#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
6 April 2025
http://www.st-teresas-church.co.uk
Email: st.teresas.cleveleys@gmail.com
Lancaster Roman Catholic Diocesan Trustees Registered Charity Number 23433
Sunday : Fifth Sunday in Lent
Contents: Gospel
Notices
Reflection
Gospel: (John 8:1-11)
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At daybreak he appeared in the Temple again; and as all the people came to him, he sat down and began to teach them.
The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught committing adultery and making her stand there in full view of everybody, they said to Jesus, ‘Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery, and Moses has ordered us in the Law to condemn women like this to death by stoning. What have you to say?’ They asked him this as a test looking for something to use against him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. As they persisted with their question, he looked up and said, ‘If there is one of you who has not sinned, let them be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Then he bent down and wrote on the ground again. When they heard this they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until Jesus was left alone with the woman, who remained standing there. He looked up and said, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir’ she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus, ‘go away, and don’t sin any more.’
Gospel Reflection : ‘But Jesus Started Writing On The Ground With His Finger’
For centuries people have wondered and imagined what Jesus wrote when the crowd asked him to condemn the woman mentioned in the Gospel today. Whatever he wrote encouraged the woman to stay with him, and put some pressure on the accusers to move away.
Maybe he just doodled, or wrote nothing sensible. Or did he write, so that the woman could see – ‘Stay here, I am with you’. And the woman knew, like all of us can know when we are in trouble, that Jesus is on our side.
Or did he write so that the onlookers could see – ‘Change your hearts, be renewed; forgive in your hearts’.
Maybe he wrote what he later said – ‘I do not condemn you, sin no more’. And all knew they were in the presence of love, forgiveness and acceptance.
Some, like the woman herself, could take this, and stayed to get to know this Jesus. Others, like the accusers, went away, although maybe they came back later to get to know this Jesus too.
No matter what, we should know that he will stay with each of us – with forgiveness and acceptance all the days of our lives.
We Remember In Our Prayers Frank McLoughlin, whose Funeral Mass is at St. Teresa’s on Friday, 11th April at 11 am, and Neville Wright, whose Funeral Mass is at St. Teresa’s on Monday, 14th April, at 11 am. We remember them and their families, and those whose anniversaries are at this time. May they all be in God’s peace.
Stations of the Cross This Sunday, and Each Sunday In Lent, we have the Stations of the Cross, with Benediction, at 3 pm in St. Teresa’s church. This is a short Service which is very suitable for our Lenten reflection. Everyone welcome.
A VE Night Celebration Is Being Organised for Saturday, 10thMay to take place In St.Teresa’s Parish Hall, with all proceeds going to St. Teresa’s Church for all its recent roof repairs. We thank Becky Connor for this. There will be games and entertainment. Tickets are £10 each. To book please phone Kathryn on 07522 146571.
On ‘Victory in Europe ‘, V. E. Day itself, 8th May 2025, 80 years on from the end of war in Europe Celebration, an Afternoon Tea is being organised, a ‘Street Party’ of our own, but in the comfort of St. Teresa’s Parish Hall. Lovely food will be served, as in Afternoon Teas we have had before, and good company to be found. Tickets are £10, to be obtained from Sue Ward, at the back of church or phone 01253 858346. Thank you Sue for organising this.
There Is A Lancaster Diocese Pilgrimage To Walsingham, led by Bishop Paul, on 20-24th October, 2025. For details, please see the poster on the noticeboard at the back of church.
CAFOD A very big Thank You to those who are still bringing back their CAFOD envelopes after the Lent Family Fast. Of course you can hand these in any time you come to church. Following the devastating earthquake in Myanmar, CAFOD is responding through the Catholic Church there to support families affected by the disaster. The people urgently need water, food, shelter, medicine, and all life-saving materials.
Next Sunday Is Palm Sunday, The Beginning of HOLY WEEK, Which Is The Greatest Week of Our Whole Church Year
Holy Week And Easter Services
(All At St. Teresa’s)
Maundy Thursday Mass – 6.30 pm
(After this Mass there will be an opportunity for the customary time for private prayer
‘watching’ at the Altar of Repose, which will finish thirty minutes after the end of Mass)
Good Friday
Stations of The Cross -11 am
(At 12 noon there is a short Ecumenical Service, organised by all our Churches
outside what was the TSB bank in Cleveleys.)
3 pm The Good Friday Celebration of The Lord’s Passion
(This is the main Service of the day. The church is then closed until the Easter Vigil)
Holy Saturday Easter Vigil Mass 6.30 pm
Easter Sunday Mass 10 am at St. Teresa’s
Daily Reflections for this week
Monday (Fr. Austin Smith, CP)
When one sees the guest lists (the meal in the Pharisee’s house, the invitation to
eat with Zacchaeus, the meals at Bethany), one can see why the meals of Jesus
became offensive to his contemporaries. He seems to have insisted on the
presence of sinners. It is all very well to say that we live in a different world, but
how boringly reasonable it has all become – a reasonable Kingdom explained by
respectable interpretations to make present a reasonable and respectable God.
