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Advent Newsletter

12/1/2019

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Diary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout the year. 
Usual Services: 
Thur 5th Dec 9.30am Feria of Advent. 
Sun 8th Dec 9.30am 2nd Sunday of Advent Mass. 
​
Special Services: 
Sat 14th Dec Churches Together Carol Service in Town Centre at 10,00am, . ​
​Meetings:
Next Parochial Church Council Tues 14th Jan.
Future Events: 
Christmas Meal 9th Dec Rockingham Arms.
Christmas Brass 12th Dec in Church (see poster below).


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FROM THE PULPIT
As we begin this time of Advent the Scriptures portray a mood of expectation and hope. At the darkest time of the year Advent shines a light in the gloom and brings a quiet assurance that the brokenness of humanity can be healed by the coming of a Saviour. There will be struggles to face, but through our faith we need not lose hope. The light of Christ dispels all darkness.

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News Roundup 19th September 2019

9/19/2019

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 Diary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout the year. 
Usual Services: 
Thur 19th Sept 9.30am Said Mass. 
Sun 22nd Sept 9.30am Parish Mass. 
​Coming Up

Special Services: 
Memorial Service for the Departed: Sun 27th Oct 3.00pm.
Patronal Festival: Thu 28th Nov 10.00am. 
​
Meetings:
Next Parochial Church Council Wednesday 9th September.
Future Events: 
Christmas Fayre 9th Nov  St Andrews Community Centre.
Christmas Meal 9th Dec Rockingham Arms.
Christmas Brass 12th Dec in Church..

Meetings:
Next Parochial Church Council Monday 13th November 2019..
  - - - STOP PRESS SEE SLIDESHOW BELOW OF WW2 BRASS CONCERT & DISPLAY - - -
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FROM THE PULPIT
When was the last time you lost something that matters to you?  Only the other day I thought I had lost a wallet and was stomping around in a very grumpy state of mind.  Susan reminded me to look again in the first place I had thought it might be and you know what?  There it was.  The grumpiness took a few moments moments to subside, but then afterwards I was filled with relief. 
  If that is how it feels when we find an object, then how much more are we relieved and filled with joy when it is a person who is found.  In the news and on social media I see images of young people and sometimes older people who are missing and the pleas that go out to the public to look out for them.  A few years ago I spoke with a man whose son had gone missing a couple of years earlier in his early teens. He had last been seen on a CCTV image, boarding a train to London.  I can only begin to imagine the distress and desperation that this must bring.  Even today he has still not given up hope of someday finding his son.  I pray that if and when he does, he will be found alive.  I’m quite sure that if he is, his father’s response will not be anger and recrimination but relief and joy.
  In the gospel Jesus tells two short parables.  One is about a woman who found a lost coin.  We might find that her happiness was a bit excessive in throwing a house party, but we can understand the delight in finding what she thought had been lost or stolen.  Then he tells of a shepherd who defies all logic by leaving behind 99 sheep in order to look for one that was lost.  This would probably have been an exceptional shepherd, but a very devoted one nonetheless. 
 The context of those two parables was the judgemental attitudes which Jesus encountered among the Pharisees and scribes when he was spending time among the sinners who were seeking him out.  Jesus did not reject these people or give them a stern lecture, but he radiated the loving presence of the Father who welcomes the lost son or daughter.  Unlike many of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus did not wait to see perfection in other people before he reached out to them and welcomed them back home.
  Jesus then moves on to tell a longer story, whose message has entered into our cultural memory as that of the Prodigal Son. The one who left behind his father and his home and who blew his inheritance on earthly pleasures now returns home. He is met first of all by his father, not with condemnation but with unconditional love. His brother reserves a frostier kind of welcome.  In fact he doesn’t welcome his brother home at all but launches into a tirade against his father, ridiculing him for his lavish generosity.
  To those who heard the story, the message was very clear.  The father in the parable is an image of God.  The lost son is a symbol of all those human beings who have wandered away from God and who have experienced a sense of emptiness and confusion.  The older brother, in contrast, represents those who believe themselves to be beyond reproach and who reserve for themselves the right to judge others, but whose hearts have grown hard and who have lost light of the living God.  Both these sons are lost, but just in different ways.
  I don’t think that Jesus is saying that there are two different categories of people.  Probably at different times of life most people can experience being lost in both those ways.  If we look hard enough we can perhaps identify, even if it is only in a diluted way, with both sons.  Human beings can be wilful and selfish, but they can also be self-righteous and judgemental.
  What this parable tells us is that God never gives up waiting for our return and is ready to welcome us back home.  St Paul speaks of his own overwhelming experience of conversion and of the mercy of God in his first letter to Timothy.  His message is that if he, a persecutor of the followers of Christ, could be forgiven, then this would be a powerful testimony to generations to come.  No one is outside the scope of God’s mercy.  We need to experience for ourselves the way in which God has been merciful in our own lives.  Then, as Christians, we are called to show that same attitude of mercy and compassion to the people who cross our path.
One hymn which seems to sum up the message we are called to share is: “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.”
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in Heaven;
There is no place where earth’s failings
Have such kindly judgment given.
  This is a much better message for the world than the cold and judgemental attitude of the scribes and Pharisees. It was Jean Vanier who said:
“The person in misery does not need a look that judges and criticises, but a comforting presence that brings peace, hope and life”
How often have we heard of some misfortune or passed someone on the street and thought: “Well, they’ve obviously brought it on themselves”?
It is so much easier to judge than to display unconditional love. That great spiritual writer Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
Let us pray for that same grace, that we may seek out the lost, and if we feel lost ourselves to remember that we believe in a God who actively seeks us out. The Lord is reaching out to us now… Let us also pray for grace not to judge but rather, that we might find it in ourselves to love as God loves us. Amen.
Fr Richard



