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Live Streaming of Masses:  St Wilfrid’s Church – Sunday 1st November 2020 and thereafter fortnightly.  St George’s Church –  Sunday 8th November 2020 and thereafter fortnightly.

This Sunday is All Saints Day and is the day on which we honour the memory of countless unknown and uncanonised saints who have no feast days in the Church’s Calendar. All baptised Christians who have died and are now with God in glory are considered saints. So, today, we thank God for giving ordinary men and women a share in His holiness and Heavenly glory as a reward for their Faith. We honour them in two ways: firstly by imitating their lives and secondly by asking them to intercede for us through Christ, who, as Timothy tells us in his first letter is the only mediator between God and man. The Church reminds us today that  we are all called to live in His love and to make His love real in the lives of those around us. We can all do this by living lives of integrity, truth, justice, charity, mercy, and compassion, sharing our blessings with others.

Three saints each gave us a guide to how we can follow the teaching of the Church. St. Teresa of Avila said: Recharge your spiritual batteries every day by prayer, listening to God and talking to Him. St.Therese of Lisieux said: Convert every action into prayer by offering it to God for His glory and for the salvation of souls and by doing God’s will to the best of your ability. Thirdly, St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) said: Do ordinary things with great love. Do something beautiful for God.

These are three sound methods which we can all follow in our endeavours to live the lives of the saints. The Church gives us over 300 days in the year when we can remember a particular saint. Every now and again the Church changes the calendar and a new saint is entered into the calendar. I want to suggest that we all create our own list of men and women who have been influential in our lives and so are worthy of being included in the calendar if there were enough days in the year. 

The following day is All Souls Day when we pray for all who have died— our loved ones, and also those people around the world whom we will never meet— that through the mercy of God, they will rest in peace.   There will be Mass at St George’s at 10am and at St Wilfrid’s at 11.30am. Following the Mass at St George’s I will bless the graves in the Memorial garden and then at Willingdon Cemetery. I go to all graves, including those of ashes, I know about and all those of which I have been told. Anyone is welcome to accompany me. At each grave we say together the following prayer: “Almighty God, we remember before you today your faithful servant ……… may he/she share in the eternal victory of Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” We then sprinkle the grave with holy water. If the weather is inclement we do all graves collectively from the big tree.  With my love and prayers for you all. DJ

“Let the love of God find its home in you”

I have received some positive feedback from my piece last week which is always helpful.  There is a consistent theme in the reflections.  Many years ago I received an award as I was leaving a parish, from a person that I valued very much.  It has helped me to keep a positive focus.  Always “so far, so good”.  The alternative being “so far, so bad”, this is to be avoided full stop.

The coronavirus remains a huge influence and affects all our lives.  All that I have written since the beginning of lockdown is in response to provide a way ahead.  It remains a very difficult time with much distress.  Growing up on a farm with some involvement  in the construction industry, has taught me what is most important for the best outcome.  In the building world the foundation and the footings, in farming the preparation of the ground.  The outcome is summed up “by their fruits you shall know them”.

Good trees, bear good fruit.  At this difficult time the words reasonable and responsible are being very tested.  The directions that are given with the best intentions for our health and safety are important.  That is why I try to give them serious consideration.  The “Litmus Test –  “by their fruits you shall know them”.   When we were first in the seminary, with philosophy and theology as corner stones to our study.  One of the early ideas that caught my attention was the importance attached to the phrase “the exception proves the rule”.  Unfortunately some of our rules have been so poor that they do not survive that test.  The fear being that if you make an exception it becomes the new rule.  This has certainly been a great factor in our application of the rules (Dominic Cummings incident, certainly had a great effect on this).

“Responsibility” is a constant consideration.  Reason and reasonableness goes hand and glove with it.  The amount of health and social issues highlight the success or the failure of the rules in place.  This remains a work in progress.  It is helpful to have a point on the horizon to aim for.   Christmas will begin to appear during the coming weeks.  Let us pray very sincerely that this will be a fruitful time and that the love of God finds its home in us, and may the love of God find its home in me. 

To be continued……………

Thank you very much for your donations to World Mission Sunday last week.  Your prayers and contributions will help missionaries work alongside communities throughout the world that are poor or in need, regardless of their background or belief.  Please pray for the work of Missio and all those working to offer the love of Jesus, that we may remain strong in our witness to Christ’s love for all peoples.  To continue supporting mission throughout the year, please go to missio.org.uk or call 020 7821 9755 (office hours).

