Newsletter 23rd August 2014
I am looking forward to next week-end with the Celebration of the 50th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. The exact day is 30th August, but the celebration will be on the Sunday. There will be a special Mass at 11am and afterwards, if the weather is fine, I hope that we can have a shared picnic in the garden. If you can, please bring along something to share. I will provide wine and soft drinks. Pray for fine weather, as otherwise we will have to move to the big hall.
We will need some help to move some chairs and tables to the garden. I suggest that we start work at 2.30 on Saturday – it should take about an hour. Thanks to the team who have offered to help with this – if things go wrong with bad weather on Sunday, could they stand by to move things back to the big hall.
I am sure that you have worked out the Monday of this week is the Bank Holiday and it will be a day for my alternative occupation as a railwayman. I will be not be here at 10am but I hope that the Bishop may be available for Mass.
Lots of Saints at this time of year – Blessed Dominic Barbieri on Tuesday, who received Newman into the Church, St. Monica, the mother of Augustine on Wednesday and Augustine himself on Thursday.
Thanks to all who have already made generous donations to Myra Fund – the first tranche of income will be available early in the New Year and we will need to work out how we can use it for the benefit of the young people in the parish.
The great nephew and his sister are doing very well – they were in Sussex recently staying with their grandparents. The boy is hardly ever to be seen – out with his grandpa all day polishing the cars or off to see the steam engines on the Bluebell Railway. At present the little girl is too small to share in this.
A prayer from St. Alphonsus:
O Holy Spirit grant me the gift of prayer. Come into my heart and grant me the strength not to abandon it because I sometimes grow tired: give me the spirit of prayer, the grace to continue to pray.
A word of advice: rumour has it that the traditional Routemaster buses on route 15 from the Tower of London to Charing Cross will cease to operate fairly soon. A last chance for a ride in normal service: otherwise you will have to wait to the next wedding. In Brighton the other day and intrigued to see a repainted RML operating on one of the local routes.
And now the recipe: cook some green lentils in boiling water until they are soft and drain well. Also cook some long grain rice. Chop and large onion finely and fry until golden brown in some butter. Mix with the rice and lentils and flavour with black pepper and sea salt. This is a good alternative to potatoes.
Some Eliot this week from Four Quartets:
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time is time conquered.
I am reading the biography of Cardinal Bourne at present. His first appointment, as a newly ordained priest was to this parish. It seems that he encouraged the boys who lived at the orphanage to share in the singing of the solemn Mass and at Vespers. His stay was fairly short – 15 months – and he moved to Mortlake. The Parish Priest at the time was Father Thomas Ford and it seems that things were not altogether easy!
Best wishes to you all
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon
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