Next week, at the 11am Mass, Bishop Lynch will come to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to a group of young people of the parish. They have our prayers and congratulations. Thanks also to Karl, the Chaplain from St. Matthew Academy who has helped with the classes.
There will be a rehearsal for the candidates at 11.00 on the Saturday morning in the Church: please note that this replaces the original plan to hold a rehearsal on the Friday evening.
I hope that the weather will be fine so that we can have some wine in the garden afterwards.
As always, the Confirmation Mass will be very full. Possibly you may wish to attend another Mass on this Sunday if you normally come at 11.
Today is a day of prayer for vocations to the priesthood. There is a second collection which helps meet the cost of training the future priests of the Diocese.
May is particularly busy this year. On Monday I travel to the College in Valladolid for the meeting of the Trustees. I will be back on Friday evening. I hope that the Bishop may be available for Mass on some of the days but otherwise the Eucharistic Ministers will be able to help. The Ryanair does not operate on Monday so I will go by way of London City airport and Madrid. If the weather is fine, there is a good view along the coast of England before turning south beyond the Isle of Wight.
A prayer for today:
We thank you, Holy Father, for your Holy Name which you have made known to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge, faith and immortality which have made known to us through your servant Jesus. To you be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
I think the Royal wedding will have left some echoes. I am sure that the reading from the Romans will re-appear in some of the weddings and I wonder if the music of Parry’s “I was glad” will become popular. Jerusalem is always a favourite. The gold cope worn by the Dean of Westminster was fantastic but I don’t think that we can manage one of those.
And now some Lewis Carroll:
‘You are old’ said the youth, ‘ as I mentioned before, and have grown uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door-
Pray, what is the reason for that?’
‘In my youth’ said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
‘I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment – one shilling a box-
Allow me to sell you a couple?’
Railway sandwiches are not what they were: this is my version which I take in my tuck box when I set off for railway duties. A long soft roll: butter and add a slice of ham, some slices of cucumber and tomato and a good serving of chutney. A few of these with some strong railway tea help me to keep fit during a long day working on the train.
I have been working on the herb garden again. I am waiting for the parsley seeds to begin to appear. Some mint was moved from the rose bed but did not seem to take very well so I will try again. The rosemary on the pathway has done very well but the herb garden plants has not done so well. The success is the olive tree which is beginning to shoot up: you will recall the problems with some of the earlier versions.
Decline and Fall is a favourite book: do you remember this?: A shriller note could now be heard rising from Sir Alistair’s rooms; any who have heard that sound will shrink at the recollection of it; it is the sound of the English county families baying for broken glass. Soon they would all be tumbling into the quad, crimson and roaring in their bottle-green evening coats, for the real romp of the evening.
And now something serious, from Karl Adam:
The Body of Christ is and must be an organic body, that it works by its very nature in a manifold of functions, and that this is bound together by the one Spirit of Christ into an inner unity; this is the thought of St. Paul and it is the heritage and fundamental principle of the gospel.
Best wishes to you all, Monsignor Nicholas Rothon
Offertory £1010.94