PENTECOST
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
PENTECOST
YEAR A
HAPPY PENTECOST DAY TO ALL OF OUR BELOVED SISTERS AT THE CONVENT
– THE DAUGHTERS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!
Saturday 30th May
6.30pm Pentecost Vigil Mass For the people of the parish
Sunday 31st May
Sun 9.45am Rosary (Pentecost Sunday National Rosary Rally)
Sun 10.30am Mass of Pentecost Mary Hurley Int.
Sun 5.00pm Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament with Evening Prayer and Benediction
Monday 1st June: Our Lady Advocate with the Holy Spirit
10.00am Mass William (Bill) Compton & family Int.
Tuesday2nd June: Ss Marcellinus & Peter
10.00am Mass Patrick Morrissey RIP & Diane Morrissey & fam. Int.
Wednesday 3rd June: Ss Charles Lwanga & Companions
10.00am Mass Alexander Roberts RIP
Thursday 4th June: Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest
10.00am Mass Frank & Peggy Cockings
Friday 5th June: St Boniface
10.00am Mass Maureen Findlay-Wilson RIP
5.00pm Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament with Rosary & Benediction
Saturday 6th June: In honour of Our Lady, Mother of the Church
10.00am Mass Carmel McManus RIP
THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
Sat 6.30pm Mass For the people of the parish
THE MOST HOLY TRINITY Sunday 7th June
Sun 10.30am Mass Martin McCarthy Int.
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.
ROSARY AND BENEDICTION – As we end the season of Eastertide, we will continue to have Exposition, Rosary and Benediction every Friday at 5.00pm. Sunday evening’s Exposition will cease – although occasionally there might be an opportunity to celebrate it.
RE-OPENING OUR CHURCH – We do not know yet when this will happen. But it appears the first phase will involve opening the church for people to pop in for private prayer. We will need to ensure the church is compliant with any Government regulations to minimise any transmission of the virus. This will probably involve having some volunteers who would agree to be in the church during the times it is opened – to ensure it is clean and that visitors maintain safety protocols.
Initially, we will probably open on Thursdays and Sundays for a couple of hours each time, just to see how things go.
In the meantime, please would you consider ensuring that we have your email on our database? We may have to work out some kind of system for our Masses – for example, we may need to add a Mass on Sundays to fit people in. None of this will be easy, but I am hoping we will be able to work it out. However, we will need contact details for parishioners, possibly to begin working out a system of attendance at Masses.
So: if you are not currently receiving a daily email directly from Denise, then it seems that we do not have your email address. If you are currently passing on the email you receive to other parishioners, please would those parishioners also let us have their email address? Finally, if you are aware of parishioners who do not have internet access or have no email address, please could you let us know so that we can contact them by post. The email to contact us on is: ourladysolney@btconnect.com
LOBBY OUR MPs – Bishop David is encouraging us to lobby our MPs about re-opening churches. It seems absurd that most shops are opening over the next couple of weeks but that the Government still has not made any announcements about opening churches even for private prayer. Please do think about lobbying your local MP (I know the parish covers at least 3 constituencies!): think about it and do it.
The Diocese of Shrewsbury tweeted very pointedly the following:
We can have an abortion, but not a baptism.
We can buy a car, but not a candle.
We can go to a supermarket, but not a sanctuary.
We can get divorced, but not married.
We can break the rules, but not receive absolution.
Let’s pray the churches will soon re-open.
ANGELUS – Now that we have returned to Ordinary Time after Eastertide, we return to praying the Angelus. Traditionally the prayer is said first thing in the morning, and then at midday and finally at 6.00pm. We will pray it at the end of Mass every day.
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
FOODBANK – Many thanks to all of you who have been so generous in supporting the Food Bank I am continuing to take the donations over the Milton Keynes every week. There is a box outside the presbytery door every day which I check 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 when you are out for a legitimate trip – 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 AND SEQUENCE FOR PENTECOST
This beautiful hymn to the Holy Spirit is a beautiful prayer. We can pray it at any time. It reminds us that the Holy Spirit is the Giver of life – He is the great Gift who carries to us all the many blessings and grace which God wishes to pour out upon the world, upon each one of us.
