Newsletter: January 1st 2012
Greetings and Blessings to you on this New Year’s Day. I hope that it will be a happy and successful year for you all.
Today we keep the solemnity of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
At the 9.30 Mass today the children will present the third part of the cycle of Mystery plays.
Next Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany – not the 6th January (as it should be) but there are moves to bring this feast back to its traditional date of Twelfth Night.
A word of thanks to all who helped in so many ways with our Christmas celebrations in the Church, both in preparing the Church and in the Masses and other services.
Thank you also for your very generous Christmas offerings and your many gifts and cards. Again I would like to thank you all in person but it is not always possible.
Thank you also for the gifts for the Manna Centre and the Centre for Asylum seekers. We have been able to deliver most of them but any left over items will be delivered this week.
The work starts early this year. I am off to Guernsey on Wednesday for a meeting of the Insurance Company. The other day one of the boys was wearing a shirt with the Aon logo. They manage our Company. I thought that it showed an incipient enthusiasm for offshore captives, but it seems it was something to do with football which I did not quite understand.
This year we are pleased to welcome another student from the College in Spain. He will be staying until the end of the month: he is called David Irwin and he comes from Birmingham. I expect that you will meet him at Mass next Sunday.
The Parish Council meets on 11th January and I hope to have agendas for the members next Sunday.
Some railway news: a fly-under is to be constructed at Bermondsey to take the Charing Cross lines under the Brighton line so as to avoid conflicting movements with the Thameslink services. It will use part of the alignment of the old entrance ramp to Bricklayer’s Arms Depot which remained in place. If you look carefully near the power station, you will be able to see that work has started to clear the route for the new lines.
A prayer from St. John Chrysostom:
O heavenly King, O Comforter, O Spirit of Truth, you are present everywhere and fill all things; you are a treasury of blessings, the giver of life; come and abide in us. Cleanse us from all sins, and save our souls, O Good one. Amen.
A recipe for a stewed chicken from Extremadura.
Joint a chicken and brown in some hot lard. Transfer to a cooking pot and add a glass or red wine, a cup of stock, a bouillon cube, a chunk of butter and salt. Allow to bubble on the stove then lower the heat and cook slowly for about one and a half hours, checking form time to time to see if any more liquid is required. You can serve this with some rice.
And an old favourite back again:
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince
Which they are with a runcible spoon.
(which is a fork carved like a spoon with three broad prongs, so quite useful for eating quince).
Another useful word: widdershins is another word for anticlockwise.
A busy month ahead on Education matters. Some of you may know that I have been elected Chair of Governors of Christ the King Sixth Form College. At the St. Matthew Academy, we need to appoint a new Principal. The Chair of Governors and I am Vice- Chair, so there will be a lot to do in the coming weeks.
The new great nephew should be back from Australia this week: I hope to see him soon and to hear the stories of his travels. Not long now and we will be packing him off to school.
Best wishes to you all,
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon.