St Teresa & St John Southworth Churches, Cleveleys
Fr Chris Cousens—Phone: 853340
Rev Bernard Ward (Deacon) (Tel: 858346)
Enquiries for St John Southworth: Phone: 853340
4 September 2022
http://www.st-teresas-church.co.uk
Email: st.teresas.cleveleys@gmail.com
Lancaster Roman Catholic Diocesan Trustees Registered Charity Number 23433
Sunday : The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Contents: Gospel
Notices
Reflections for the coming week
Gospel: Luke 14:25-33
Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned and spoke to them. ‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brother, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
‘And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, the onlookers would all start making fun of him and saying, “Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish.” Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who advanced against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace. So in the same way, none of you can be my disciples unless he gives up all his possessions.’
Gospel Reflection : Gospel Reflection : “There May Be Trouble Ahead”
This Sunday’s Gospel is troubling. Does Jesus really expect us to hate our families, friends and even ourselves, in order to be his followers? The call to ‘hate’ our family is not to be taken literally.
It is a call to break free from any habit or relationship that is holding us back. We could reflect on a time when we gained a significant new insight or began a new phase in life. We may find that it involved letting go of something we were attached to. Attachments can cause all sorts of suffering in our lives, and moving on from what we find comfortable can be painful, but that is how we grow.
There is something far-reaching in all of this. In his Document “Laudato Si’ ” – On Care InOur Common Home – Pope Francis calls each of us to become ‘painfully aware’ of what is happening to our world. We know that the past two hundred years of ‘development’ have caused widespread destruction of our planet, altering the very fabric of our ecosystems. Levels of consumption by humans are out of control. We have not considered the full cost of building the ‘tower’ Jesus talks about in today’s Gospel.
The Season of Creation, which began on September 1st and runs through to October 4th, is a time to reconnect with the beauty of creation so that we can set out on more sustainable paths. This involves breaking away from systems which harm our environment and the most vulnerable, and embracing a gentler way of walking on this earth. It requires a change of heart so that we can set out on new paths. Pope Francis tells us “Truly, much can be done!” So, during this Season of Creation let us pledge to do one small thing in our own lives to help care more deeply for our common home.
“There may be trouble ahead” but “Let’s face the music and dance!”
We Remember In Our Prayers Trevor Caine, Betty McCafferty and Michael Holden whose Funerals were last week, and Vittorio Scannapieco whose Funeral Service is in the chapel at Poulton New Cemetery, on Friday 9th September at 1 pm, prior to burial in that cemetery. We remember them and their families, and all those whose anniversaries are at this time. May they be in God’s peace.
We Welcome Into The Family Of The Church George Francis Walsh whose Baptism takes place this Sunday at St. Teresa’s.
We Congratulate And Pray For Every Blessing for Canon Alf Hayes, the Parish Priest of St. Wulstan’s, Fleetwood, who last Friday celebrated the 50th Anniversary of his Ordination to the Priesthood.
The Relics of St. Bernadette of Lourdes are coming to the Cathedral in Lancaster, beginning on the morning of Thursday, 22nd September, at 8.30 am, and going through the night (!) until the departure for Carlisle on the morning of Friday 23rd, at 6.am. Please see the notices at the back of both our churches for the full list of events taking place in the Cathedral at that time. There is a website for this national visit of relics. Please go to www.st.bernadette.org.uk
100 Club Winners for August :
Maura Brogden £15; Lorraine McLoughney £10; Peter Bradley £5
We Remember In Our Prayers Trevor Caine, Betty McCafferty, Michael Holden whose Funerals were last week, and Vittorio Scannapieco whose Funeral Service is in the chapel at Poulton New Cemetery, on Friday, 9th September at 1 pm. We remember them and their families, and all those whose anniversaries are at this time. May they be in God’s peace.
Help Needed : Can anyone please consider the role of cutting the grass at St. John Southworth church? The task takes about two hours every two weeks, using a sit-on, motorised lawn-mower. If you are at all interested please phone Graham on 01253 854368 or 07892 939344.
The Sacrament of Confirmation for both St. Teresa’s and St. John Southworth parishes will take place on 11th November, at St. Teresa’s. This is for young people who will be in Year 8 in High School this September, and for anyone in the years above. There is an introductory meeting for the young people who wish to be Confirmed, and their parents, on Thursday, 6th October, at 6.30 pm in St. Teresa’s Church. Although contact is being made through Cardinal Allen R.C. High School, there may be other young people at other secondary schools who would like to be Confirmed. Would anyone wishing to be Confirmed please contact Fr. Chris (01253 853340).
