The church is open all day from dawn till dusk. Have you seen it, apart from on Sunday? SUNDAY OCTOBER 19TH 2003 29TH WEEK OF THE YEAR Mahatma Gandhi on Prayer: "I am neither a man of letters nor of science, but I humbly claim to be a man of prayer. It is prayer that has saved my life. Without it I would have lost my reason long ago. If I did not lose my peace of soul, in the midst of my many trials, it is because of the peace that came to me through prayer. One can live several days without food, but not without prayer. Prayer is the key to each morning, and the lock to each evening. It is a sacred alliance between God and us. Let everyone try this experience, and they will find that daily prayer will add something new to their lives, something which cannot be found elsewhere." |
Counters this week: Gerry Doherty and Margaret Nicklas.
Next week: Sheena Pike and John McNicholas.
"Dear God…" Thousands of letters sent each year to God end up in a sorting office in Jerusalem, it emerged this week. According to Associated Press, the letters arrive from all over the world in the city's undeliverable mail department. "We have hundreds of thousands of letters sent to either God or Jesus Christ and for some reason they all come to Jerusalem," said a Post Office spokesman, Yitzhak Rabihiya. In one letter an Israeli man asked God for 5,000 shekels (£677) to ease his poverty. Postal workers were so moved that they sent him 4,300 shekels (£582). "After a month the same person writes again to God," Mr. Rabihiya explained, "but this time he writes: ' Oh, thank you God for the contribution, but next time please don't sent it through those postmen. They're thieves; they stole 700 shekels'."
Autumn Fayre: As I write this the Fayre hasn't actually taken place, but your response over the past week in bringing in items has been wonderful. And no "rubbish" either! All we pray for now is a good turnout on Saturday morning to help us get rid of all the stuff! Maybe Phil Jackson's running off to the Eden Project with half the parish (thanks Ray!) has galvinised the rest of us and especially Linda who has taken on Phil's mantle (just for this year, Phil, take note!). But thanks again for your support and the profits will go to our twinned parish in Sierra Leone and the St. Charles' Drop-in Centre who are always in need of funds and foodstuffs.
Parish Quiz: Our annual Autumn Quiz evening will take place on Friday October 24th at 7.30 p.m. in the Priory Room. Questions for all levels and topics are promised! Please bring your own drinks and nibbles will be supplied. It'' always a good fun evening, and not taken too seriously! See you there?
Tuesday Evening Mass returns to the normal time of 7.00 p.m. this week after the revised time of 6.30 p.m. for the past four weeks. The series of talks on different aspects of prayer ended last Tuesday with Fr. Colman Ryan and he was wonderful, one of the best talks we've heard for a long time. Holy Cross was well represented throughout the month, as usual!
Martin House Hospice: There will be a Coffee Morning in St. Mary's Church Hall on Thursday 30th October from 10.00 a.m. till noon (half-term week). Admission is 60p and there will be the usual Martin House goods, Christmas cards, Cake Stall and Raffle. Anyone who would like to bake a cake for the stall would be greatly appreciated as more cake makers are needed! Just deliver it on the day or speak to our parish contact, Sheila Cundy on 845342.
Wanted! Handyman for all sorts of jobs – fair rate, for a parishioner. (And scored out on her note was 'must be 6 foot tall and good looking!'). I have the details if you're interested.
November Dead List: November is the month of the Holy Souls when we remember especially our deceased relatives and friends. As we do every year, there are forms in the porch for you to take home, write on the names of all those whom you wish remembering at Masses during the month, then return then during the next couple of weeks. Please do not enclose any money with the forms. Just leave them on the altar.
Cemetery Sunday: Another Holy Cross tradition when we visit and bless the graves in Eppleworth Cemetery. This year we will do it on Remembrance Sunday, November 9th. We'll gather in the cemetery at 3.00 p.m. and we should be finished by 4.00 p.m. Each year we have around forty people with us and we always end with prayers at the grave of Fr. McEntegart who was the first parish priest of Holy Cross from 1939 – 1957. He died at Cottingham on October 20th 1957. May he rest in peace. Amen.
Sick Parishioners: Please continue to remember in your prayers Claire Britton who had her first eye operation during the week and is awaiting an operation on the second. Marian Hall's eldest sister Kathleen Doherty had a coronary during the week and is in hospital intensive care over in Derry. Pat and John McNicholas's son-in-law Michael Yates is recovering after an operation. Also Marion and John Boland, John Gavin, Veronica Homan, Phil Norton, Mary Davidson's brother Chris, Pat Falvey, John Andrews, Roy Caley, Margaret and Peter Price, Mary Guazelli, David Parkinson, Doreen Fletcher, and Patrick Hanson.
