St Alphonse, home of the English-speaking Catholic community in Luxembourg, now has a Facebook page (not to be confused with the French-language St Alphonse page…). Search ‘St. Alphonse –  International Parish of Luxembourg’ and you’ll find it.

I’m not really au fait with FB, but come on, parishioners, you know what to do!

Thanks to Jeannette Jackson of our community for setting up the page. I notice there’s already a posting from today’s Mass.

Fr Ed

The Christian Meditation group meets faithfully every Tuesday in the meeting room in the church of St Alphonse at 6.30pm. Very occasionally there is a pause — there will be no Christian Meditation meeting on Tuesday 28th December. Meetings will resume the following Tuesday and continue as usual. All welcome.

Fr Ed

Our Children’s Liturgy is a vital part of our parish life: children aged from 4-7 (with variations on either side!) have their own class during the Mass each Sunday, re-joining the rest of the community just before the Our Father. For many of these children, this is their only formal religious education, catechising them until they are old enough to join the First Holy Communion class.

The ministry of educating children in the faith through the Children’s Liturgy has been faithfully carried out for many years in our parish — however, happily, we are facing growing pains: we have more children than ever, we are seeking to co-ordinate more closely the catechesis the children receive  in their ‘Sunday School’ with the liturgy their parents are simultaneously receiving in church, and we are implementing safeguarding procedures, necessary for the protection of the children and their teachers.

So that’s the situation — here’s the request: we are looking for catechists, people who have training/experience with passing on the faith to children; and we are looking for parents willing to accompany the catechists: to sit in on classes from time to time.

The more catechists and accompaniers we have, the less often each person will have to serve. At the moment each volunteer serves every 3rd week, but as we grow the number of people available, the less often each volunteer will need to serve.

If you think you might be interested, or if you have any questions, please contact me.

Thank you

Fr Ed

Forgive the universal appeal for a local problem — I lost my keys last weekend — Sunday 13 June, to be exact. In the course of attending to my duties after Mass, I put them down somewhere, and haven’t seen them since. Prayers to St Anthony haven’t as yet helped… In a nutshell, if you remember seeing a bunch of 15 or so keys with a green lanyard/ribbon, can you please let me know?

Thankfully, my most important keys are with me, so the parish can continue to function!

Thanks,
Fr Ed

We received the following report from Judith Golooba on her recent trip to Malawi (photos below) as part of the mosquito net project:

Dear family & friends

You kindly contributed to my “Malawi mosquito net project” which came about after watching a TV programme, where children in Malawi were dying because their families lacked basics like mosquito nets. 

You contributed money or mosquito nets yourself. Well, now I would like to report how I used your money or the mosquito nets you contributed. 

I went to Malawi on 1^st November 2015 and returned on 14^th November. I travelled to Namitete, (a village about 60 km from Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi).  Altogether I collected 100 mosquito nets and € 3,000.00 from individuals and friends in Luxembourg and the UK. (With € 3,000.00 I bought 320 mosquito nets locally in Malawi).

 I was lucky to meet in Luxembourg a Catholic nun, Sister Veronique, who works for the Luxembourg NGO “An Open Hand for Malawi “ working in cooperation with St Gabriel’s Hospital based in Namitete, Malawi. She liked my project and said she would help me find families who most needed nets; and she would show me where I could buy more nets with the money that people contributed. 

When I arrived at the airport in Malawi, a driver from St Gabriel’s Hospital welcomed me and we went straight to  Namitete, where they also provided me accommodation.  

The first thing was to visit two village antenatal clinics. The photos I took of the villages and the women who received the nets are enclosed in this email.  In certain villages I was so touched that I participated in the process of checking blood pressures for some of the pregnant women before distributing the mosquito nets.

(See the photos) 

On the first day 25 nets were distributed. On the second day 75 nets were distributed, the distances were getting longer. The rest of the distribution will be done under Sister Veronique’s supervision when she travels to Malawi in February 2016.  I will keep you informed when they have distributed all the nets I left behind.

“An Open Hand for Malawi” is doing an amazing job in Namitete and the surrounding villages. They have built water holes, which provides locals easy access to clean water! They have built a wonderful medical centre, St Gabriel’s Hospital, which helps treat all in Namitete and beyond. They support a primary school, which only goes to year 6, but are hoping to complete two more buildings so that kids can be educated to year 8, the final stage of primary school in Malawi.

(See the photos)