St George’s Church:  As usual the Memorial book will be placed near the altar.  However, due to the Coronavirus this year we will unfortunately not be able to invite our parishioners to add the names of their deceased friends or relatives.  If you would like your friends/relatives names added to this book please email or send to the office.

The month of the Holy Souls’ is November and traditionally people have Mass offerings for the repose of the souls for friends and family.

Many of you will have heard that St John’s Seminary in Wonersh is to close in its present form. The Seminary has served the Church for 130 years and there is great sadness that formation must now end at the site.

Unfortunately there was no new intake this September. With the seminarian body numbering just 17 the community is small, with the building and staffing costs too high to sustain. Arrangements have been made for the remaining seminarians to join the community at Allen Hall, Chelsea in September 2021.

Archbishop John Wilson and Bishop Richard are committed to providing priestly formation that will serve the people of our Dioceses and parishes into the future. St John’s will remain a legal entity so that consideration can be given to the ways in which the tradition of priestly formation established at Wonersh in 1891 will continue.

The Trustees of St John’s are extremely grateful to rectors, staff and seminarians, past and present, and to all those who have supported the Seminary over the years. We ask our Diocesan church family to pray for vocations to the priesthood, keeping our seminarians in their thoughts and prayers over the coming months.

Monday Nov 2nd is All Souls’ Day and Mass at St George’s will be 10am followed by Deacon John blessing graves in the Memorial Garden and then at Willingdon Cemetery.  Mass at St Wilfrid’s will be 11.30am.  Fr Rory will celebrate the Mass for St Wilfrid’s Community.   Please inform Margaret Piegrome on 870990 if you wish to attend the 10am Mass at St. George’s On All Souls’ Day.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your divine love. 

Send forth your spirit O Lord and renew the face of the earth

Having commenced the streaming of Sunday Mass from our parish community each Sunday, we value this important development.  Lockdown at the beginning of the year was enforced because of the coronavirus, which introduced to us the possibilities of this technology as being particularly helpful and having a good outcome.  My experience of “lockdown”, especially as it happened as we drew close to Holy Week was very beneficial.  It helped me to be particularly attentive to the divine office, with the celebration of Mass giving great emphasis to the scriptures as we progressed through Holy Week.  This brings God’s salvation, and after Good Friday the focus upon the resurrection, the ascension, and especially Pentecost.

How much we need that outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit.

Two things:

One: Will be the prayerful celebration of our liturgies, with the appropriate themes that emphasise each event in the life of our journey through the Christian year.

Two: Community; communication will help us build up the community life of our parish.  The children’s liturgy has been a good help in this direction.

The coronavirus exposed our weaknesses, and brought home to me my biggest failure as a parish priest.  When I had an episode with a breakdown in my health and the loss of my driver’s licence, some of my failures became particularly glaring to me.  The great amount of help that I have received, emphasised what I always believed; a body made up of many parts working together, is truly important and is always the way forward to a good outcome.

When I came to the parish, I introduced Leaven Groups for each community, and please God, after the virus is contained we will be able to return to this.  I had been in the process of establishing “The Missing Link” when we lost some great leaders within our communities, but now please God, is the time to return to this.   I am asking three persons from each church to link together to get us off to a good start.

Recently we listened to a reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes about time.  It included the lines: “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for everything under the heavens.” 

Time is a gift from God.  In a little booklet called Living Faith, with a reflection for every day of each year,  Sr. Melanie Svoboda suggested a simple activity as a means of appreciating this gift: “Find a ticking clock.  If you do not have a ticker and if you have access to the Internet Mr Google will find you one if you search “ticking clock sound” Listen to the ticking for several minutes. Do nothing else. Just listen. Do no work of any sort.  Be aware of the ticking sound and the silence between each tick.  Remember, every tick indicates the passing of a moment of time and a moment of your life.

After listening, ask yourself how the experience felt.  Was it calming? Irritating? Boring? Interesting?  Assuming that every tick represents one second, how many ticks have you lived so far? (One year=31,536,000 seconds) How many ticks do you estimate that you have left to live? How have you chosen to spend your ticks so far: sleeping, working, eating, relaxing, talking, listening, reading, playing, praying? Now ask yourself this question: “Is there something you would like to devote more ticks to in the future?”