Dates for your Diary
Monday, 16th December—Journey in Faith (RCIA) 8pm Parish Centre
Friday 20th December—Annual Carol Service 7pm
Saturday 15th—Friday 21st March 2025—Parish Mission led by the Redemptorists
Saturdays 10th & 17th May 10.30am—First Holy Communion Masses
Sunday 1st June 2025—Visitation & Confirmation
Sunday 22nd June—Corpus Christi Procession 4pm
Monday 21st—Friday 25th July—Lourdes Pilgrimage
Monday 8th September Centenary of the Opening of our Church
Lourdes Jubilee Year Pilgrimage
The proposed Pilgrimage to Lourdes next year, flying with BA, will depart Heathrow on Monday 21st July 07.35am—Arrive Toulouse 10.25am, returning on Saturday 26th July 10.45am—arriving at 11.45am.
The 5-night package price is £895 per pilgrim sharing, single supplement is £225, staying at the 4 star Grand Hotel Moderne Soubirous (closest to Sanctuary).
This includes 5 nights full-board and return luxury coach transfer from Lourdes airport to the hotel.
Please leave your name and contact details with the Parish Office soon, as places are limited.
JOURNEY OF FAITH—RCIA
This continues on Monday, 16th December and is specifically for those who are not Catholics but who are enquiring with a view to finding out more about the Catholic Faith and Reception into the Church. These evenings begin at 8pm, are held in the Newman Room of the Parish Centre (the door is beside the Memorial Garden) and usually last just over an hour. Names may be given in advance to Fr Kevin or the Parish Office.
OLOL Ladies Group
We meet again on Thursday, 19th December at 10am in the Parish Centre. This will be our last Meeting this year and we plan to celebrate with some Festive cheer, reflect on this past year when we have enjoyed talks and presentations on a variety of subjects from our invited guests, plus a lot of ‘in-house’ entertainment from our Members.
Do come along and enjoy a mince pie and glass of Prosecco, plus a Bumper Festive Raffle.
Our next Meeting will be in January and if you haven’t joined us yet, just a reminder that the Ladies Group is open to all Ladies in the Parish, with subs remaining at just £1 per meeting.
Sea of Voices Choir
The choir will be holding an informal Carol and cakes concert in the Parish Centre on Sunday 15th December from 3pm - not a formal concert, as in past years, as we will be asking for audience participation in singing well known carols, as well as us singing some of our repertoire. We will ask for charity donations on that afternoon.
Posters & Stickers
A supply of 'Keep Christ in Christmas' envelope stickers provided free by the Knights of Saint Columba are available for parishioners to take home to be put onto the front of Christmas card envelopes. Please take some home to be used for your Christmas card postings. Please also take a poster to display prominently in your window.
OLOL Annual Christmas Carol Service
We are looking for helpers in the Parish Centre at the Carol Service, to serve refreshments (teas, mulled wine, mince pies etc). Please contact Darrell Binding on 07825 686249 if you are able to help.
Repository
We have a good selection of Advent Calendars for children, plus New year Calendars for Adults. We also have a good stock of Aid to Church in Need Christmas cards and a selection of cards now in stock from the LMS.
We have a few 1 Year Missals left and if you would like the 3 Year copy please ask one of the Volunteers to add your name to the Waiting list.
Brentwood Diocesan Yearbook 2025
The 2025 Diocesan Directory now available from the back of the Church—£3.20.
Vacancy at St Bernard's High School
LEARNING MENTOR
Hours: Full-time, 37 hours per week (8.00am – 4.00pm), term time only
Scale 7 – 12 (£25,584 - £27,711 / pro rata actual salary £21,933- £23,757)
Closing Date: 16 December 2024, 9.00am
Interviews: Morning of 18 December 2024
Start date: 6 January 2025
We are looking for a positive, enthusiastic and approachable professional to work alongside our Learning Mentor Team supporting identified students.
You will be joining a successful, friendly and supportive department within a high-performing school, supporting students from Years 7 – Y13. You will need to be able to work flexibly and provide support, motivation and guidance to help students overcome barriers to their learning.
