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
2 October 2022
http://www.st-teresas-church.co.uk
Email: st.teresas.cleveleys@gmail.com
Lancaster Roman Catholic Diocesan Trustees Registered Charity Number 23433
| Attendance last Sunday: St T’s: 294 StJS: 58Collection: StT’s £691.06 StJS: £118.60received with thanks received with thanks |
Sunday : The Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Contents: Gospel
Notices
Reflections for the coming week
Gospel: Luke 17:5-10
The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’ The Lord replied, ‘Were your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.
‘Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, “Come and have your meal immediately?” “Would he not be more likely to say, “Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself afterwards?” Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, “We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty.”
Gospel Reflection : New Beginnings, Not Just Back To Basics
Yes, we do need to know the basics if we are to begin to understand, but too often we have thought about our faith as something learned from books and remembered – or forgotten.
Perhaps this comes from having to learn things by heart at school. Faith , however, is about a relationship we have, not with facts and figures, but with a person, Jesus, who is still alive and always present with us. If we are living with Jesus, allowing his word to guide us, and his presence to direct us along his way, then we are living in faith.
Sometimes we are not helped by a Church that seems too structured. If our parish was truly a place of prayer, with a love for God’s Word, and an appreciation of his presence in the Sacraments, then the truth of the Good News we share could be more obvious.
Our faith may sometimes seem like our own attempt to show God how good we are, but God does not keep accounts or balance sheets. We do nothing to earn God’s love; there is nothing we have to prove to him. His love for us is unconditional. He is sheer gift to us – and his love is free. Lord help us to get to know you personally, not just to know more about you; to speak to you in our own words from our hearts, and not just words from a book, or words we have learnt off-by-heart.
We Remember In Our Prayers Adam Bajkowski whose Funeral Mass has now been arranged for Friday, 21st October, 10.30 am at St. Teresa’s. We remember him and his family, and all those whose anniversaries are at this time. May they be in God’s peace.
We Welcome Into The Family Of The Church Casper Andrew Holt and his cousin Sully Valentine-Lynden whose Baptisms take place at St. Teresa’s this Sunday.
The CAFOD Harvest Family Fast Day Is Next Friday, 7th October, and if you haven’t got an envelope for this, some are available at the back of church. This year millions are facing a food crisis that could be the worst in living memory. As each day goes by, the situation worsens. As people of faith we must act. Your donations can help CAFOD’s experts to provide emergency food supplies to families in the worst affected countries in East Africa, and support communities around the world working hard to put food on the table. At each Mass this weekend, Sue Ward, our parish CAFOD representative, will kindly tell us a little more.
And Closer To Home – A FOOD PANTRY : We want to establish a FOOD PANTRY for those most in need in our own locality. To do this we need your support and generosity. Our base will be at St. Teresa’s Church, where people can donate a variety of goods, for example tinned or dried foods, household items etc. PLEASE NO PERISHABLE OR OUT OF DATE GOODS. As ever, for this to happen, we need volunteers to run such a worthwhile and needed venture. Please could you give your support to this new initiative by letting Sue or Bernard Ward have your name and contact number. Their contact number is 01253 858346. Thank you.
This Monday, 3rd October, the 9.30 am Mass at St. Teresa’s is with the children (Year 2 – Year 6) and Staff from our school. This to celebrate the Feast of St. Teresa and the annual Harvest Festival.
Confirmation : This Thursday, 6th October, at 6.30 pm in St. Teresa’s church, there is the Introductory Meeting for the parents and young people (Year 8 and upwards) who want to be Confirmed in November.
The Church Shop In The Outer Porch At St. Teresa’s is open before and after each weekend Mass. Please feel free to go in and have a look round. Confirmation cards and gifts are available, as are 2023 diaries, with the order of Mass printed, are now on sale.
Interested In The Catholic Faith? Have you ever asked yourself if you would like to know more about the Catholic Church, so that you can at least consider becoming a full member of our Church? In October we are going to begin meetings to help you, without any pressure, meetings where you will be made very welcome. The meetings take place in St. Teresa’s church sacristy, but are for anyone from St. John Southworth parish too, or any other local area. There is an introductory meeting to the whole programme, which we call ‘The Journey of Faith Programme’, on Wednesday 26th October at 7pm. If you are at all interested, or know of someone who is, please phone 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 (Martin Luther King)
I was ready to give up. I tried to move out of the picture without appearing to be a coward. I prayed to God saying, “I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.” At that point I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never before experienced him. The outer situation remained the same, but God had given me inner calm.
Scripture (Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4)
How long, Lord, am I to cry for help while you will not listen; to cry, ‘Violence!’ in your ear while you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing, why do you countenance oppression? Outrage and violence, this is all I see, contention and discord flourish. Then the Lord answered me and said, ‘Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets to be easily read. For the vision is for its appointed time, it hastens towards its end and it will not lie; if it comes slowly, wait for it, for come it certainly will without fail. You see, anyone whose heart is not upright will succumb, but the upright will live through faithfulness.
Tuesday (Cardinal Basil Hume)
God may sometimes wish us to dwell, for a time, in darkness so as to be better able to receive, later on, a greater and stronger light. If we know that God is with us, there is much that we can endure, for pain and sorrow will pass and joy and peace will return. We can only pray: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” How he, who was God, could know such abandonment, such emptiness, we do not know. If we are called to share that same experience, and when thoughts and words increase the pain and confusion of our minds, then are we surely one with him. His darkest moment, and ours, are one darkness. Into that darkness comes his light, not ours, but his is given to us to be our peace.
Scripture (Psalm 22:1-2,19-20,22-26)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The words of my groaning do nothing to save me. My God, I call by day but you do not answer, at night, but I find no respite. Lord, do not hold aloof! My strength, come quickly to my help; rescue my soul from the sword. I shall proclaim your name, praise your name in full assembly. For he has not despised nor disregarded the poor, he has not turned away his face but has listened to the cry for help. The poor will eat and be filled, those who seek the Lord will praise him, ‘May your heart live forever.’
Wednesday (Pope Paul VI)
We ourselves must be convinced of the need for a living, true and active faith. Even more today when the difficulties are so much greater. It is not enough to have a vague, weak and uncertain faith which is purely one of sentiment and habit, made up of theories, doubts and reservations. Nor is it enough to hold a faith which just accepts what it pleases, or which seeks to avoid difficulties by denying assent to truths which themselves are both difficult and mysterious.
Scripture (Hebrews 10:32-35)
Remember the great challenge of the sufferings that you had to meet after you received the light , in the earlier days; sometimes by being yourself publicly exposed to the humiliations and violence, and sometimes as associates of those who were in prison, but you accepted with joy being stripped of your belongings, knowing that you owned something that was better and lasting. Do not lose your fearlessness now, then, since the reward is so great. You will need perseverance if you are to do God’s will and gain what he has promised.
Thursday (Fr. Bede Griffiths)
People ask, “How can I know the will of God?” You can only know it by experience, by trying, by making mistakes. In time you find you are getting guidance. This is one of the most important effects of meditation, when you begin to get that sense of guidance in your life, and you begin to see that you are not managing life just by yourself. God himself is acting in you.
Scripture(2 Cor. 1:3-6)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father and the God who gives every encouragement; he supports us in every hardship, so that we are able to come to the support of others, in every hardship of theirs because of the encouragement that we ourselves receive from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives, so to does the encouragement we receive from Christ. So if we have hardships to undergo, this will contribute to the encouragement and your salvation. The encouragement you receive enables you to bear with perseverance the same sufferings as we do.
Friday (Edith Stein)
Only children of grace can in fact be bearers of Christ’s cross. To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one’s feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father’s right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels – this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth.
Scripture (Luke 17:5-10)
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “Were your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you. Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, ‘Come and have your supper immediately’? Would he not be more likely to say, ‘Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself, afterwards’? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty.’”
Martin Bennett