Category: Saint George’s latest news

We have the opportunity to receive a £1000 donation from the Ecclesiastical Movement for Good awards, but to do so we need your help please!

As you know, £1,000 could make a huge difference to our work, especially now, and your nomination could be the one that wins us £1,000. In total, 500 charities stand to gain £1,000 and we’d love to be one of them.

It’s quick and easy to nominate Lepra – just visit https://www.movementforgood.com/#nominateACharity and enter our details. You’ll be asked to enter a charity number (213251), and then Lepra should auto populate below. Lepra’s charity type is Health. Then you just need to enter your name and email address. The closing date for nominations is 24th May.

“God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called”

2 Corinthians 3 v5

Position Vacant: Administrator / PA. Initially 20 hours. With 20 days annual leave + Bank holidays (pro rata) £10ph (dependent on skills / experience)

Computers for Charities is seeking an Administrator / PA. Duties include assisting day to day running of the Charity & support to Chairman.

Location: Eastbourne. This position offers wide opportunities to aid personal and professional development, whilst also challenging and diverse.

Skills required: Good People & Communication skills, Organisational ability, Compassion & Empathy including aptitude for initiative. UK driving licence essential, Committed Christian with valid passport desirable,

Computers for Charities, Recycling for Charities, Recycling for Charities Trading Ltd are interconnected. Whereas computers are a part of the charities work.

People constitute the focus of the charities support and ethos within its Eastbourne workshop, Locally, Nationally, Worldwide seeking to provide an open door between church and World through varying means.

Our organisations are Christian based, and keen to seek the most suitable candidate for this most crucial position.

Closing date for applications: Friday 19^th June.

For further information.

Please call. Simon Rooksby – Chairman

Tel: 01323 848588 or email: [email protected]

Website: www.computersforcharities.org

Previous applicants are welcome to apply

Joke of the Week

Lord Birkett, the English judge, said “I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking.  But I strongly object when they start shaking them to make certain they are still going.

Deacon John Writes:

From Easter to Pentecost the readings all concentrate on the preaching of the Good News of salvation and on the promises Jesus made to his disciples, culminating with the promise that all would receive the Holy Spirit. This Sunday we hear about the Holy Spirit and how we can experience Him in our daily lives. 

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles begins by describing how the Deacon, Philip, in Samaria, converted many of the Samaritans to Christianity and then how Peter and John were sent to follow this up through prayer and laying on of hands to bring the Holy Spirit to them.

The reading from the first letter of Peter reassures us that life is possible when we suffer in any way so long as we continue to live our Christian lives of love in the midst of any kind of suffering, be it from a virus or any other difficult situation. The Gospel contains Jesus’ promise to his disciples of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, and is part of the long “Farewell Discourse” near the end of John’s Gospel. The Gospel tells us quite specifically that, providing we live as Jesus commands, the Holy Spirit will accompany us in all that we do in the name of Jesus – our faith will be nurtured, we will see Jesus in the poor, the sick and in all those in need, so enabling us to be healers of discord in our world. We are assured that we will never have to face any trial alone—even death—if we walk with Jesus.  There is a sentence in the second Eucharistic Prayer when the priest holds his hands over the offerings and says: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It has only been during the lockdown that Tessa & I have actually noticed the word ‘dewfall’ at this point while listening to Mass! 

Next Thursday is Ascension Day, the day on which Jesus was taken up to heaven. We can perhaps imagine him flying up from the land and vanishing into cloud in front of our eyes. Jesus invites all of us to prepare ourselves for a similar flight. Set our eyes towards heaven. Keep our hearts open to receive the Holy Spirit to help us achieve that goal. Surely that is what He is inviting, encouraging, helping us to do.

Deacon John Writes:

In the Gospel for this Sunday Jesus makes it clear that He is God, when He says “To have seen me is to have seen the Father” and then “whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself.” God became man, one of us to show us a real person leading a life of caring for others, a life of healing, forgiving, a life of love.

We are called not just to be followers of Christ but to be Christ to the world around us. It is through our being Christ that He may live and act in the world today and every day. That is easy to say but from where do we get the strength to be Christ to the world? The answer to this surely lies in the Sacraments, especially from receiving the Eucharist. When we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, Christ is in us, giving us the power to be like Him.

One of the key actions we can take is to Listen. In the Gospel Jesus first listens to the disciples, listens to Thomas, listens to Philip and then comforts them, eases their fears, teaches them. We can do the same: listen to what people are saying to us by giving them our time and undivided attention. 

Secondly, we hear time and again how Christ healed the people he came in contact with. We all have the power to heal, not physically perhaps, but through our words, gestures and actions such as showing acts of kindness. It is by doing these things that we show that we care and allow Jesus to live his life through us.

One of the key signs Jesus made was that of forgiveness not just in words but in actions too. We should always be asking ourselves some questions such as: How forgiving am I? Do I pray daily for the grace to forgive others? Do I show this forgiveness through what I do – a phone call, (a handshake or a hug in normal circumstances). 

When we come forward to receive Christ’s Body and Blood and confirm that with our “Amen” we should all remember that what we are really saying is “Lord, live in me today so that I may give life, heal and forgive as you did.” Remember there is nothing casual about that “Amen” – it is the most important word we say in that Mass.