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A new month - looking forward

9/1/2019

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Diary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout the year. 
Services: 
Thur 5th Sept 9.30am Said Mass. 
Sun 8th Sept Joint Parish Mass. (for the Benefice held at St Andrews at 10.30am)

Meetings:
Next Parochial Church Council Monday 9th September.
. 
Future Events:
WW2 Brass: Thur 5th September. Themed Concert to coincide with the start of the Second World War. Will also include a pictorial presentation. Some music of the period will be played by Worsbrough Brass and song-sheets will be provided for audience participation! See the poster on the previous posting for further details. 
The Christmas meal has already been booked for the Rockingham Arms on Monday 9th December.
Xmas Brass: Thur 12th December. Usual mix of seasonal and contemporary music with Worsbrough Brass. 
​
A message from Father Richard
I remember that at Prince Harry’s wedding to Meghan, now Duchess of Sussex, over a thousand ordinary members of the public were invited to be present for the occasion. My own invitation must have been lost in the post.  To be fair though, some of the people invited had done some praiseworthy things.  One was a former soldier who lost a leg in an accident out in Afghanistan and another was a schoolgirl survivor of the Manchester concert bombing, who had raised money for other survivors.  We hear a lot about the privileged people who normally get the spotlight and we know too that there are plenty of unsung heroes in our world.  So it is good when such people are not overlooked and overshadowed by the more obvious celebrities.
This brings us to today’s gospel, where Jesus is proposing something that goes much further and much deeper than the worldly example I have just given.  It would seem that he has been invited along so that the Pharisees, who were unsettled by his teachings, could appraise him away from the crowds.  They watch him closely, but Jesus is unperturbed and he watches them in return.  He notices that when people were coming in they were making for the most prestigious positions, nearest to the host, and so he tells them a parable.
 
