Parish Priest – Father David B Barrett – email – olneyparishpriest@icloud.com
Parish Deacon – Rev Peter Griffin – Tel 07850499414 – email – pfgriffin@hotmail.co.uk
Parish Administrator – Denise Wallinger Tel 01234 711212
email: ourladysolney@btconnect.com
SVP Contact – Tel 07925 125206
Parish Website: www.ourladysolney.co.uk
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Saturday 25th July
6.30pm Vigil Mass For the people of the parish
Sunday 26th July
Sun 10.30am Mass Sheila Lack RIP
Monday 27th July: 17th Week in Ordinary Time
10.00am Mass Leni & Sergio Zinelli RIP (Anniv.)
Tuesday28th July: 17th Week in Ordinary Time
10.00am Mass Throckmorton RIP
Wednesday 29th July: St Martha
10.00am No public Mass
Thursday 30th July: St Peter Chrysologus, Bishop & Doctor
10.00am Mass Fr David Barrett Int. (Ordination Anniv.)
Friday 31st July: St Ignatius of Loyola, Priest
10.00am Mass Sydney Briant RIP (3rd Anniv.)
Saturday 1st August: St Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop & Doctor
10.00am Mass Pat Burke RIP
Sat 6.30pm Mass For the people of the parish
Sunday 2nd August: 18th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR (A)
Sun 10.30am Mass Ellenanne & Josie Keegan RIP
To watch the parish Liturgy on the internet, either ask Denise to email you the daily link, or go to our parish website and press the link button that reads TAKE ME THERE. Live Masses have the word LIVE printed on the picture on the screen: you click on that and you should be there. Just make sure that it is the correct Mass.
SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION – If anyone would like to go to Confession, please do contact me by email or call round to the presbytery. Confessions will not be held in the confessional but in a safe place and with appropriate distancing, in compliance with the guidelines.
PUBLIC MASSES AND LITURGIES – Our first public Mass in the parish will be on Monday 27th July. Mass will take place on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 10.00am. The Sunday Vigil Mass will be celebrated as normal at 6.30pm on Saturday. Sunday morning Mass will be at 10.30am.
The obligation to attend Mass on Sundays or any other day remains suspended. You do not have to attend Mass, therefore. We will continue to live-stream Mass each day, except probably on Wednesdays.
For the first couple of weeks we are setting up a booking-in system. This is to ensure that we maintain social distancing and also that we do not have to turn anyone away at the door of the church.
You will have been contacted by Denise to suggest a number 1 preference and a number 2 preference for the day you wish to attend Mass. Please reply to her as soon as possible. We will accommodate people’s preferences as far as we can. If there is anyone from the parish who has not received notification of this system, please ask them to contact Denise on 01234 711212 or by email on ourladysolney@btconnect.com
Deacon Peter has kindly been putting together Guidelines for when we come to Mass again: they are based on the Government’s regulations and the requirements of the Bishop. They are now available on the parish website. Please note them. We are adhering to the guidelines carefully.
Deacon Peter has also organised a rota for the stewards who will welcome and guide people to their places in the church. I am very grateful to the stewards for volunteering and so enabling us to open the church.
A parishioner has kindly donated a fogging machine which will assist in ensuring that the church is disinfected. We will have a regime of cleaning after every Mass. A deep clean, organised by Denise, will take place regularly as well.
I am grateful to all those who have been helping to get things ready. In particular, Denise has done a huge amount of work in the background in securing cleaning supplies and gel for the church – and countless other things. Deacon Peter has been applying his organisational skills to preparing guidelines and in organising the stewards.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Denise or Deacon Peter or myself.
One thing to note is that, in keeping with the Bishops’ Guidelines, there will be no access to the toilet in the church.
ROTAS – The normal rotas for readers, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, counters, offertory, flowers, and cleaners remain suspended at this time. The bidding prayers rota remains active – many thanks to all those who have been writing these over the period of the lockdown.
ANGELUS –Traditionally this prayer is said first thing in the morning, and then at midday and finally at 6.00pm. You will find the text of the Angelus on the parish website.