Now the weather has changed and you are clearing out your cupboards and drawers once again. Please remember to put aside any suitable donations for St Wilfrid’s sales table, which will be running as soon as things are back to ‘normal’.”

Our Website

Please don’t forget to explore our Church website to watch live Masses from across England, Ireland and Scotland, including Masses and Sermons from our very own Pope. 

We also are showing photos of the activities our community have been doing whilst we are confined at home.  If you would like to share any photos on our website, please send them into us using the church email, with a note saying that you consent to any photos that you have sent to us being displayed on the church website.  Many thanks and stay safe.

Deacon John Writes:

If you travel around in Jordan you will see shepherds  everywhere. They are part of the landscape. The Bedouins who tend the sheep sleep on hillsides under tents; they stand watch in large empty fields while the sheep graze on weeds and dust and sand. Your vehicle is sure to come to a halt in the middle of the road while a shepherd leads his flock across the road. One shepherd is Mohammed. He is in his early 20s, shy. He was asked how long he’d been a shepherd.

“Four years,” he said and added: “its alright, but it’s boring.” It’s not that exciting for the sheep, either. They aren’t pure lambs with “fleece as white as snow.” They all look as white as mud—hardly the image one gets from the nursery rhyme. Mr Google on the Internet, informed me about a shepherd in Italy named Fabrizio Innocenzi who oversees about 60 sheep in the hills of Roviano, 40 miles east of Rome. He said that sheep actually need a shepherd, because they have no natural hierarchy, no leader of the flock. “The sheep learn to trust the shepherd”, Innocenzi said, “as they hear and understand the voice, the smell, the behaviour of the person who is looking after them every day”. He said “a shepherd needs to be someone who is in tune with nature, decisive and willing to bear the long hours, inclement weather, hard work and sacrifice—and do it out of devotion to his flock.  A good shepherd should not be afraid of anything.” Doesn’t that describe Christ? 

In the gospel for this Sunday Jesus says to us “I am the good shepherd, a good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” This Easter season, with the fragrance of Easter flowers still in the air and multiple alleluias we cannot forget the hard wood of Calvary. We cannot forget how this good shepherd laid down his life for us. He didn’t do it because we have “fleece as white as snow.” Far from it. We are as muddy and as ordinary and as unclean as those sheep in Jordan. We aren’t always beautiful.

But the Good Shepherd, who is Christ, loves us anyway. He calls us to love one another as the shepherd does his sheep. This is our challenge. If we are to be imitators of Christ, we must be willing to be more than sheep. We must also be shepherds—good shepherds to each other and good shepherds of our faith. We must be unafraid, devoted, steadfast. We need to support those who are frail…nurture those who are weak…lead back those who are lost…comfort those who are afraid…love those who are covered with dust from the journey.

This is what a good shepherd does.

This is what Christ has done for us.

This is what we must do for each other. 

Special Moments From The World of Isolation

It would help our website greatly, if you have any special memories and other comments that can help us to share this special time, when we find ourselves isolated and cut off from our everyday life.   If you have any photos that you would like to share on our website, please send them in the format of  jpg or png to [email protected]  When you send your photos to us, please can you write a message stating that you are happy for the photos that you have provided us with, to be displayed on our Church website.  Thank you.

Deacon John Writes:

The Scripture readings for this Sunday have one common, encouraging theme: No matter what happens in our lives, the risen Jesus is always with us. God is always near to those who seek Him and who want to live in His presence, doing His will. 

Dr. J. Wallace Hamilton, in his book Horns and Halos in Human Nature, tells of one of the weirdest auctions in history. It was held in the city of Washington, D.C. It was an auction of designs, actually patent models of old inventions that did not make it in the world at large. These 150,000 old inventions were declared obsolete and put up for auction. Prospective buyers and on-lookers chuckled as item after item was put up for bid, such as a bed-bug buster or an illuminated cat that was designed to scare away mice. Then there was a device to prevent snoring. It consisted of a trumpet that reached from the mouth to the ear and was designed to awaken the snorer and not the neighbours. One person designed a tube to reach from his mouth to his feet so that his breath would keep his feet warm as he slept. There was an adjustable pulpit which could be raised or lowered. You could hit a button and make the pulpit descend or ascend to illustrate a point dramatically. Obviously, at one time somebody had high hopes for each of those designs which did not make it. Some died in poverty, having spent all of their money trying to sell their dream. They represented a mountain of disappointments. One hundred fifty thousand broken dreams! Is there anything sadder? Today’s Gospel describes the shattered dreams of two of Jesus’ disciples at the tragic and unexpected death of their Master whom they trusted as their promised Messiah. 

As Jesus met them on the road to Emmaus so he meets us on our Emmaus Road, both in the ordinary experiences of our lives, and in the places to which we retreat when life is too much for us.  We, too, have hopes and dreams about better health, healing, financial security and better family relationships.  These often shatter.  The story promises us, however, that Jesus will come to us in unfamiliar ways to support and strengthen us when we least expect the risen Lord.  Emmaus moments come to us when we meet the risen Christ on our life’s journey through rough times like the present lockdown due to the virus.