Download: This Week’s Parish Newsletter
By MARY CROSBY
Reconciliation, aka confession, is the sacrament of the forgiveness of sin, which has many benefits. Here are ten…
3pm in St. James the Great Community Centre, Petts Wood. This will be followed by refreshments. This service is for all parishioners within the Deanery.
This summer, our Parish Pilgrimage is to to Aylesford. For more information about Aylesford, visit britainexpress.co.uk (England › Kent › Abbeys) or thefriars.org.uk, or download this guide to Aylesford’s chapels. Watch this space for more information on the pilgrimage.
The Bromley Deanery Young Adults Pilgrimage takes place this summer, 8-17 August The cost should be no more than £200. More information: To register your interest and/or book a place, contact Susan Longhurst at susan.longhurst@bromleydeanery.org. For information on the pilgrimage, contact Dr Zofia Bajorekat taize@stjamespettswood.org or click here to find out more about Taize.
By DEACON BARRY MELLISH
St Joseph’s Deacon Barry and his wife, Julia, are taking part in this week’s “Living Below the Line” challenge, which involves spending only £1 each day on food for five days. The challenge reconises that 1.2 billion people live on the equivalent of this every day of their lives. Here, he keeps us updated with his progress.
By Fr TOM McHUGH
“He opened their minds.” These are words of Jesus given to us in the Gospel just now. What might these words mean as we find ourselves in the middle of the general election campaign?
By EDMUND ADAMUS, Director, Office of Marriage and Family Life – Diocese of Westminster
Those of you who have been receiving and reading these weekly ‘thoughts for the weekend’ reflections since the beginning, may recall that I stated the original purpose of them was an opportunity, week by week, in between the Extraordinary Synod on the family (2014) and the Ordinary Synod on the family (2015), to focus some attention on the spirituality of Christian spousal love and family life.
This week marked the solemnity of St. Joseph, much overlooked in my view. His purity and integrity of heart, mind and body is such a wonderful and inspiring model for all of us, especially boys and men. When I think about St. Joseph, the recent words of Pope Francis in his official message for World Youth Day 2015 – “Have the courage to be happy” – echo with me where he declares, “We need to protect the purity of what is most precious of all: our heart and our relationships. This ‘human ecology’ will help us to breathe the pure air that comes from beauty, from true love, and from holiness.”
By FR. TOM McHUGH
Like every parish, St. Joseph’s is a family of families. We all know that families come in different shapes and sizes and that we each belong to one of them. Increasingly, individuals and families feel isolated and sense the need to belong to a support group that will enrich parish and family life.
By DEACON BARRY MELLISH
This case directly concerns myself and others who work or used to work in business and industry. I was a technical consultant working for a computer company involved with the selling of computers and storage systems. By themselves computers do nothing – they are morally neutral, they require people to turn them on and use them. It is how and why they are used that can change this – they can be used for good or evil. The question is, what should I do when I know that the system is being sold to a company whose ethics or purpose is completely opposite to that which I believe in?