Birthdays: Patrick Gorman will celebrate his 33rd Birthday this coming Thursday and Euan Fuller had his last Tuesday.
"A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to 'honour thy father and thy mother', she asked, 'Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?' Without missing a beat, one little boy answered, 'Thou shalt not kill.'"
Anniversaries this coming week:
Saturday – Mark Morkos (Angela's dad).
Monday – Fr. Tomas McEntegart and Peter Gilson (Betty and Dennis' son).
Tuesday – Rose Heenan.
Thursday – Joan Atkinson, Michael Woods-McConville (Tony's brother), John Wood (Brian's brother), Frank Tolhurst (Diana Ormiston's dad) and Winnie Bainbridge (Pat Wright's mother).
Friday – Elsie Crawford.
Sunday – Patricia Cook.
Letter the The Times: "Sir, Whilst staying with friends in Rome recently I was assured that the only safe way to approach a pedestrian crossing was to mingle with a group of nuns. Seemingly, Italian drivers regard it as unlucky to run over a nun." (Is that right, Peter?).
Diary Date: Saturday November 29th at the Civic Hall. The Hull Lourdes Sick Fund are arranging a dance with a Live Band, Red Square, who, take it from me are excellent and who play a mixture of Blues and Rock n' Roll. An absolutely wonderful night is guaranteed! It starts at 8.00 p.m. and the tickets will be £5. It's all for a very good cause!
Lourdes Youth Pilgrimage 2004: May 27th – June 4th. It's that time again! Have you thought about coming with us? As usual the parish will pay half the cost for each young parishioner. The total cost will be about £320 which makes it £160 to you! Spread the word among your friends at school. Maybe their parishes will help subsidise them too? Normally we take from Year 8 upwards but exceptions will be made for 'mature' Year 7's (if we have any of them!).
A man asks his Guru, "Do you have anything that stops the aging process?" The Guru responds, "Sure, what kind of disease would you like?"
"Have you heard of the dyslexic cow Buddhist who attained enlightenment? It kept on repeating OOOOMMM!"
"A little girl became restless as the priest's sermon dragged on and on. Finally, she leaned over to her mother and whispered, 'Mummy, if we give him the money now, will he let us go?'"
| "They hold beliefs that affront rationalist orthodoxies and their leaders preach a code that clashes with the values of the contemporary West. In recent years, a tiny minority of them perpetrated some monstrous and well-publicised outrages upon the innocent, and now it is common for them all to be looked on with suspicion or scorn. For however many generations they might have live din this country, they will always be seen as essentially foreign." I am writing, of course, about Roman Catholics. Recently Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Birmingham, issues a public protest at the manifestation of growing prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church. He complained of either 'malice towards the Church' or 'a total lack of judgment or of managerial responsibility within the BBC News and Current Affairs Department'. He says it has involved 'unscrupulous reporters trying to recirculate old news' to make programmes about clerical sex abuse that are 'biased and hostile'. He complained that the BBC plans to mark the Pope's Silver Jubilee and the beatification of Mother Teresa with a Panorama programme called 'Sex and the Holy City'. He laments that the BBC has a satirical cartoon called Popetown in the pipeline. 'These are offensive initiatives,' he says. Of course they are. They are meant to be. The liberal establishment despises the Catholic Church because the Church is a living rebuke to the materialism through which we allow ourselves to be controlled. The Church tells us we have the choice of doing good or ill; the World offers us the 'right to choose' to do anything we want – so long as it doesn't get in the way of anyone else's right to exercise theirs."
"Under such an inversion of the moral order, society becomes an accommodation of selfishnesses, family life is reduced to conjugal anarchy and the pursuit of pleasure replaces happiness and joy. Sex is not for love, but for shared gratification; one is not blessed with children, one chooses to have them when it is convenient. This isn't what the masses want to hear and yet this is what the Pope repeatedly tells them. Of course, he is not the only spiritual leader to see things like this, but the Pope is a high-profile figure and the Pope is (and usually has been) a foreigner. This has always counted against him in this country – at least, it has done so since the English Reformation. Here, anti-papal prejudice runs deep, and it frequently bubbles unpleasantly to the surface. These days, to mention that our Prime Minister has been seen attending Mass with his wife is usually to slight him; it is thought to be somehow not quite British to scuttle about in the half-light of Westminster Cathedral's Byzantine interior when there is the open, four-square Abbey up the road. And I cannot be the only Catholic to have noticed that when my religion comes up in conversation, I often notice a little tremor of the eyebrow of my interlocutors that seems to say 'Ah – so you're not really one of us'. Not least of the reasons for seeing me and other practising Catholics as outsiders is that we certainly have some pretty grim recent history to live down. Catholics, of necessity, consort with priests; unfortunately, the word most people associate with priesthood these days is not piety, but paedophilia. But it is a good thing for Catholics to feel uneasy. No Christian should fit too comfortably in this world, for the Christian goal is not material success here, but happiness in the next. The Archbishop should take heart. The fact that his Church is mocked and reviled by those that espouse the secularist agenda is a sign that it is doing its job." (Michael McMahon, The Times, Sept 30th 2003) |
One World Week: The churches in the village are celebrating this with a Party and Quiz at the Methodist Church on Thursday October 23rd at 7.00 p.m. Tickets will be £2. The quiz is being set by Peter O'Reilly (for a consideration he might….?).
Parish Prayer Circle Intention for Friday: "We remember all those people who once were able to be with us at Mass and who now depend on the generosity of parishioners to bring them Holy Communion, that they may still feel themselves to be part of the community of Holy Cross."
Bricks: We're having a late run on them, but don't leave it too late or you might be disappointed! We'll have to send off the order fairly soon and then that's that! When the wall is built it'll not be a question of 'Pink Floyd' – 'Just another brick in the wall'. When the wall is done, it is done!
Parish Walsingham Pilgrimage: Twenty-five people so far have signed up for what will be a very enjoyable weekend away. It will culminate in the Walsingham Carol Service at the Shrine on the Sunday afternoon. We have also planned trips to Wells-next-the-sea and other sights as well. There is still time to get your name down. It only costs £50 and includes all meals.
Parish Insurance Premiums 2003/2004:
Sum Insured Contents Premium
Church 453,442 33,140 851.09
House 132,781 37,216 297.35
Fr. Tony's house 94,468 316.24
Total payable including Premium Tax 1,550.88
August 31st 1962 September 2nd 1962 April 25th 1971
Do any of these dates have any special significance for you or for any of your family? If so, have a word with me and I just might have something special for you! First come, first served!
C.S. Lewis: 6.30 p.m. Mass versus 10.00 a.m. Mass. And the result? 6.30 – 2 10.00 – 18 (including one Malcolm Muggeridge!). You make up your own minds!
More from Tony "Ginger" Simmonds:
Singing Day with Christopher Walker: He is one of the most prolific writers of modern church music today and we are very lucky to have come to St. Anthony's on Tuesday January 6th from 9.30 a.m. until 3.30 p.m. John Wright has organised the day. The Catholic Primary Schools in the area are using the day as a Training Day and paying the costs, but the day is open to all. It would be useful to have some idea of numbers. There is a sheet to sign in the porch.
Our Pastoral Area is having a meeting at St. Anthony's on Wednesday November 12th at 7.30 p.m. to look at the topic: "The Church in Hull in 2010, with specific reference to our own area where at least one of the churches will be closed in the next few years." If you'd like to attend have a word with me. Each parish is asked to put forward about four representatives for the meeting.
Catholic Chaplaincy Event: Next Sunday at 7.45 p.m. the guest speaker will be Fr. Michael Coleman S.M.
Alpha Programme: There are two series running in the parish. Wednesday evening in the Priory Room at 7.00 p.m. with a meal, and Thursday morning at Shirley and Tony's, 1, Arlington Ave. Tel: 842285. Aralda produced the meal on Wednesday and what a meal it was! And she wants to come back and do it again. And we are also indebted to Brian for coming along and doing the washing up!
The Journey in Faith Programme is now on a Thursday evening at 7.30 p.m. in the house. Sorry, no meal!
Mass Intentions for the coming week:
Saturday – 6.30 – Tony Coyle (RIP)
Sunday – 10.00 – Betty and Robert Carvlin
Monday – 9.00 – Bridget Downey
Tuesday – 7.00 – Edna May Holwell
Wednesday – 9.00 – Alf Nolan
Thursday – 9.00 – Special Intention
Friday – 9.00 – Gerry Bloor
Saturday – 9.00 – The Parishioners
Saturday – 6.30 – George Formby
Sunday – 10.00 – Doreen Reekie