It can be embarrassing enough if we go to an event and we inadvertently sit in a place reserved for someone else.  How much more embarrassing would it be if we deliberately chose to take a front seat and were then asked in front of other people to move further back to make way for someone more important than ourselves?  The parable Jesus tells sheds a light on the insecurity and anxiety that status-seeking can produce in people.  People with sharp elbows are striving for recognition and for the highest place.  There are times when that tendency can lead to humiliation.  Far better, then, to take the humble approach, as Jesus suggests.  “Come up higher, friend” sounds much better than: “I’m sorry, but you are sitting in someone else’s place.
Of course, this teaching was not meant to be some kind of lesson in dinner party etiquette, but a teaching about life.  There is nothing wrong with trying to be the best we can or with being competitive.  What Jesus has to say really speaks to a tendency towards entitlement and self-importance.  In order to make sure we always have the exalted place, we have to be prepared to step on other people and to push them down the pecking order.  This happens in all walks of life and it can even happen in the life of the Church.  Jesus points out the futility of jostling for position in God’s kingdom.  There we may find that it is the poor and the marginalised who are the first and that the egotists are left behind. 
Humility probably wasn’t a popular concept in the lifetime of Jesus and I’m not sure that it is now.  The people who are most admired and emulated are often the rich and the ambitious types.  Humility is seen as weakness.  This is not how Jesus presents it though.  There is a quiet strength in recognising that our self-worth and our true potential is not achieved by comparison with other people.  Putting others down does not make us greater.  It certainly doesn’t bring us peace and lasting happiness, but instead keeps us insecure and always threatened by the position of our neighbours.  Jesus wants us to recognise that we find the peace we long for through our closeness to God and our concern for others.
As we are told in the passage from Ecclesiasticus: “The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly.”  Being thankful for what we have and being concerned for the well-being of others can bring us joy and peace.  There are so many people who are overlooked by society but who are precious in God’s sight.  Giving up something of what we have to serve their needs makes us aware of the ways in which we are blessed and of the gifts that God has placed into our hands.  This is not weakness.  Through this we identify with Jesus, who was not concerned with status, but who willingly gave of what he had, even his own life, and opened up for us the way to everlasting treasure.
Today we have been invited to share in the Eucharistic meal.  In the words form the letter to the Hebrews:
“But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church in which everyone is a “first-born son” and a citizen of heaven.”
So to God we are made first-born sons and daughters in Christ.  No need to worry about our status, because it is secure with God.  All we have to do is discover for ourselves the joy of knowing God and  serving one another. 


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Late Summer Reflections

8/27/2019

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Sundays Best - A pick of the readings.
Gospel: Luke 13:22-30
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Through towns and villages Jesus went teaching, making his way to Jerusalem. Someone said to him, “Sir, will there be only a few saved?” He said to them, “Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed. Once the master of the house has got up and locked the door, you may find yourself knocking on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ but he will answer, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will find yourself saying, ‘We once ate and drank in your company; you taught in our streets,’ but he will reply, ‘I do not know where you come from. Away from me, all you wicked men!’ Then there will be weeping and grinding of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves turned outside. And men from east and west, from north and south, will come to take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Yes, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.”
 
Diary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout the year. 
Services: 
Thur 29th August 9.30am Said Mass. 
Sun 1st Sept 9.30am Parish Mass
Sun 8th Sept Joint Parish Mass. (for the Benefice held at St Andrews at 10.30am)

Meetings:
Next Parochial Church Council Monday 9th September.
Future Events:
WW2 Brass: Thur 5th September. Themed Concert to coincide with the start of the Second World War. Will also include a pictorial presentation. Some music of the period will be played by Worsbrough Brass and song-sheets will be provided for audience participation! See the poster on the previous posting for further details. 
The Christmas meal has already been booked for the Rockingham Arms on Monday 9th December.
Xmas Brass: Thur 12th December. Usual mix of seasonal and contemporary music with Worsbrough Brass.
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Concert & Commemoration

8/6/2019

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Please see attached poster with details of the Brass Band Concert
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Pondering Pentecost

