St Mary’s Blackheath
Newsletter 14th August 2022
Sunday Masses: Saturday 6.30pm first Mass of Sunday
– Sunday 9.30 and 11am and 5pm.
Monday to Friday: Mass at 8am.
Saturday 10am and 6.30pm
Confessions: Saturday 12 to 1
Today, instead of the normal Sunday Mass, we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Normally this feast is kept on 15th August but this year it has been transferred to the Sunday.
The only feast this week is St. Bernard on Saturday. In the basilica at Vezelay in Burgundy there is a great statue of Bernard striding off to preach the second crusade. By all accounts it was a total disaster.
I will be ordering the books for the First Communion and Confirmation classes this coming week. Please let me know if there are any further applications.
A question last week about St. Lawrence, whose feast was last Wednesday. He was a deacon and was martyred in Rome 3rd Century. According to a tradition, he was martyred on a gridiron, and this appears in the stained- glass window by the St. Joseph altar.
A very simple salad this week: some finely chopped lettuce, some baby tomatoes, some cubes of cucumber and some black olives. Dress this with some chopped herbs and wine vinegar and oil. It goes well with some cold meat.
be changed from red to blue. No sign of them yet, but there have been some
O God, you make all things work together for the good of those who love you. Kindle the abiding fire of your charity in our hearts, that the longings you inspire in us may be fulfilled.
Some Larkin in his centenary year:
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Here is Peter the Venerable describing the last days of Peter Abelard at the Abbey of Cluny. “Constant at the Sacraments, often in prayer; for ever silent, speaking only with the brethren familiarly at meals, or when urged to speak of divine things in the assembly: even to the last for ever bowed over his books.”
Bonjour, les tenebres, mon copain vieux
J’arrive bavader avec toi autre fois
Pendant que je dormais, une vision, glissant doucement
A laisse ses grains
Et la vision plantee dans mon cerveau
Reste encore
Au sein du bruit de la silence.
Some Merton: Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus.
Some puzzlement at the quiz question last week – it comes from the last page of Lord of the Flies. It seems possible that the Millennials and Generation Z are no longer reading this.
Best wishes to you all,
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon.