We have been saying goodbye to Fr Mark for several weeks now since the news first broke that he would be leaving St Edmund’s and moving to Our Lady of Reparation in West Croydon. But this weekend, especially this Sunday when there will be a celebration in the parish hall,
Continue readingThe Life in the Spirit Seminars piloted chiefly by our Parish Priest, Fr Steve Wymer and Christine Parker were a huge success. The support from the parishioners was fantastic. We had in attendance over 170 zealous Christians who participated actively. It was an event that can never be easily forgotten
Continue readingFor many priests, at all sorts of levels, there is something unique and personally awesome about the experience of saying Mass. Priests sometimes reflect that being able to do this is the reason above all why they have become priests; some might think that to die at the end of
Continue readingTUESDAY this week is the feast day of St Benedict, the first saint to be declared patron saint of Europe, by Pope Blessed Paul VI, and for some years he was the only one. Some of you may not know that we have a small statue of him in a
Continue readingTHERE have been many events to mark the centenary of the First World War – its outbreak, back in 2014, and grim land-marks such as the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme last year. These are important as they enable us to reflect on the horror of the war
Continue readingTHIS WEEKEND is the 150th anniversary of the setting up of the Confederation of Canada in 1867 by the British North America Act of Parliament. The picture here shows a statue of the best known of the martyrs of Canada (1649), St Jean de Brébeuf, whose feast day we keep
Continue readingTHIS SUNDAY’S GOSPEL READING opens with the words of Jesus: ‘Do not be afraid. For everything now hidden will be made clear. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops.’ This might be a good reading for whoever
Continue readingThe word altar comes from the Hebrew word, ‘izbeah’ meaning ‘to slaughter’; and Greek ‘Thusaiasterion’ meaning ‘a place of sacrifice’. The altar in the church is a place where the highest sacrifice is made to the Lord. It is a sacred place of divine encounter and interaction. The altar represents
Continue readingTRINITY SUNDAY gives us an opportunity to reflect about the nature of the God whom we worship Sunday by Sunday. For Christianity is bold enough to claim that God has revealed to humanity very deep and intimate aspects of himself: what he is like. This in itself is a big
Continue reading‘If there was ever a time when the feast of the Holy Spirit takes on urgency, I think it is now when we see so much confusion, so many false values of redemption, so much militarism and selfishness, so much hatred and violence. This is a precious moment when we
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