6/13/2019

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​The Acts of the Apostles today introduces us to a scene in which people of a variety of nations and languages are all assembled in one place.  It’s not describing something like the European parliament or the Eurovision song contest.  This is a multitude of people who are gathered for the purpose of worship, each with their own language and customs and nationality.  Normally their languages would have been incomprehensible to one another, but on this occasion something remarkable happens.  The apostles who are all gathered together in one room experience something akin to a rushing wind and to tongues of flame.  It is as if they have received a gift that drives out their fear and fills them with courage, enabling them to speak of God with a new boldness and sense of purpose.  In fact that is exactly what happened.  Even more amazingly, they managed to communicate with and be understood by a variety of people from different nations and who spoke unfamiliar languages.
A few weeks ago it was a pleasure to worship in a church in Wales.  Although the service was almost all in English, the occasional bit of Welsh was there too.  I hardly understand a word of it, but being the liturgy, I was able to grasp what it meant.  Our worship of God introduces us to something bigger: something greater than ourselves and much wider than the barriers of language and culture and nationality.  We become part of something worldwide… the Body of Christ.  Within this company of people we find all kinds of variety, but what we do not, or should not find, is division, suspicion and alienation.  In Christ there are no such barriers and as members of the one Body, the Holy Spirit unites us in the one God of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Difference will always exist between people and God does not call us to be all the same.  Instead of this we are led to discover what it is that draws us closer together.  The powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit which is described in the Acts of the Apostles did not leave people unchanged.  Their own spirit was stirred to make connections with their fellow people.  The apostles had hidden away up to that point, afraid of what might happen if they emerged from the walls that surrounded them.  Now they were filled with joy and confidence and a desire to communicate with others about the gift they had received.  In this way the Church was born: a Spirit-filled community of people not working out of their own human limitations alone but enabled and empowered by God.  We might wonder what would happen if we were empowered to leave behind the walls that hold us in and prevent us from being all that we could be.  What would it be like to overcome our reluctance and self-doubt and to walk out into the light?
We are called together to worship in one place in order to be strengthened and inspired to live lives that speak to others about the presence of God among us.  The Eucharist – the Mass – is for us the Sacrament of unity.  Today people are receiving the sacraments of Christ’s Body and Blood in London, Glasgow, Rome, Rio de Janiero, Seoul, Harare and almost anywhere you care to mention across the world.  We might not necessarily be able to understand their speech, but I hope that we would be willing and able to understand their love of the Lord who has called them together into one Body.  We are members of a Church of many different peoples and languages but we all receive the same Holy Spirit of God.
So what difference does this make to our lives?  The more we are tuned into the things of the Spirit, the greater our love for God and the greater our desire to walk in the ways of Jesus.  As he told his disciples:
“If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home with him.”
Jesus speaks about the gift of the Paraclete – literally the one who comes alongside us, to inspire us, to support us and to strengthen us.  This is the Advocate of which Jesus speaks, the one who pleads on our behalf… the presence which reassures us that we don’t have to go it alone, but that God is with us always on our journey.
We reflect the love of God through our words and by the way we live.  This doesn’t mean that we have to find clever words to persuade people or that we have to do amazing things.  The most convincing thing of all is when the fruit of the Spirit is apparent in the life of Christ’s disciples: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.   These are the hallmarks of a life lived in the presence of the Holy Spirit.  It follows that some of the opposites would be described by St Paul as evidence of a life which rejects that same Spirit: hatred, joylessness, dissent, impatience, unkindness, meanness, unfaithfulness, harshness and self-indulgence.  These are incompatible with the new life which the gift of the Holy Spirit imparts.  The gifts of the Spirit break down the walls which separate one person from another and which impede our approach to God.  Then people begin to notice the change.
The Holy Spirit is a gift received in baptism and which is confirmed within us.  At the same time we can pray for the renewal of that gift to us: a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot always live perfect lives, but with God there is always a new beginning and a better way forward.  So on this day of Pentecost, let us pray for the renewal of this gift within us:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Amen
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 ary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout the year. 

Services: 
Thur 13th June 9.30am Said Mass. 
Sun 16th June 9.30am Joint Parish Mass. (for the Benefice held at St Peters at 10.30am)

Meetings:
Next Parochial Church Council Monday 8th July.
Future Events
Summer Fayre: Saturday 27th July 2019, St Andrews Community Centre from 10.00am.
Summer Outing: Mon 19th August 2019. Dinner at the Rockingham Arms Wentworth.
WW2 Brass: Thur 5th September. Themed Concert to coincide with the start of the Second World War. Will also include a pictorial presentation. More details to follow. 
Xmas Brass: Thur 12th December. Usual mix of seasonal and contemporary music.
Both concerts will feature Worsbrough Brass.
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Summer Journal 2019

6/4/2019

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Sunday's Best - ​A Pick of the Readings

Second Reading: Apocalypse 22:12-14. 16-17. 20
A reading from the book of the Apocalypse.
I, John, heard a voice speaking to me: “Very soon now, I shall be with you again, bringing the reward to be given to every man according to what he deserves. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Happy are those who will have washed their robes clean, so that they will have the right to feed on the tree of life and can come through the gates into 
the city.” I, Jesus, have sent my angel to make these revelations to you for the sake of the churches. I am of David’s line, the root of David and the bright star of the morning. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” Let everyone who listens answer, “Come.” Then let all who are thirsty come; all who want it may have the water of life, and have it free. The one who guarantees these revelations repeats his promise: I shall indeed be with you. Amen; come, Lord Jesus.
 