SPIRITUAL COMMUNION – Even if you are not attending Mass, you can make a Spiritual Communion every day. It is an expressed heartfelt desire to receive Our Lord even when we are unable. In making the prayer, we receive the Lord spiritually. Here is one prayer to make a Spiritual Communion:
My Jesus, I believe that You are truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as being already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.
St Alphonsus Liguori
CAFOD APPEAL – CAFOD has joined with the U.K. Disasters Emergency Committee to help millions of people whose lives are at risk as Coronavirus spreads across refugee camps and countries suffering conflict. You can donate at http://cafod.org.uk/coronavirus to help through our global Church.
FOODBANK – Many thanks to all of you who have been supporting the Food Bank. They are very grateful for the support of people from Olney – Catholics, Anglicans and others. The donation box remains outside the presbytery door every day and is checked often. The Food Bank needs donations of goods such as
- Long Life Juice
- Long Life Milk
- Tinned Rice Pudding / Custard
- Tinned Meat
- Tinned Vegetables
- Tinned Tomatoes
- Pasta Sauce
- Spreads
PARISH SUPPORT – If you would like to contribute, you can either put the offering through the door of the Presbytery – if you didn’t collect your new envelopes, just put down your old envelope number on an envelope with your initials. If you would prefer to set up a standing order for donations to your parish using either your on-line bank account or in your branch, please contact Denise for the relevant details. Any cheques should be made payable to Our Lady Help of Christians.
MASS OFFERINGS (STIPENDS) – If you have any Mass intentions to be offered, please contact Fr David, Deacon Peter or Denise. Please do include the full name of the person for whom you want the Mass to be offered, whether they are alive or deceased.
REFLECTION FOR THE 17TH WEEK OF THE YEAR
We celebrate the Memorial of St Peter Chrysologus on Thursday 30th July. “Chrysologus” means “golden worded” – he was a great preacher. Born in 380, he eventually became Bishop of Ravenna in 433 and died in 450. He was famed for his beautiful, clear homilies – often very practical and easy to listen to (something to aspire to!). As Bishop, he was known for his great care of his people, especially in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. .He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1729. The following is taken from one of his homilies.
I appeal to you by the mercy of God. This appeal is made by Paul, or rather, it is made by God through Paul, because of God’s desire to be loved rather than feared, to be a father rather than a Lord. God appeals to us in his mercy to avoid having to punish us in his severity.
Listen to the Lord’s appeal: In me, I want you to see your own body, your members, your heart, your bones, your blood. You may fear what is divine, but why not love what is human? You may run away from me as the Lord, but why not run to me as your father? Perhaps you are filled with shame for causing my bitter passion. Do not be afraid. This cross inflicts a mortal injury, not on me, but on death. These nails no longer pain me, but only deepen your love for me. I do not cry out because of these wounds, but through them I draw you into my heart. My body was stretched on the cross as a symbol, not of how much I suffered, but of my all-embracing love. I count it no loss to shed my blood: it is the price I have paid for your ransom. Come, then, return to me and learn to know me as your father, who repays good for evil, love for injury, and boundless charity for piercing wounds.
Listen now to what the Apostle urges us to do. I appeal to you, he says, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. By this exhortation of his, Paul has raised all men to priestly status.
How marvellous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering. He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God: with himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer God for himself. The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same. Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill. Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered with being shed.
The Apostle says: I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Brethren, this sacrifice follows the pattern of Christ’s sacrifice by which he gave his body as a living immolation for the life of the world. He really made his body a living sacrifice, because, though slain, he continues to live. In such a victim death receives its ransom, but the victim remains alive. Death itself suffers the punishment. This is why death for the martyrs is actually a birth, and their end a beginning. Their execution is the door to life, and those who were thought to have been blotted out from the earth shine brilliantly in heaven.
Paul says: I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living and holy. The prophet said the same thing: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me. Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest. Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you. Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity. Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection. Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you. Keep burning continually the sweet-smelling incense of prayer. Take up the sword of the Spirit. Let your heart be an altar. Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice. God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender; God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will.
May Our Lady, Help of Christians, St Joseph, St Lawrence, St Peter Chrysologus and St Rita pray for us all.
With my love and prayers,
Fr David B Barrett
Parish Priest