that doubt and faith are opposite sides of the same coin. Honest doubt can ultimately lead to a stronger faith. Doubt leads to questions, and whereas questions don’t always lead to answers, they almost always lead to spiritual growth.
Today we are encouraged to believe without seeing. No, we’re not being asked to silence our doubts or to leave our brains at the church door! The reality of our faith boils down not to what we are able or not able to believe, but who we believe in. Can trusting Jesus give us faith enough to move mountains?
Fairtrade Online Petition
Take two minutes of your time to sign this important petition
As Brexit moves ahead, all the UK trade deals with the rest of the world will be rewritten.
Liam Fox, the new International Trade Secretary, has already begun informal trade talks with over ten countries. These new deals could be make or break for millions of farmers and workers in poorer countries who grow things we enjoy every day like tea, coffee, chocolate and bananas.
Please sign the Fairtrade Foundation’s petition to Liam Fox, urging him to make the right choices and seize this chance to change trade for good.
Here’s the link you need:
Saint George
"For the Persecuted"
23rd April
When the pagan Emperor Diocletian started persecuting Christians, St. George pleaded with the Emperor to spare their lives. However, St. George's pleas fell on deaf ears and it is thought that the Emperor Diocletian tried to make St. George deny his faith in Christ, by torturing him. St George showed incredible courage and faith and was finally beheaded near Lydda in Palestine on 23rd April, 303.
There is much talk nowadays about the apathy surrounding Saint George's day and about what we should do to celebrate it, but we could do no worse than make St. George's commitment to stand up for the persecuted our own.
To do:-
Support a charity that champions the needs of the persecuted. Starting points might include, ‘The Church in Need’, or the ‘Barnabas Fund’.
St Mark
25th April.
The second Gospel was written by St. Mark, who, in the New Testament, is sometimes called John Mark. Both he and his mother, Mary, were highly esteemed in the early Church, and his mother's house in Jerusalem served as a meeting place for Christians there.
St. Mark wrote the second Gospel, probably in Rome sometime before the year 60 A.D.; he wrote it in Greek for the Gentile converts to Christianity. Tradition tells us that St. Mark was requested by the Roman Christians to set down the teachings of St. Peter. This seems to be confirmed by the position which St. Peter has in this Gospel.
Bitesize
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
~Khalil Gibran
Mass Intentions for week commencing 24th April 2017
Monday24th9.30amNoel Sharratt
Tuesday25th 9.30amCath & John Hankinson
Wednesday26th 9.30amLouisa Morris
12 noonFuneral Service for
Fiona Dellar
Thursday 27th9.30amMartin Watson
Friday 28th 9.30amKath Gilmartin
Saturday 29th
Sunday30th 8.30am Chris Wilkinson
10.30amBill & Barbara Guy
4.00pmPeople of the Parish
Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Joseph’s will follow after 9.30am Mass on Monday until 12 noon. Due to a Funeral Service, there will not be Exposition on Wednesday.
Funerals
There will be a Funeral Service for Fiona Dellar on Wednesday 26th April at St. Joseph’s at 12 noon.
A Requiem Mass will take place on Tuesday 2nd May for John Barnes at St. Joseph’s at 12.30pm