Newsletter 10th March 2024
Sunday Masses: Saturday 6.30pm first Mass of Sunday
– Sunday 9.30 and 11am and 5pm.
Monday to Friday: Mass at 8am.
Saturday Mass at 10am
and 6.30pm
Confessions: Saturday 12 to 1
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Lent.
Already we are half way through Lent and today we use the rose coloured vestments. It is known as Laetare Sunday from the first word of the Latin introit antiphon.
As a Lenten devotion, there are Stations of the Cross at 4.15 this evening.
Next Sunday is the feast of St. Patrick: the parish owns a relic of the Saint and we will bring it out after the Masses so it can be venerated. The relic was bought to the parish from Dublin by the First Parish Priest.
Newsletters are written well in advance, but I hope that by the time you read this I will have returned safely from a visit to the College in Spain.
A busy week ahead with Local Authority meetings at Lewisham and Greenwich. Following the election last week, we should have a new Mayor in Lewisham.
I am beginning to think of Holy Week and the Easter celebrations: the palms have arrived together with the Paschal Candle. If the weather is dry, there will be a splendid fire in the garden at the beginning of the Easter Vigil. Next week the statues in the Church will be covered with the purple veils.
George Herbert again: this time on prayer:
Prayer, the Church’s banquet,
Angels’ age
God’s breath in us returning to our birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage.
An interesting proposal is the extension of the Bakerloo line from the Elephant to Lewisham – and beyond this, to Hayes – presumably the tube would come out of the ground beyond Lewisham station and take over the existing Hayes line somewhere near Ladywell. There would not be room to run tube trains through the existing Lewisham station so the tube station would need to be below the surface.
Of late I have been making a simple dish with some spaghetti, some chopped ham and white sauce made with flour, butter and a little milk. A good filling dish and allowed even in these lean Lenten days.
Thoughts about First Communion and Confirmation classes: the next set of classes will be the responsibility of my successor and he will need to arrange them: later in the year I will simply collect names so that he will have these details in advance.
A Lenten prayer:
We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the desires of thy humble servants. And stretch forth thy right hand, to be our defence against all our enemies, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
A parody of Eliot:
Oh listeners, and you especially who have turned off the wireless,
And sit in Stoke or Basingstoke listening appreciatively to the silence,
(which is also the silence of hell) pray, not for your skins, but for your souls.
Best wishes to you all,
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon