St Mary’s Blackheath
Newsletter 6th August 2023
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 is the Eighteenth Sunday of the Church’s year. Instead of the normal Sunday Mass, today we celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration.
The choir is on holiday at present but there will be a said Latin Mass at 11am.
There will be no Mass on Thursday this week as I have to go to the hospital for a small operation. If all goes well, I will be back on Friday.
Tuesday is the feast of St. Dominic and Thursday is the Feast of St. Lawrence. You may be able to find him in a stained- glass window in the Church.
Thanks to all who have returned the forms for the First Communion classes. I will be ordering the books, the crosses, and the other things we need this week. Also, I have to work out the timetable for the classes. They start at the end of September and generally they take place once a month. We have to fit in 11 Classes.
Some sad days for the fig tree. I was over enthusiastic with a spray to kill the bugs, but I seemed to have killed off the leaves. It seem to be recovering slowly and there are some sprouts for new leaves. The sonic beam has protected the herbs and there is a good crop of basil this year.
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.”
(This is a description of the Great Gatsby.)
You will need a prayer after this: it comes from St. Augustine.
Come, Lord, work upon us, set us on fire and clasp us close, be fragrant to us, draw us to your loveliness, let us love, let us run to you. Amen.
And a poem from Kipling:
No prayer of mine shall move him,
No word of his set free
The Lord of Sixty Pennants
And the Steward of the Sea.
His will can loose ten thousand
To seek their loves again –
But not Diego Valdez,
High Admiral of Spain.
I am about to start on a new Baptism Register – Volume 9. The last volume started in August 2012 and there are six hundred entries. Prayers and blessings for all the children who have been baptised and whose names are in Volume 8.
Still no sign of the electric buses on route 108. Possibly there may be some delay in providing charging points at the terminals. The buses themselves are currently at Camberwell garage but are due to move to Morden Wharf in Greenwich.
My mixture for a salad dressing: three parts oil to one part vinegar: a pinch of pepper and salt and a teaspoon of sugar, and on brave days, a sprinkle of curry powder. Put all the ingredients in a glass jar and shake well.
Best wishes to you all,
Monsignor Nicholas Rothon