Sunday 30th June 2013.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The feast was transferred from 29th June to the Sunday.
During the rest of the week, the Masses will be for the 13th week in ordinary time.
At the end of the 9.30 and 11 am Masses today Mr. Michael Barry will speak about St. Matthew Academy, the Catholic School in our parish. Many of you are thinking about schools at present, either for children beginning school of for transfer to a secondary school and I hope that you will take the opportunity to visit St. Matthew’s and to give it your consideration.
The children from class 4W at St. Matthew’s are coming to the Church to share in the 10am Mass on Thursday.
On Saturday afternoon there is a special class in the Angelus Room base on an examination of the Psalms.
Next Sunday there will be the annual Mission Appeal.
Wednesday of this week is the feast of St. Thomas and of course on Thursday we remember to say a prayer for the people of the United States.
A busy week ahead with a meeting of School Governors on Monday, to Lewisham Town Hall on Tuesday and a further Local Authority meeting at Downham on Wednesday.
A special day on Saturday is Mansel Usher is to be ordained to the priesthood in the Catholic Cathedral at Swansea. He will celebrate his first Mass at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Morriston, Swansea on the Sunday. I am sure that you will remember to say a prayer for him.
I hope that it will be possible for him to visit us and to celebrate Mass here later in the summer.
The children at school were learning some Spanish recipes the other day. If there are some warm summer days, you might like to try to make some gazpacho. You will need to put a peeled and chopped cucumber, some skinned tomatoes, some finely chopped onions, some garlic, maybe some chopped green pepper and some white breadcrumbs in a liquidizer. Add some olive oil and a little wine vinegar and maybe a drop of dry sherry. Correct the liquid as necessary and season well. Chill in the fridge, but do not add ice cubes as this wrecks it. Serve with some chopped parsley. (There are many versions, but this is a popular one)
Do you know the Ingoldsby Legends? Here is something from the Lay of St. Cuthbert by R.H.Barham..
Look well to your Maid-servants! Say you expect them
To see to the children, and not to neglect them!
And if you’re a widower, just throw a cursory
Glance in, at times, when you go near the nursery.
-Perhaps it’s as well to keep children from plums,
And from pears in the season – and sucking their thumbs.
I planted some rosemary in the herb garden recently and it seems to be doing well. I am not sure about the thyme and the basil seemed to fail totally. Once again I am having another go at growing basil from seed: cover the plots with plastic sheet, water well and keep in a dark place until the shoots begin to appear. I am trying hard and maybe there will be some shoots to plant out later in the year.
As you probably know, we were not totally happy with the finish to the benches in the Church as some scratches appeared fairly soon. As an experiment, the front benches have been coated with a special hard varnish and they seem to be doing very well. We will see how they survive several weeks of hard work – and if this is successful, we can coat the remainder of the benches.
You will need my solution to the mathematical problem for the width of the carpet in the Lady Chapel. I made it 2656 cms. – what do you think. No cheating by trying to measure it.
I found a picture the other day of the old Departure Board at Victoria station with details of the Golden Arrow and the Direct Orient Express with through coaches to Istanbul. I think it lasted until about 1980. In contrast, the Eurostar is very ordinary.
Best wishes to you all
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon