33rd Sunday of the Year- 18th November 2012

Earworms There was a fascinating programme on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago about earworms which are the tunes that get stuck in your head for days on end. My current ones are “You are my heart’s desire” (which must be quite disconcerting for people ringing the door bell) and “Its getting better” by the Mamas and the Papas. Mama Cass of the group was not the slimmest person in the world so the fact that her singing is in my head seems apposite since the phrase, “It ain’t over ‘til the fact lady sings” comes to mind. This is because as I mentioned last week, with this “Commitment Weekend” our parish completes the Growing in Faith campaign to help secure the future of the diocese. Our parish was set the goal of raising £220,000 over five years. To date, with 46 pledges of an average £2200, our total stands at a staggering £106,000. I am in awe of your generosity and thank you very much for supporting our own parish project, our priests and the poorest and most needy in our diocese. We have tried to contact everyone so by now most of you should have received a pack in the post and a telephone call from me or a member of our volunteer team and I would like to express my thanks to the members of that team for their support and the time they have committed to the campaign. If you haven’t heard from us, I apologise for the failure of our record system but invite you to make a pledge nonetheless. I realise that the figures that we are asked to give you can seem quite staggering at first but I would remind you that they amount to a total pledge over a five year period. For example £1800 is a daunting figure but it breaks down to £1 per day (the price of as Sainsbury’s egg and cress sandwich) over the 60 months. Incidentally, given our Mass attendance, if everyone in the parish pledged £1 per week we would reach our target! Thank you all for considering how you can participate in Growing in Faith and to all who have made it such a success. Please continue to pray for it. Now, back to my earworm, “And its getting better, growing stronger…” Fr Kevin