Newsletter 19th May 2013
Today, on the feast of Pentecost, we commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit on Our Lady and the apostles, gathered in Jerusalem.
After the second reading we will read the Sequence, a special prayer to the Spirit.
From Monday, the calendar of the Church returns to Ordinary time. The green vestments will come out again and will be used until we begin the season of Advent at the end of the year. From Monday the Mass will be from the Seventh week in ordinary time and the Scripture readings will be taken from the first cycle. On Sundays for the next couple of weeks there will be feast days – Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi – until we pick up the cycle of Sundays in Ordinary time once again.
Saturday is the feast of the Venerable Bede, famous for his history of the early English Church. The accuracy of some of his chapters has been doubted from time to time: but certainly it is important as we have nothing else.
Next Sunday we complete our celebrations with the Second set for First Holy Communion at the 11am Mass. Not quite so many as last week, but this year we had take two Sundays as there were so many children. Once again I hope that we will have a fine day.
A splendid day on Wednesday with an invitation to the inauguration of the new Mayor of the Royal Borough of Greenwich. This takes place in the Painted Hall of the Old Naval College. The new Mayor receives the chain of office and is officially installed for the coming year.
After the morning Masses today there will be coffee in the Angelus Room and a chance to sign cards for CAFOD.
The great nephew is beginning to chat away to everybody. He has always been most friendly – but now it is beginning to make sense – frequent requests to his mother to read to him – though she has to return to her text books rather than reading once again the story of James the red fire engine.
I am sure that you would like to read something from Bede’s history today:
At that time, Bosel, the bishop of that province, laboured under such weakness of body, that he could not perform his Episcopal functions; for which reason, this Oftfor was, by universal consent, chosen bishop in his stead, and by order of King Ethelred, consecrated by Bishop Wilfrid of blessed memory, who was then Bishop of the Midland Angles, because Archbishop Theodore was dead and no other bishop ordained in his place.
(This refers to England in the year 680, just after the death of the Abbess, Hilda of Whitby)
And some more Sylvia Plath: from Ariel
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child’s cry
Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow
The dew that flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.
Here is a soup from the Canary Islands. Soak some red and white beans overnight and drain and dry. Mix with some chicken stock cubes and some pieces of boiling fowl, some water and stew very slowly.. Meanwhile. In some olive oil. cook 2 cloves of garlic, a chopped onion and add them to the soup and some bunches of watercress and cook for a further half hour. It can be left to stand overnight and re-heated the next day. Sometimes this is served with pieces of hard boiled egg.
I think you need a prayer after this:
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 longing that you inspire in us may not be stifled by any temptation. We make our prayer through Christ Our Lord.
The works at Victoria have become more and more extensive and it is quite difficult to move around. The railway station is not as bus as it was when the boat trains used to leave for Dover and Folkestone from the Chatham side. The Brighton side is quite busy but the platforms became cramped when they were cut back to make room for the extended concourse. The days when the
Golden Arrow and the Night Ferry as well as the Brighton Belle left from Victoria are long gone.
Best wishes to you all
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon