St Mary’s Blackheath
Newsletter 5th June 2022
Sunday Masses: Saturday 6.30pm first Mass of Sunday
– Sunday 9.30 and 11am and 5pm.
Monday to Friday: Mass 8am.
Saturday 10am and 6.30pm
Confessions: Saturday12 to 1
Today is the feast of Pentecost, fifty days after Easter. We commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit on Our Lady and the Apostles.
We will recite the Sequence after the first two readings. It will be sung at the 11am Mass.
The Easter season is now completed, and we return to the weeks in Ordinary time. This coming week is the tenth week, and the green vestments will appear once again. The scripture readings during the week are taken from the second cycle.
Feasts this week: Monday, Mary mother of the Church, Thursday Christ the eternal High priest and Saturday St. Barnabas.
Next Sunday is the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.
I hope that you have a good week celebrating the Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen. Certainly, memories of some outstanding days.
I always bring back a recipe from the College in Spain: cook some penne pasta. Add some firm pieces of broccoli, some small pieces of fetta cheese, some walnuts and some small croutons cooked in olive oil. A good healthy dish.
Lots of interesting things to do now the Elizabeth line is open; the best way to Heathrow: train to London Bridge, Thameslink to Farringdon and then change to the Elizabeth line. Recent travel experiences suggest that it is best to avoid Gatwick as far as possible.
The herb pots in the garden are doing well, though one or two things were slow and needed to be reseeded. I fear that the birds attacked the early lettuce.
You have probably noticed that one of the glass doors in the Church is not in good order. This is one of the items on the maintenance schedule. Work is due to begin in the middle of this month.
A prayer for Pentecost:
Lord who at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of the Holy Spirit: grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Henry Reed with a parody of Eliot:
Oh, listeners,
And you especially who have switched off the wireless,
And sit in Stoke, or Basingstoke, listening appreciatively to the silence
(which is also the silence of hell), pray not for yourselves but your souls.
And pray for me also under the draughty stair.
As we get older we do not get any younger.
Requests about First Holy Communion classes and also about Confirmation classes. I hope to have the inscription forms available within the next couple of weeks. The classes will start in the autumn.
The apple tree planted by the children this year seems to be doing well. There are some new fresh shoots which shows it has taken root. Maybe no apples this year.
Best wishes to you all
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon