Education Sunday
This weekend we celebrate and recall the Church’s mission in schools and colleges. The Church provides education through the generosity and creativity of teachers, teaching assistants and governors. Through their witness the Gospel is spread in word and deed. Please pray for your local Catholic schools and colleges. Today, there will be a retiring collection for the Catholic Education Service which supports the work of Bishops and Dioceses in Education.
Table Top Sale and Raffle
Saturday 18th February at Sacred Heart Church Hall from 11.00am to 2.00pm. Refreshments will be served. The sale continues after the Sunday Masses and all proceeds go to ‘Adopt Sri Lanka’ – offering a helping hand to aid the re-housing of the tsunami victims. EVERYONE WELCOME.
Charity Concert
On Friday 28th April there will be a concert at Our Lady of Walsingham Church, Portchester (charity to be announced later). If anyone would like to join in or would like to help in any way, please ring Rose Andrews on 023 9238 8494.
Challenges with a difference!
Emmanuel Healthcare is organising a sponsored bike ride and a sponsored trek. The trek, in aid of Tiyanjane Clinic in Blantyre, Malawi is in October 2006 and starts at St Catherine’s monastery, deep in the Sinai Desert, goes up Mt. Sinai before crossing the desert to the coast near the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea. There will also be an opportunity to visit the pyramids. In May 2007, they will be cycling in Malawi in aid of medical mission projects in Southern Malawi. If you would like to find out more, log on to www.emms.org or see details in the church porch.
Calling
all Lay Ministers of Communion and Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament
You may remember that Father Joe promised that there would be a Day of
Retreat for all Ministers of Communion and Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament.
This has now been arranged and Father John Edwards SJ will be leading
a Day of Reflection at Park Place on Saturday 11th March from 10.00am
to 4.00pm (Mass will be celebrated at 3.00pm). There will be coffee/tea
at 10.00am and a packed lunch at 12.00 noon. We need to know numbers,
so would you please complete the tear-off slip below and return it to
the Parish Office if you wish to attend. This notice will be in the newsletter
for the next two weeks.
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Day of Reflection – 11th March 2006 at Park Place I will be attending the Day of Reflection
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Park Place Lenten Retreat
Sister Frances fsma will be leading a Lenten Retreat, Watch and Pray, on Saturday 11th March at Park Place Pastoral Centre from 10.00am to 4.00pm. Tea and coffee will be provided but you will need to bring a packed lunch. The cost is £15.00. The Retreat will include reflection on our own “watchfulness” in our response to God’s Word in our daily living. There will be time for quiet personal reflection and the Gospel theme will be depicted in Indian Dance during the day.
Contact The Secretary, Park Place Pastoral Centre, Winchester Road, Wickham, Fareham, Hants PO17 5HA to book your place. Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope.
THE UNION
Thought
for the Week
Even today, when leprosy isn’t a common disease in most parts of the world, it still elicits repulsion in us. In Scripture, leprosy referred to any number of skin diseases, but no matter which, the result was the same: exclusion from the community. In a purely physical sense, this was bad enough for it meant isolation and alienation. Jewish law, however, added a further demoralising expulsion. Because one afflicted with leprosy was ritually unclean or impure, he or she was forbidden participation in community worship.
Imagine the sense of alienation and isolation that drives this leper to kneel before Jesus (a posture of submission) and beg to be made clean. Jesus responds to this outpouring of emotion with deep feelings of his own and then does the unimaginable: he reaches out and touches the leper. This touch must have required great compassion on the part of Jesus, so much that it took precedence over the law and Jesus’ own risk of ritual impurity. The leper is healed and then admonished to show himself to the priest, in fulfilment of the law, in order to regain ritual purity and be restored to the worship of the community.
In this gospel the healing hand of Jesus stretches out to an outcast of society – a leper. The leper, having been healed, is compelled “to publicise the whole matter.” Both the actions of Jesus and the leper inform our discipleship: like Jesus, we reach out even to outcasts; like the leper, we proclaim the good news.
From Living Liturgy
Paul Roberts RIP
“Veronica and family would like to thank all those who sent Mass intentions and cards and expressed their condolences, following the death of Paul. We have been overwhelmed by the scale of the response and take comfort from your support. God bless. Veronica”
Vacancies at St Edmund’s Catholic School, Portsmouth
Required with effect from September 2006:
- Teacher of Design & Technology – a Resistant Materials Specialist, conversant with CAD and CAM:
- Part-time Teacher of Religious Education 0.5:
- Male Teacher of Physical Education – an ability to teach KS3 Maths would be advantageous:
- Teacher of Modern Foreign Languages – French and preferably Spanish:
- Teacher of ICT:
- Temporary ICT Technician Scale ¾:
- Playground Assistants:
Please contact reception on 023 9282 3766 for an information pack.
Parish Ecology Survey
PEG will be conducting a survey at all Masses next weekend 18/19th February when they will be distributing a questionnaire.
Visit to PEG
Sue Hand, Fareham Borough Council Recycling Officer will be speaking to PEG on Friday 24th February in Sacred Heart Hall at 7.30pm. All are welcome.
Diocesan
Adviser for Justice and Peace
In the context of the Diocesan Pastoral Plan, ‘Go Out and Bear Fruit’,
Portsmouth Diocese is looking to appoint a part-time paid Adviser for
Justice and Peace. Are you an enthusiastic person with a strong commitment
to issues of justice and peace? Could you work across the Portsmouth Diocese
to encourage and support existing initiatives at all levels and promote
the development of new ones? Could you act as a focal point and provide
co-ordination and support through developing and leading networks of volunteers
involved in these issues? If you have appropriate leadership and organisational
skills and would like to join the friendly team in the Department for
Pastoral Formation, please contact Nicky Stevens, Head of Department and
discuss the opportunity with her. This role calls for a car driver with
access to a car who is prepared to travel around the Diocese. Salary:
£15,000 per annum for 21 hours per week, to include some evening
and weekend work. Closing date for applications is Friday 24th February.
For further details call Nicky Stevens on 01329 835583. For application
forms contact Eileen Stephenson on 01329 835583.
Lenten
Discussion Groups
Witnessing Christ in the Conflict of Life is the topic for Fareham
Lenten Ecumenical Discussion Groups. Portchester Ecumenical Groups will
also be having Lenten Discussions but the topic has yet to be decided.
Applications for the Fareham Groups are available at the back of the church
and need to be returned by Tuesday 7th March at the latest. The Groups
are small and these discussions are lively and home based in comfortable
surroundings.
St Jude's
RC Primary School
Current newsletter here
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6th Sunday of the Year 11th/12th February 2006
The Year of St Mark |
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GIFT
The next session of the Bible Course takes place on
Wednesday 15th February
at St Jude’s School
7.30 – 9.30pm
The theme is “Songs and Prayers of Israel: the Psalms”
Diocesan
Year Books
These are now available from the Repository and cost £3.50. The
Year Book contains details of Mass times throughout the Diocese, some
interesting photos and much more. Get your copy today!
The Adoration
of the Blessed Sacrament
Contacts:
Contacts: Fareham - Lily Peach on 077 678 98885, Portchester
- Veronica Reeves on 023 9237 2864 or Rose Andrews on 023 9238 8494.
Help Wanted
Would you like to arrange the flowers at St Philip Howard Church? Someone is urgently needed to take on this important role. If you feel able to help, please contact the Parish Office as soon as possible.
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Pope Benedict’s Message
I address my cordial greetings to them………..and I again express my appreciation of the work they do so that life will always be welcomed as gift and supported with love. In the light of my recent encyclical on Christian love, I would like to emphasise the importance of the “service of charity” in supporting the promotion of human life. In this connection, even before undertaking operative initiatives, it is essential to promote an appropriate “attitude to the other.” The culture of life is based, in fact, on attention to others, without exclusions or discriminations. “All” human life, as such, is worthy of and calls for always being defended and promoted. We know well that this truth runs the risk of being contradicted…..in the so-called welfare societies: Life is exalted while it is enjoyable, but there is a tendency to stop respecting it when it is sick or experiences some kind of disability. Beginning, on the contrary, from profound love for every person, it is possible to apply effective forms of service to life: both the nascent as well as that marked by marginalisation or suffering, especially in its terminal phase. The Virgin Mary received with perfect love the word of life, Jesus Christ, who came into the world so that men “may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). We commend to her women who are expecting a child, families, health agents and volunteers committed in different ways in the service of life.” |
Below is an extract from Pope Benedict XVI’s message for Italy’s Pro-Life Day which was on 5th February.Finance
Offertory Collection - £1561.42
Forthcoming Collection –
12th February – Catholic Education Service
26th February – Catholic Children’s Society
Are
You New?
Are you new to this parish? If you have recently moved to this area, please
fill in one of the 'Are you new?' forms to be found at the entrance to
the church and return this to Father Joe or to the Parish Office. Alternatively
complete our online form.
Interested
in Becoming a Catholic?
A series of meetings and talks takes place each year for those interested
in becoming a member of our Church. If you would like to know more, please
fill in the form and return it to Father Joe, or complete the online
form