Gospel: John 17:20-26
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John.
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so completely one that the world will realise that it was you who sent me and that I have loved them as much as you love me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may always see the glory you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Father, Righteous One, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me. I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them.”
 

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Diary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout the year. 

Services: 
Thur 6th June 9.30am Said Mass. 
Sun 9th June 9.30am Parish Mass.
Advance Notice - there will be a joint Mass for the Benefice on Sunday 16th June.

Meetings:
Next Parochial Church Council Monday 8th July.
Future Events
Summer Fayre: Saturday 27th July 2019, St Andrews Community Centre from 10.00am.
Summer Outing: Mon 19th August 2019. Dinner at the Rockingham Arms Wentworth.
WW2 Brass:
 Thur 5th September. Themed Concert to coincide with the start of the Second World War. Will also include a pictorial presentation. More details to follow. 
Xmas Brass: Thur 12th December. Usual mix of seasonal and contemporary music.
Both concerts will feature Worsbrough Brass.
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Easter Journal 2019

4/21/2019

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Good Friday Homily​
Today is a day to focus on the Cross.  We are used to seeing crosses everywhere worn as adornments such as earrings and necklaces.  It is hard to know how much of the true meaning of crosses and crucifixes filters through to the people who wear them.  Sometimes the symbolism of the cross is hard to miss.  For many people this was the case during the past week as images emerged of the interior of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the fire which caused so much damage.  Above a heap of charred wood and rubble in front of the altar hung a cross which seemed to shine out amid the sadness and gloom.  It seemed to bear the message that through death and destruction there is a life and a hope that can never be vanquished.
  This is a day which even church worshippers can approach with some reluctance or even avoid altogether.  It can be experienced as “too sad” and perhaps people might question why, as believers in the Resurrection, we need to revisit the scene of Jesus’s suffering and death.  Surely this is no longer a necessary part of the Christian experience?  Well, it is true that Jesus in his death on the Cross has broken the ultimate power that sin and death might have held over us.  This does not mean that suffering and death are things of the past though.  In this world we still experience grief, betrayal, failure and in the end also death.  What we can be sure of though, is that this need not be the end of our story.
   Today we pause and focus for a while on the Cross.  The sufferings of Jesus mean that he identifies closely with us in our own trials and losses.  Our faith is not a fairy tale which comes to a happy ending, but it is deeply grounded in human experience – an experience which we share.  Jesus did not pass lightly over the experiences of suffering and death but felt these things as keenly as anyone else would.  We know that we cannot make light of human suffering.  There is no point telling someone with depression to “snap out of it”.  We cannot expect the bereaved to “just get over it”.  We have to go through these experiences when they happen, but as Christians we know that we can go through them with hope.  Through the Cross comes life-giving grace.
   Today as we venerate the Cross and kiss the feet of Jesus, we are reminded that he is with us in our trials.  From our faith in him we draw from an ever-present source of life and hope.  As I think of the image of the cross glowing in the darkness and destruction of Notre Dame Cathedral I am reminded that no matter how messy and sad life might at times seem, through Jesus we always have cause for hope and the promise of new life.  Today, let us approach the Cross with the assurance that through the death of Christ our sins are forgiven and our life restored.
Easter Sunday - Pick of the Readings
Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4
A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Colossians.
Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed - and he is your life - you too will be revealed in all your glory with him.

 

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Diary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout the year. 

Services: 
Wed 24th Apr 9.30am Said Mass
Thur 25th Apr 9.30am Said Mass. 
Sun 28th Apr 9.30am Parish Mass.
 Advance Notice - there will be a joint Mass for the Benefice on Sunday 12th May. .

