Sunday: December 26th
THE HOLY FAMILY
OF MARY AND JOSEPH
MASS (OLHoC): 9.00am (Deceased parents of Monica & Phil Aherne)
X Unfortunately, there are NO Refreshments after
Mass
MASS (OLHoC): 11.00am (Pro Populo)
X Unfortunately, there are NO Refreshments after
Mass
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• MONDAY, December 27th – ST JOHN
MASS (OLHoC): 9.00am (Francis & Else McSwiggan RIP)
• TUESDAY, December 28th – THE HOLY INNOCENTS
MASS (OLHoC) 9.00am (Eric Coling RIP)
• WEDNESDAY, December 29th – ST THOMAS OF CANTERBURY
MASS (OLHoC): 10.00am (Dorothy
Wrigley RIP)
X Unfortunately,
there are NO Refreshments after Mass
• THURSDAY, December 30th – 6th day of Christmas
MASS (OLHoC) 9.00am (Shaun Kelly RIP)
• FRIDAY, December 31st – 7th day of
Christmas
MASS (OLHoC) 9.00am (Dr Nicholas Rozario RIP)
• SATURDAY,
January 1st 2022
MARY, THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD – MASS (OLHoC) 10.00am
(Martin & Catherine Murray RIP)
Following Sunday: January 2nd
THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE NATIVITY
MASS (OLHoC): 6.00pm (Sat.) (Michael & Getrude O’Rourke RIP)
MASS (St Joseph’s): 9.00am (Pro Populo)
X Unfortunately, there are NO Refreshments after
Mass
MASS (OLHoC): 11.00am (deceased members of Wilkes family)
X Unfortunately, there are NO Refreshments after
Mass
X RECEPTION OF COMMUNION AT MASS - those not in Full Communion with the Roman Catholic Church and Roman Catholics not able to receive Holy Communion are welcome to come forward to receive a blessing. Do so by approaching the Priest with their arms crossed over their chest.
X FACE COVERINGS - HM Government has made the wearing of face covering mandatory in Places of Worship since Friday 10th December 2021. Please follow the rules to avoid church closure.
X REMINDER – THERE IS CURRENTLY NO COFFEE IN THE HALL AFTER MASS - with the rise in infection rates for Covid, a decision has been taken to temporarily suspend tea and coffee after Mass until the weekend of 9th January 2022, when the decision will be reviewed. Whilst the church remains safe, with limited moving around and masks being worn, we are unable to offer that level of health and safety in the hall for tea and coffee after Mass. We apologise for any inconvenience, but your safety is our paramount concern.
X COLLECTION FOR SUNDAY 26TH DECEMBER – today’s collection is for the parish priest. If you miss the collection, there are envelopes at the back of the church marked Christmas Collection in which you can put your offering and post through the presbytery letterbox at 41 Guildhall Street. Thank you for your generosity and all your Christmas gifts and cards for the members of our clergy in the parish.
X POPE’S PRAYER INTENTION FOR JANUARY 2022 - FOR TRUE HUMAN FRATERNITY. We pray for all those suffering from religious discrimination and persecution; may their own rights and dignity be recognized, which originate from being brothers and sisters in the human family.
PARISH INFORMATION
Presbytery and Parish
Office:
41
Guildhall Street, Folkestone, Kent CT20 1EF
Tel:
01303 252823 e-mail:
folkestone@rcaos.org.uk
Parish Secretary: Mr Dylan Jeffrey BA,
PGCE, MSc
Clergy
Parish Priest: Fr Alex Saba MA,
MSLR, MCL, JCL
Priest: Fr Francis Capener MA
Deacon: Rev. Dr Gehad Homsey
MB, BCh
Pastoral Letter for the Solemnity of the Holy Family 2021
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ
I extend to each of you, and to your families
and loved ones, my warm good wishes as we celebrate the birth of our Saviour
this Christmas. I pray that, in a deepened way, your heart might be opened to
the loving closeness of the Lord Jesus. Now, and always, He is Emmanuel: God
with us and God for us; nearer to us than our innermost thoughts, and closer to
us than our heartbeat. It was because God loved the world so much, because God
loved you so much, that He sent His only Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit and
born of the Virgin Mary. For so great a gift, we too sing in thanksgiving with
the angels: ‘Glory to God in the
highest.’
Whatever ups and downs the past year has brought, remember that you belong to Christ. In our isolation or distance, in our fear or disappointment, we have a home in Christ and in His Church. He knows our name. Our baptism is part of His life-story. The Lord never will never forget us or abandon us. How we need to be reminded of this, especially in difficult times. We are united to Christ, and to each other, in the family of the Church. Ours is not a do-it yourself faith or a go-it-alone religion. Believing and belonging go together. We journey with each other as Christ’s Body, called to live our faith from within the Church towards to the world.
The Feast of the Holy Family this year follows on immediately from Christmas Day. We remain focused on the new-born Christ child, held in the arms of His mother Mary and watched over by His foster father, St Joseph. United in Christ, Christian families too are places where believing and belonging go together, giving much needed witness to the unchanging virtues of faith, love, and hope, of patience, mercy and kindness.
What must it have been like for Joseph and his pregnant wife to have arrived in Bethlehem, exhausted by the journey from Nazareth? We know Mary was close to her delivery date. Joseph would have slowed the pace of travel to protect his wife and her unborn child. To avoid any possible hostility in Samaria, the Holy Family also probably took a detour. It would, therefore, have taken Joseph and Mary a week to ten days, maybe even longer, to reach their destination. They then struggled to find suitable accommodation and had to bed down beside the animals in the straw. Through all this they have something to teach us: they kept faith and they trusted in God’s promises.
Fast forward twelve years. The Holy Family
had been in Jerusalem for the Passover. As they travelled home, their beloved
child, the Lord Jesus, went missing. At that time men sometimes travelled
separately from women, and the children travelled with either parent. Mary
thought the Lord Jesus was with Joseph and Joseph thought He was with Mary. How
panicked they must have been, fearing that He was lost, even that He had been
injured or killed. Rushing back to Jerusalem, they found the Lord Jesus three days
later teaching in the temple, getting on with His ‘Heavenly Father’s business.’ It’s significant that they found Him
alive after three days. The Gospel points to the resurrection. Again, there is
something to learn here. In all we face, how we need to keep faith and trust in
God’s promises. As the Christmas carol ‘Hark!
The herald angels sing’ reminds us, Christ is born so we ‘no more may die,’ born to raise us from
the earth, born to give us ‘second
birth.’
Dear friends, we each need to nurture our faith. We each need to renew our trust in God’s promises. We live with hope in Christ born for us and raised from death on the cross for us. This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it. Thank you to parents, grandparents, and great grandparents for passing on the faith in your families. Thank you to catechists, teachers, clergy and religious sisters for passing on the faith in the family of the Church. Please be encouraged to continue helping people to believe and belong in Christ, especially through the celebration of the Sacraments, through cherishing prayer and the Scriptures, and through loving service to those most in need.
I assure you of my prayers on this beautiful Feast of the Holy Family: prayers for each of you and, in particular, for anyone struggling with life, and especially family life or marriage; for anyone coping with illness or bereavement; and for anyone uncertain about what 2022 might hold. Let us unite ourselves to Our Lady and to St Joseph. With them we keep faith and trust in God’s promise: a Saviour has been born for us who is Christ the Lord. He is Emmanuel: God with us and God for us.
With every blessing for this Christmas Season and the New Year.
Yours devotedly in Christ
+ John Wilson
Metropolitan
Archbishop of Southwark