If you are interested in applying for this role, please complete the Support Staff Application Form found on our website (www.stbernardswestcliff.org.uk under About Us/Vacancies) and email it to recruitment@stbernards.southend.sch.uk.
Second Sunday of Advent
Dear friends in Christ
Throughout Advent the Church uses the voice of the Old Testament prophets to assist us in the task of preparing a way for the Messiah.
Dear friends in Christ
Throughout Advent the Church uses the voice of the Old Testament prophets to assist us in the task of preparing a way for the Messiah. The culmination of these voices comes in the person of St John the Baptist who is the bridge between the Old and New Testaments. His was the task to consolidate all the prophecies that had been announced to the Chosen people of Israel the Anointed One. In the person of The Baptist, we encounter a disarming figure who uncompromisingly tells the world that it needs to wake-up and realise that the Day of The Lord is near. So he is as much relevant for us today as he was when he first appeared. God continues to send prophetic voices into our world today, reminding us in different ways of how we have gone off-course and need to return to the basics. For us Catholics in Advent, this means a concentration on godly things. Saint Cyprian reminds us:
Why do we pray for the kingdom of heaven to come if this earthly slavery pleases us? What is the point of praying so often for its early arrival if we would rather serve the devil here than reign with Christ? The world hates Christians, so why give your love to it instead of following Christ, who loves you and has redeemed you? We ought never to forget, beloved, that we have renounced the world. We are living here now as aliens and only for a time. When the day of our homecoming puts an end to our exile, frees us from the bonds of the world, and restores us to paradise and to a kingdom, we should welcome it. What man, stationed in a foreign land, would not want to return to his own country as soon as possible? Well, we look upon paradise as our country, and a great crowd of our loved ones awaits us there, a countless throng of parents, brothers and children longs for us to join them. Assured though they are of their own salvation, they are still concerned about ours. (Treatise on Immortality)
In this Advent, the practical application of this counsel is for us to live in expectation of the final judgment, and the coming in time of Our Lord. Try to live Advent as Advent and not as the start of the Christmas celebration, which begins properly with our celebration of the first Christmas Mass. Try to keep Advent as a muted time, so that we can truly celebrate the Christmas season as the Church intends, entering into each of the mysteries of the celebration which continues until the Baptism of Jesus in the New Year.
The most central figure in the Advent season is Our Blessed Lady, and especially so as we shall be celebrating her feast on Monday (transferred from 8th). God prepared Mary by her Immaculate Conception to be the most pure and worthy Mother of the Redeemer. As the poet Wordsworth loved to say: She is our tainted natures solitary boast! I shall be presiding and preaching at the Chapter Mass in Brentwood Cathedral on Monday at 10.30am; all are welcome to this. In the evening at 7pm I shall lead the praying of the Rosary in the church, Mary’s Litany and Consecration of the Parish to the Immaculate Heart of Mary concluding with Benediction.
May God and His Immaculate Mother guard, bless and protect us in these Advent days!