When we recall the great Day of Pentecost, we see how the Holy Spirit brought about a profound transformation of the Apostles. Having been men who ran away from Jesus when He was arrested, they became courageous proclaimers of Him. They did not shy away from the fact that He was crucified and died – and they were resolute in their message that He had indeed risen from the dead. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit meant that they were changed – radically and deeply. The Church was born with an energy which is beyond electric – the energy is the Holy Spirit.
What happened on Pentecost is not just a past event. Pentecost is every day: the Church lives in the world but only because the Breath that gives her life is the Holy Spirit Himself, forever being poured out from the Father through the Son. He is the Giver of life – Giver of the grace of the sacraments, giver of the life of faith, hope and love.
St Paul experienced the change that the Holy Spirit brings. In his Letter to the Romans, he exhorts the Romans to be “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (12:2). In his letter to the Ephesians he indicates that this is brought about by the Holy Spirit. Paul prays to the Father: “May He grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being” (3:16). He tells the Ephesians to put off their old nature – their old way of doing things, of thinking of seeing life: “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (4:22-24) . In his first Letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s Temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (3:16)
Paul experienced a complete change of heart and mind when he was converted by His vision of Christ on the road to Damascus where he was intent on persecuting Christians. When we subsequently was baptised and then given the gift of the Holy Spirit, he had to lay aside his old ways of thinking and allow his whole inner being to be remade. The Holy Spirit is very much in the business of reconstruction – in rebuilding us to be the person God wants us to be, the person who is truly happy, free and fulfilled.
This may feel like a tall order for us. Yet, if we trust the Holy Spirit who is within us, this change is possible for us too. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it is a long process; sometimes it happens as the result of a crisis or of suffering; sometimes it happens rapidly.
We can pray to the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and we can being to learn to let go of our thinking – not to become irrational but to allow our rational mind to be healed: it means realising that my mind is not the full measure of the truth but that the Truth measures me. It involves realising that we do not have to be stuck in old patterns of feeling and thinking and reacting. When something annoys us, we can stop and ask the Holy Spirit to show us why we are annoyed and to help us create a new and different response to what annoys us. If we rarely say Thank you at home, we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us start saying it – and eventually we will mean it! If we don’t know how to pray but want to pray more – well, the desire to pray is the Holy Spirit already at work within us and we can ask Him to help us learn how to pray.
The Holy Spirit is our Counsellor, our Advocate, our Guide – the Paraclete (Paraklitos, in Greek). He is here to help. He is God’s Gift to us. He fills us with many gifts. These gifts are meant to build up the Church, our families, our world. The Spirit is here to give us more – whatever He takes away is usually what diminishes us and He replaces it with something better – a fullness which only God can give, the fullness of life. He will remake us – into God’s work of art.
Holy Spirit, Lord of Light,
From Thy clear celestial height,
Thy pure beaming radiance give:
Come, Thou Father of the poor!
Come, with treasures which endure!
Come, Thou Light of all that live!
Thou, of all consolers best,
Visiting the troubled breast,
Dost refreshing peace bestow;
Thou in toil art comfort sweet,
Pleasant coolness in the heat,
Solace in the midst of woe.
Light immortal! Light divine!
Visit Thou these hearts of Thine,
And our inmost being fill;
Where Thou art not, man hath naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour Thy dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away;
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
Thou, on those who evermore
Thee confess and Thee adore,
In Thy sevenfold gifts, descend:
Give them comfort when they die,
Give them life with Thee on high,
Give them joys that never end. Amen.
May Our Lady, Help of Christians, St Joseph, St Lawrence and St Rita pray for us all.
With my love and prayers,
Fr David B Barrett
Parish Priest