Church Schedule

Masses

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Wednesday: 10am - 12noon

Friday: 10am - 11am

Saturday: 10am - 11am

Sunday: 5.15pm - 5.45pm

​Monday & Tuesday: 9:15 am

Wednesday: 7:30 am & 12 noon

Thursday: 9:15 am

Friday: 9:15 am & 6 pm

Saturday: 9:15 am & 6 pm

Sunday: 9 am, 11 am (also livestreamed), 6 pm

Parish Message

28th November 2021

The First Sunday of Advent - a Time to Wake Up!

Today we begin our Advent journey - a time of spiritual preparation for the Coming of Christ. We might think that just means what happened in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, but as we hear in our readings today, we actually begin Advent by looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time. Jesus promised that he will come again in glory to complete God's plan of salvation which was first revealed when he took on human flesh in Jesus. You might think it strange that we begin the new Church year with thoughts of the end of time, but think of it as consulting a map to check if we are heading in the right direction towards the right destination before we start a journey. Jesus says to us all "Wake up! Stay awake!" - look honestly at your life and see in what ways you are going in the wrong direction and to the wrong destination. Don't just sleep-walk your way through life, following the crowd or letting other people make decisions for you - ask God to help you let go/give up of all that is negative and destructive in your life ("Watch yourselves"), wake up to all that is really important in the world ("Stay awake") and tune your life into God's ways and God's will ("Pray at all times").

We might wonder how the end of times (which can seem very distant from our lives!) connects with our everyday lives today. But Jesus teaches that our decisions and actions now will determine whether we will be united with God for eternity at the end of time or not. So we need to seek God today, and live a good and just life today - this is what will help us on that day at the end of time. And if we want to wake up to the reality that there is so much that urgently needs to change and be changed in our world, we only have to think about the terrible tragedy of the drowning of the 27 men, women and children this week while they were trying to cross the English Channel in a flimsy rubber dinghy. This exposes the injustice and inhumanity of so much of our world today. We need to wake up!

Here are some daily prayer resources to help us with our advent journey - https://bit.ly/3D4FOmZ

With blessings and prayers from Fr Richard, Fr Ephrem & the parish team.

God bless,

Fr Richard

“Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.”