Msgr Kevin Hale
Second Sunday of Advent
Liturgy:
Readings of Year C
The Nicene Creed
Preface 1 of Advent
Saturday 7
St Ambrose, Bp D
5.30pm Vigil Doctor Rebecca Brown, RIP (D&SC)
6.30-7.30pm: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament & Confession
Sunday 8 December
Second Sunday of Advent
8am Mass Michael Mapson, RIP (LM)
9.30am Mass Clare Clarke, RIP (Anniv) (IR)
11.30am Mass The People of the Parish
5.30pm Vespers & Benediction
Monday 9
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
9am Mass Paul Watts, RIP (MH)
7pm Holy Rosary, Consecration to the Immaculate Heart & Benediction
Tuesday 10
Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent
9am Mass Intentions of Ann Craig (AC)
Wednesday 11
Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent
9am Mass For the intention of all Priests (ML)
Thursday 12
Our Lady of Guadalupe
9am Mass Lucille Tarrobal, (RIP)
Friday 13
St Lucy, V, M
12Noon Mass Ian Spacie, RIP (VS)
Saturday 14
St John of the Cross, Pr, D
10am Mass Maria Luisa Page, RIP (LS)
10.30-11.30am Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament & Confession
5.30pm Vigil John Jarvis, RIP (VJ)
6.30-7.30pm: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament & Confession
Sunday 15 December
Third Sunday of Advent ‘Gaudete’
8am Mass Michael Mapson, RIP (GM)
9.30am Mass John McCarthy, RIP (Anniv) (McC)
11.30am Mass The People of the Parish
5.30pm Vespers & Benediction
We Pray for the Dead on their Anniversaries
Fr John Lane, Canon Anthony McKinley, Fr Geffrey Pye, Fr Eamonn Magrath, Fr George Carolan, Fr william Evers, Fr Francis Kerrigan, Fr Gerard Kerr, Fr Bernard Pownall, Fr John Evers, Fr Bentley, Ann Dawson, William Johnson, Bruce Pond, John Newton, Thomas O’Hanlon, Mary Alice Ring, Mary Dulcie O’Leary, John Parsons, Sheila de Chantilly, Johanna Sadowski, Arthur Coughlan, Walter Scott, Patrick Lyons, Clare Clarke, Karen Anderson, Hilda Eid, Georgina Francis, Ann Dunbar, Francis Mullan, Ivy Heale, Cecilia Upsher, William Anderson, Marie O’Carroll, John Burke, Ronald Clarke, Eugene Grant, Alexander Black, Baby Felicity Garland, Peter D’Angerville, Bernard Dunne, Mary Slattery, Sallie Walker, Patrick Sheehan, Angela Evelyn Joyce & Doreen Murphy.
We pray for our sick
The Sick List is available on the website main menu, under Worship.
We pray for the sick of our parish
“Father,
by the power of your Spirit
you have filled the hearts of your faithful people
with gifts of love for one another.
Hear the prayers we offer for our relatives and friends.
Give them health of mind and body
that they may do your will with perfect love.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.”
Sanctuary Lamp
This week the Sanctuary Lamp burns in thanksgiving for Jennifer’s healing of cancer.
Music at 11.30am Mass
Prelude: No. 9—William Boyce (1711-1779)
Postlude: Fantasia—Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Responsorial Psalm
Lourdes Jubilee Year Pilgrimage
The proposed Pilgrimage to Lourdes next year, flying with BA, will depart Heathrow on Monday 21st July 07.35am—Arrive Toulouse 10.25am, returning on Saturday 26th July 10.45am—arriving at 11.45am.
The 5-night package price is £895 per pilgrim sharing, single supplement is £225, staying at the 4 star Grand Hotel Moderne Soubirous (closest to Sanctuary).
This includes 5 nights full-board and return luxury coach transfer from Lourdes airport to the hotel.
Please leave your name and contact details with the Parish Office soon, as places are limited.
Dates for your Diary
Monday, 9th December—Journey in Faith (RCIA) 8pm Parish Centre
Friday 20th December—Annual Carol Service 7pm
Saturday 15th—Friday 21st March 2025—Parish Mission led by the Redemptorists
Saturdays 10th & 17th May 10.30am—First Holy Communion Masses
Sunday 1st June 2025—Visitation & Confirmation
Sunday 22nd June—Corpus Christi Procession 4pm
Monday 21st—Friday 25th July—Lourdes Pilgrimage
Monday 8th September Centenary of the Opening of our Church
JOURNEY OF FAITH—RCIA
This continues on Monday, 9th December and is specifically for those who are not Catholics but who are enquiring with a view to finding out more about the Catholic Faith and Reception into the Church. These evenings begin at 8pm, are held in the Newman Room of the Parish Centre (the door is beside the Memorial Garden) and usually last just over an hour. Names may be given in advance to Fr Kevin or the Parish Office.
Posters & Stickers
A supply of 'Keep Christ in Christmas' envelope stickers provided free by the Knights of Saint Columba are available for parishioners to take home to be put onto the front of Christmas card envelopes. Please take some home to be used for your Christmas card postings. Please also take a poster to display prominently in your window.