Meetings:
Annual General Parochial Church Council Wednesday 24th April.
Future Events
WW2 Brass: Thur 5th September. Themed Concert to coincide with the start of the Second World War. Will also include a pictorial presentation. More details to follow. 
Xmas Brass: Thur 12th December. Usual mix of seasonal and contemporary music.
Both concerts will feature Worsbrough Brass.
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Easter Message

4/15/2019

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Easter Message
​As we enter Jerusalem with Jesus today in our worship, we also enter into Holy Week.  Although Christmas is seen by many as the most important event of the Church’s year, it is really the events of Holy Week and Easter that make the story of Jesus complete.  For Christians, this week is the cause of our hope.  It is wonderful that God came among us in human form as Jesus, but still more wonderful that he gave his life for us and rose again for us on that first Easter morning.  As we celebrate these events, our hope is renewed and our life restored.
 
This Sunday (Palm Sunday) we echo the cry of “Hosanna” which greeted Jesus on his arrival into Jerusalem.  Next Sunday (Easter Sunday) we sing “Alleluia” as a song of praise and rejoicing.  The problem with going straight from “Hosanna” to “Alleluia” is that we miss out everything that comes in between.  For Jesus, there was no Resurrection without his experience of betrayal, denial, suffering, death and burial.  For his disciples there was no Easter joy without first of all a sense of their own weakness, loss and sorrow.  For us too, if Easter is to be anything more than just a nice story or a sentimental happy ending, then we need to join in the experiences, through our worship, of that first Holy Week.
 
The readings at Mass during the week tell of how the celebrity worship of Jesus fell apart.  After all, Jesus had never come to be a hero figure.  Not only did the crowds dwindle, but even his closest followers and friends fell away, as we see with the betrayal by Judas and the denial by Peter.  If his disciples found it hard to understand the example of humble service which he gave them on Maundy Thursday, there were others who were actively hostile.  But Jesus shared supper with his disciples, telling them to “do this in memory of me”.  He then began his agonising wait in the Garden of Gethsemene.
 
Good Friday saw these events come to a head as Jesus was arrested, condemned, scourged and crucified with only a tiny number of faithful followers beside him, other than two thieves on crosses at either side.  Life and hope seemed to have gone and on Holy Saturday there was just an empty space.  The church is stripped of all adornments during these sacred days to remind us of that sense of loss and emptiness and to invite us to share in it.
 
The Easter joy only seems to make sense when we have shared the events that led up to it.  We then realise that Jesus was not betrayed, deserted and condemned by “bad” people, but by ordinary people just like us.  These were people who did not understand, who were afraid and who just went along with the crowd.  But just as they were offered forgiveness and a new beginning, so are we.  Their sadness and emptiness was replaced by an indescribable joy.  Whatever mess we have made of our lives or however bitter we might feel about the past, once we take the message of Easter to heart, then we have an undying hope and sense of newness.  Then it makes sense to sing: “Alleluia!”
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Holy Week Services
Mon 15th April Mass - St Andrew's at 12 noon.
Tues 16th April Mass - St Peter's at 7.30pm.
Wed 17th April Chrism Mass - St Catherine's at 12 noon.
Maundy Thursday Mass of the Lords Supper and Watch - St Peter's at 8.00pm.
Good Friday Liturgy of the Lords Passion and Death - St Andrew's at 3.00pm
Sat 20th April Vigil and First Mass of Easter - St Peters at 8.00pm
Easter Sunday Masses at the usual times in both churches.
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News Update 11th April 2019 Easter Services

4/11/2019

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Diary Dates
Coffee Mornings: 
From 10.00am every Tuesday throughout April. 

Services: 
Sun 14th April PALM SUNDAY Joint Benefice Mass held at St Peter's at 10.30am.. 
Holy Week
Mon 15th April Mass - St Andrew's at 12 noon.
Tues 16th April Mass - St Peter's at 7.30pm.
Wed 17th April Chrism Mass - St Catherine's at 12 noon.
Maundy Thursday Mass of the Lords Supper and Watch - St Peter's at 8.00pm.
Good Friday Liturgy of the Lords Passion and Death - St Andrew's at 3.00pm
Sat 20th April Vigil and First Mass of Easter - St Peters at 8.00pm
Easter Sunday Masses at the usual times in both churches.

Meetings:
Advance Notice - Annual General Parochial Church Council Wednesday 24th April.
Future Events
Concerts
aWW2 Brass: Thur 5th September. Themed Concert to coincide with the start of the Second World War. Will also include a pictorial presentation. More details to follow. 
Xmas Brass: Thur 12th December. Usual mix of seasonal and contemporary music.
Both concerts will feature Worsbrough Brass.
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