What is freely received is freely given

During our moving and well received week of Mission Fr John Edwards S.J. offered a number of important and succinct leaflets for people to take away. Copies of these are on the tables at the back of Church.

© A green “How to go to Confession.” If you didn’t get the chance to during this week we would strongly encourage you to invite God into your conscience on a Saturday here or at our Advent Penitential Service on Monday 19th. He will be gentle and healing.

© An orange A5 slip of paper with “Cardinal Mercier’s Prayer” (with a com-mentary by Fr John) which the Cardinal, with some reason, claims opens the door to “sanctity and happiness” if said in a particular way each day.

© A yellow A4 sheet on “Indulgences: How can I help the Dead?” explaining this important aspect of the Catholic faith by which we become more close-ly involved in the continual healing work of the Martyrs and other saints’.

© A blue “The Brown Scapular” A4 sheet briefly explaining the meaning of this symbol of devotion to Our Lady which has been so important and born such fruit in second millennium Catholicism. There is also a small white sheet entitled “The Aims of the Association of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.”

© An orange A5 leaflet “The Practicality of Conversion: Following the Church’s teaching on the Marital Act.” This leaflet is aimed at those who find it difficult to live Christian chastity, particularly as articulated by the Church’s prohibition of artificial contraception. It explains and suggests practical ways forward. It is based upon the four leaflets our parish issued shortly after Pope John Paul II died.

Also on the back tables are some very accessible spiritual books by Fr John and others. Monies in the basket provided please.

A Week of Grace

Our centenary parish mission starts today and finishes next Sunday. There will be two main Mission services each day, one in the morning (9:30am) and one in the evening (6:30pm).

BEGINNINGS OF THE PARISH MISSION
The seventeenth century in France saw a spiritual upsurge that marked the life of the Church for a long time; it has been named the "golden age of spirituality." It was a time of reform …… The parish mission movement developed as a result of this reform. In the first decades the missions of the likes of Vincent de Paul had a double aim: to catechize the people in the rudiments of the faith and to have the people begin a new life in Christ by means of a general confession.

FOUR DEFINITIONS OF “PARISH MISSION”
A mission is a preaching event. God's Word is proclaimed through the Bible and Catholic Doctrine. (Redemptorist order)

Nothing else than a continued Redemption, which, by means of His ministers, the Son of God is always effecting in the world. They, in a certain sense, support the Church, preserve her fervour, separate the cockle from the wheat, give strength to the weak, confirm the strong, raise the fallen, banish error, and overcome the wiles of the devil. (From the the Redemptorist’s statutes – inspired by St Alphonsus Ligouri)

A Parish Mission is an opportunity for a parish to set aside a week to deepen and clarify its faith response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A Parish Mission evokes a deeper faith response in the committed members, reawakens and rekindles the faith of the ordinary parishioner, and offers an opportunity to the unchurched and other Christian faiths to share Catholic belief and worship. A Parish Mission offers the community a retreat experience at a local level. (Capuchin order.)Certain special exertions of the Church's pastoral agencies, made, for the most part, among Catholics, to instruct them more fully in the truths of their religion, to convert sinners, rouse the torpid and indifferent, and lift the good to a still higher plane of spiritual effort. (Catholic Encyclopaedia)