Dear friends in Christ

The Birthday of our Holy Mother the Church is what we celebrate this Sunday! After the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven, the Apostles returned to Jerusalem and waited with Mary for the coming of the Advocate, the Great Comforter. The Sequence which we recite or sing at Mass this Sunday is a text dating from the thirteenth century. It expresses poetically what the Holy Spirit does in our souls and in the world. As we pray it again at Mass this weekend, we ask that this, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, may fill us with his gifts and that those gifts may flower into the fruits of love, peace, joy and goodness.

Today at the end of the Masses we will pray the Prayer for the Queen which you will find elsewhere in the Newsletter. This prayer for the Sovereign used to be sung every Sunday at the end of the Solemn Mass in every Parish until the reform of the liturgy. Today we shall offer this prayer for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, in thanksgiving for seventy years of devoted service to our Nation and the Commonwealth. Long may she reign over us!

God bless you all; may the Holy Spirit enlighten and enliven our hearts and lives this Pentecost!

Msgr Kevin Hale