Dear friends in Christ

Throughout the Easter Season we hear a passage each Sunday from the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse. It is the last book of the Bible and therefore has to be read and understood as the finale of all that has gone before, beginning with Genesis, through the history of Israel, the prophets and the coming of the Messiah, right up to the Gospels and the work of our Redemption in Jesus Christ. God is showing St John in this Book, something of the life of Heaven and how that life is centred on the worship of the Lamb who is sacrificed, Jesus Himself. Although it is often mystifying what we read there, and perhaps difficult to interpret, the Church tells us it has much to do with the Mass. The Mass is the great work of worship and praise offered to God the Father. What John saw when he gazed into Heaven were the angels and saints gathered around the throne of God worshipping Him day and night. It would be helpful to keep this in mind at every Mass and how our voices are one with theirs in their triumphant hymn of praise as we sing Holy, holy, holy…This is how we prepare for eternity now, by learning how to adore God here on earth—in the Mass and Eucharistic adoration—and so be ready for the life of Heaven!

Please remember our young people who are preparing to receive the Sacraments of initiation during this month: our sixty First Communicants over this weekend and next and fifty Confirmandi on Wednesday, 25th May when the Bishop visits our Parish. May the grace given to them in these Sacraments sustain them for life.

Since the start of the pandemic, the Bishops of England and Wales suspended the obligation to attend Sunday Mass. Now that we have, please God, come through the other side, they have decided it is time to revoke this. At their meeting last week, our Bishops decreed that from Pentecost Sunday—5th June—the Sunday Obligation to attend Holy Mass is reinstated. You will find a link in this Newsletter to a very helpful letter which they have written on the subject.

In this month of Mary, we commend to her motherly love and protection, all of the Parish Family, especially those who are suffering bereavement after the loss of loved-ones and also our most vulnerable. We implore Mary, Queen of Peace, for an end to the useless bloodshed and horrors in Ukraine and that peace and harmony be restored to our continent and the men people of violence convert and repent before it is too late.

God bless you all!

Msgr Kevin Hale