The Word so seldom breaks out in that exciting foolishness with which Jesus
shocked, and even angered his contemporaries. When I examine my own life, it is
not so much my own infidelities to the ideals of the Kingdom of Jesus that I find
disturbing, it is my imposition of mediocrity upon the Kingdom.
Scripture (Jonah 1:1-2; 3:8-4:3)
The Lord said to Jonah, ‘Go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to them
that their wickedness has forced itself upon me.’ Jonah said to the citizens,
‘All must put on sackcloth and call on God with all their might; and let
everyone renounce their evil ways and violent behaviour.’ God saw their
efforts to renounce their evil ways, and God relented about the disaster he
had threatened to bring on them, and did not bring it. This made Jonah very
indignant; he fell into a rage. He prayed to God and said, ‘Isn’t this what I
said would happen? This why I first tried to flee, since I knew you were a
tender, compassionate God, slow to anger, rich in faithful love.
Tuesday (St. John of the Cross)
Nothing shall penetrate into the interior of the soul, renew it, fill it with love
profoundly, as the knowledge of God does. For there are some acts of knowledge
and touches of God, wrought by him in the substance of the soul, which so enrich
it that one of them is sufficient, not only to purge away at once certain
imperfections, which had hitherto resisted the efforts of a whole life, but also to fill
the soul with virtues and divine gifts.
Scripture (John 8:3-5, 7-9,11)
The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught
committing adultery. They said to Jesus, ‘Master, this woman was caught in
the very act of committing adultery, and in the Law, Moses has ordered us to
stone women of this kind. What have you got to say? Jesus said, ‘Let the
one among you who is without sin cast the first stone.’ They went away one
by one until Jesus was left alone with her. He said to her, ‘Has no one
condemned you?’ No one, sir,’ she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said
Jesus. ‘Go away, and from this moment sin no more.’
Wednesday (Thomas Merton)
So much depends on our ideas of God! Yet no idea of him, however pure and
perfect, is adequate to express him as he really is. We must learn to realise that
the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good. We must learn to
take the risks implied by faith, to make the choices that deliver us from our routine
self and open to us the door of a new being, a new reality. The mind that is the
prisoner of conventional ideas, and the will that is captive of its own desire cannot
accept the seeds of an unfamiliar truth and a supernatural desire. I must learn to
let go of the familiar usual and consent to what is new and unknown to me. I must
learn to “leave myself” in order to find myself by yielding to the love of God.
Scripture (Isaiah 55:7-9)
Let the wicked abandon their ways and the evil ones their thoughts. Let them
turn back to the Lord who will take pity on them, to our God, for he is rich in
forgiveness; for my thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not
my ways, declares the Lord. For the heavens are as high above the earth as
my ways are above your ways, my thoughts above your thoughts.
Thursday (Elizabeth Fry)
I desire that you may be upheld, that you may be strengthened, that you may find
the grace of your Lord to be sufficient for you: and if we poor, frail, feeble,
unworthy mortals can feel as we sometimes do for one another, oh, what
consolation it is to remember that he who is infinite in mercy, infinite in love and
infinite in power also feels for us; we have a High Priest who is touched with the
sense of our infirmities. Through his unmerited mercy in Christ Jesus, we may
humbly trust that when this passing scene is closed to our view, an entrance will
be granted unto us, even abundantly administered unto us, into the everlasting
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Scripture (Psalm 103:1-2, 8-12)
Bless the Lord, my soul, from the depths of my being, his holy name; bless
the Lord, my soul, never forget all his acts of kindness. The Lord is
tenderness and pity, slow to anger and rich in faithful love; his anger does
not last for ever, nor his resentment last for all time; he does not treat us as
our sins deserve, nor repay us as befits our offences. As the height of
heaven above earth, so strong is his faithful love for those who fear him.
Friday (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium)
In preaching the Gospel a fitting sense of proportion has to be maintained. For
example, if in the course of a year a parish priest speaks about temperance ten
times but only mentions charity or justice two or three times, an imbalance results,
and precisely those virtues which ought to be most present in preaching and
catechesis are overlooked. The same thing happens when we speak more about
law than about grace, more about the Church than about Christ, more about the
Pope than about God’s word. Everyone needs to be touched by the comfort and
attraction of God’s saving love, which is mysteriously at work in each person,
above and beyond their faults and failings.
Scripture (Romans 5:15-17,21)
There is no comparison between the free gift and the offence. If death came
to many through the offence of one man, how much greater the effect of the
grace of God has had, coming to so many and so plentifully through the one
man, Jesus Christ. One single offence brought condemnation, but now, after
many offences, have come the free gift and so acquittal! So that, as sin’s
reign brought death, so grace was to rule through saving justice that leads
to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Martin Bennett