Hiring St. Teresa’s Parish Hall : It is now possible to hire St. Teresa’s Parish Hall for some event of your own. For availability and advice please contact the Hall manager, Mike Holderness, on 01253 827230 or 07872 680645.
Education Mass at St. Peter’s Cathedral, Lancaster LA1 3BT on Friday, 7th October at 6.30 pm : All parishioners are invited to join Bishop Paul at the annual Diocese of Lancaster Education Mass. This invitation extends in a special way to all those involved in education and faith information – teachers, including those who teach outside the Catholic sector, catechists, youth workers, deacons and priests. The celebration gives us the opportunity to express our thanks and acknowledge the contribution made by all those in the Diocese involved in the work of education and formation in the faith. Together we also ask God’s blessing on the mission of education and formation in our Diocese. Please put the date in your diaries.
Daily Reflections for this week
Monday (C.S.Lewis)
For it is not so much of our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it is not even all our time and all our attention; it is ourselves. He will be infinitely merciful to our repeated failures; I know no promise that he will accept a deliberate compromise. What cannot be admitted is the idea of something that is “our own,” some area in which we are to be “out of school”, on which God has no claim. For he claims all, because he is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless he has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, he claims all. There’s no bargaining with him.
Scripture (Luke 14:25-31,33)
Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them. ‘Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and their own life too, cannot be my
disciple. No one who does not carry their cross and come after me can be my disciple. And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see that they had enough to complete it? So in the same way, none of you can be my disciples without giving up all that you own.
Tuesday (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
And what do we learn from Jesus about the content of discipleship? Follow me, run along behind me! That is all. The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered. The disciple is dragged out of his relatively security into a life of absolute insecurity, from a life which is observable and calculable into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous, out of the realm of the finite into the realm of infinite possibilities
Scripture (Romans 11:33-36)
How rich and deep are the wisdom and the knowledge of God! We
cannot reach to the roots of his decisions or his ways. Who has ever known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his adviser? Who has ever given anything to him, so that his presents come only as a debt returned? Everything there is comes from him and is caused by him and exists for him. To him be glory for ever! Amen.
Wednesday (St. John of the Cross)
A blind person, if they are not totally blind, will not commit themselves wholly to their guide, but because they see a little think a certain road is secure, not seeing another which is better. The soul, if it leans upon any understanding, sense, or feeling of its own is most easily led astray or hindered. For the more importance the soul attributes to what it understands, and the greater the estimation it holds it in, whether it be spiritual or not, the more it detracts from the supreme good. On the other hand, the less it esteems all that it may have in comparison with the supreme good, the more does it magnify and esteem the supreme good, and consequently the greater the progress towards it.
Scripture (Matthew 16:21-23,24)
Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and the chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day. Then, taking him aside, Peter began to rebuke him. ‘Heaven preserve you, Lord,’ he said, ‘this must not happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because you are thinking not as God thinks but as humans do.’
Thursday (Cardinal Newman)
O my God, give me your grace so that the things of this earth and things more naturally pleasing to me, may not be as close as you are to me. Keep my eyes, my ears, my heart from clinging to the things of this world. Break my bonds, raise my heart. Keep my whole being fixed on you. Let me never lose sight of you; and while I gaze on you, let my love of you grow more and more every day.
Scripture (John 17:13-17)
Jesus said, ‘Father, now I am coming to you and I say these things in the world to share my joy with them to the full. I passed your word on to them, and the world hated them, because they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from evil. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth’
Friday (A Carthusian)
The mist, the darkness, the anxiousness are all part of the divine plan which leads to the supreme light. A soul which sees nothing but darkness but says to Him: ‘My God, I see nothing, but because you tell me that this darkness is your light, I believe it. Everything in me tells me the contrary, but I give up this “me” and listen to you rather than to it’: such a soul puts God in his true place – first. It is clear that this is the hardest sacrifice of all. Let him deny himself. Believe, then, in this topsy-turvy world in which we have to live, in this world so bereft of peace and so far from God – above all in our soul, that soul so crushed –
GOD IS PRESENT.
Scripture (Wisdom 9:13-18)
What human being can know the intentions of God? And who can comprehend the will of the Lord? The reasonings of mortals are unsure and our intentions unstable; for a perishable body presses down the soul, and this tent of clay weighs down the mind with its many cares. It is hard enough for us to work out what is on earth, laborious to know what lies within our reach; who, then, can discover what is in the heavens? And who could ever have known your will, had you not given Wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from above? Thus have the paths of those on earth been straightened and people have been taught what pleases you, and saved, by Wisdom.
Martin Bennett