The tea and chat group will meet again on line, tomorrow Wednesday 8 April at 10.00 am.  Please use the same Zoom link as last week. If you didn’t join us last week, you are warmly invited to join us. Please email the parish office by 9.30 tomorrow morning for the link.  Last week we chatted for about 30 minutes and the general feeling was that it was great to see some new faces when still sitting in the same 4 walls!

This week is Holy Week.

From Monday to Wednesday, we suggest you take some time (ca. 15 minutes or more), each day, to quietly and slowly read and pray with one the first three Songs of the Servants in the Book of Isaiah. They correspond to the first reading at Mass for each of these days.  Suggestions for your daily prayer are available as a written document by clicking on the flyer below:

IESC-Facing-Unusual-Time-Holy-Week (1)

After Easter we will be back with the continuation of The Mass on the World by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

“Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth” (Ps 123 (124), v. 8)

Fr HP

Sing along with Mass today at 11:15 — You can find the words and music here.

Mass will include the Blessing of Palms (in all their various shapes and forms!

See you there,

Fr Ed

When we’re joining in prayers and Masses and Adoration online, it helps if we create Sacred Space — something that appeals very much to our Catholic imagination and culture. Here are some hints and tips that could enhance our prayer environment. Let us know how you get on with these, and send in pics to the parish email address.

• Set aside a small table/corner of your room/shelf in your home
• Light a candle (battery-powered candle with children) during prayer time
• Light a scented candle!
• Have an icon, a holy picture, a bible, a statue in your prayer space
• Write down your prayer intentions and put them in your sacred space
• Place photos of those you are praying for in your sacred space to help you focus
• Turn off mobile phones, and resolve not to check email/messages during prayer time
• If you wish to join in the prayers, print the orders of service and don’t be afraid of joining in at home!
• Invite family members/flat-mates to join you in prayer

If you have more ideas, let us know!

Fr Ed

This Sunday is a Palm Sunday like no other, so we have to get creative! We will, of course, go ahead with blessing of palms at the beginning of Mass… just broadening the definition of palms. Thank you to Nancy for forwarding this idea — we find a branch, any branch, preferably with green leaves. Log in to watch the Mass live on Sunday, and have your branches with you. They will be blessed from a distance. Then, as the article suggests, you can display them in your home, in the window, on your front door, or on the wall.

Equally, you can make a cross with two twigs/branches, tying them together with thread.

Another suggestion which can accompany the one above is to make a palm cross out of paper. I tried this myself, in spite of not being good with paper…

Cut two strips of A4 1cm wide down the length of the paper, and stick them together so they are one long strip of paper 1cm wide. Cut one end of the strip into a point.

Then follow the instructions here (or on any other of the many YouTube videos out there. Then know your crosses will be blessed — and send a pic of your cross/your family celebration/your blessed branch/home-made wooden cross.

We will celebrate together on Sunday!

Fr Ed