Happy Easter

Ok, so there might not have been many posts recently (or at all) because we ended up being rather busy. Inspite of that I hope you enjoyed our blog and I’d like to wish everyone who’s read it a happy and blessed Easter.

Palm Sunday

This morning we celebrated Palm Sunday in the Chaplaincy. The Chapel was full and we had over 100 people present.

Palm Sunday is the first time we really start thinking about Jesus’ passion. It reminds us how popular Jesus was, welcomed into Jerusalem by crowds laid down cloaks and branches before him. I picture it as a time of great celebration. People coming together to welcome someone they thought truly merited their praise.

There is a bitter aspect to this celebration though, as once inside the Chapel we heard how the people turned on Jesus. The people who had been proclaiming his coming were now calling for his crucifixion. Even Jesus’ closest friends distanced themselves from him and denied him.

Whilst it’s easy for us to look down on the people in the crowd it is far harder for us to place ourselves their. After all the crowd turning was necessary for Jesus to die for us and to fullfill the scripture.

With the end of the Palm Sunday service we now look forward to the rest of Holy week. The Masses at Newman House are as followed.

Holy Thursday – Mass of the Lord’s Supper (7.00pm)

Followed by watching at the Alter of Repose until Midnight
10.00pm Holy Hour – an Hour with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

Good Friday – Liturgy on the Passion (3.00pm)

9.00am The Office of readings and Morning Prayer followed by Stations of the Cross

Holy Saturday – Easter Vigil (9.00pm)

9.00am The Office of readings and Morning Prayer followed by a time of watching at the tomb

Easter Sunday – Mass (10.30am)

In the second collection at mass today we made £118.63 for the Missionaries of Charity, the Sisters of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

One week left (almost)

Today is six weeks since Ash Wednesday (can you believe it?) and only eight days until Maundy Thursday and the end of lent. So we’re very much on the home straight. It was a surprise to be on week 5 of Lent in the Morning Prayer book and today the booklets arrived for Palm Sunday. Julian and Anna are off on their Chaplain’s conference so I’m holding the fort here (the power!)

With the end of Lent comes the end of term and there seems to be a sense of anticipation around the chaplaincy, everyone hurrying to meet deadlines and a few realising that they’re on their last few lectures of their University life.

Some people are preparing to leave on Student Cross, a pilgrimage to Walsingham where they will be carrying a large cross and walking further than any sane person should. (Let’s keep them in our prayers.)

But it can be all to easy to forget why we celebrate Easter, too easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of spring sales, too easy to worry about exams that are around the corner and all the things we’re going to do in our time off.

So to help us all I suggest joining me in a prayer,

Father, you loved us so much that you gave your son to us. You watched as he suffered at our hands for our wrongs and yet you still love us. Thank you.

Jesus, you bore all the misery that the world had to offer and you forgave us for it. You showed us what it means to live and love. Thank you.

Spirit, you pick me up when I fall down. You give me the strength to spread God’s message when mine is lacking. You are there always no matter what I do. Thank you.

God, for all this and much more I priase you. Help me when I am in need, I ask you. For everything you’ve done for me I love you. For today, this world, my friends and my family I thank you.

Freedom Day

I’m pleased to announce we raised £237.54 for the Philipines project. This takes us up to £1130.50 raised for charity so far during Lent!

We also had 37 people sign the petition calling for the UN and national governments to…

Prevent the sale of people
Prosecute the traffickers
Protect the victims.

If you didn’t sign the petition and you want to you can find it here

Charity

Here is a letter we received from Cafod yesterday…

Thank you very much for your kind fast day donation. Your support is vital for Cafod to continue to work with local partner organisations in more than 60 countries world wide.

Your support of Lent Fast Day during the year of the live simply challenge allows us to reach out in solidarity to those who suffer the effects of poverty and injustice. Salud Relatado, living in the Philippines, said “You are changing our lives and I hope you will continue this support not only to us but to other poor people.”

Your prayers and donations are enabling us to support local organisations working to improve life for the people n poor communities all over the world.

Thank you once again for your generous support on Lent Fast Day.

In other news we raised £203.42 from the second collection on Sunday

Flagging?

When we start Lent – those first few days of Ash Wednesday through to the first Sunday – we’re all thinking about Lent, asking each other what we’ve given up. You know what it’s like. And that sort of support really keeps us going…for a few days. But then we find it easy to slip back into normal every day life. The temptation is to treat it like a New Year’s Resolution – once broken, well that’s it. No point trying any more. Lent isn’t like that. It’s not an endurance test. It’s about growing in holiness. And part of growing in holiness is about being able to pick ourselves up, shake ourselves down, and start again, especially when we fail in some way. That’s what real life is like. That’s what spiritual life is like.

How are you doing with Lent? Maybe you never really got into it in the first place. Maybe it’s going OK, but then again you’ve not said you’ll do a great deal. Or maybe it’s that you’ve been able to keep off the chocolate or beer or whatever it was, but you’ve not backed up your fasting with prayer or works of charity.

Well, the good news is…this is the middle of Lent. Roughly speaking that is. (Strange that I was working on the train the other day, and the train manager stopped to ask me why Lent has more than 40 days!) This Sunday is called Laetare (meaning Rejoice) Sunday. It’s also Mothering Sunday – the traditional name of what we call Mothers’ Day. It’s also called mid-Lent Sunday, Rose Pink Sunday (because of the colour of the vestments that the priest wears in place of deep purple). It’s a bit of a day off from Lent. It’s a day when you can ease up on the penances and celebrate the goodness of God’s grace – and the great gift of mothers! But we do this, so that we can take up the penances with a newness and vitality again on Monday. So, this coming week is the time to stop flagging, and to get back that energy and fervour we might have had in those first few days of Lent.

PS I’ve been flagging with the daily Scripture updates. But I’m back with a vengeance!

Time is money – but what’s the cost?

I’m back from my week of running around manically and I’ve managed to sit down at the computer and write stuff!

 Firstly I’d like to thank everyone who has given to the second collections after mass on the sundays, here’s how much was raised…

for Fireside (25/2/07) we raised £211.96
for Cafod (4/3/07) we raised £184.79
for Mary’s Meals (11/3/07) we raised £292.79

So you’ve given money, but what about your time? I was at Theology on Tap last night and Fr Ken was discussing brands with us. He was saying that rather than just avoiding unethical products we should write a nice letter to the makers asking after the factory that they were made in. After all if we’re their customers they’ll take more notice of us than if we’re do gooding, environmental hippies who can just be ignored.

If that doesn’t appeal to you how about taking some time to chat with someone, possibly someone on the streets or someone you haven’t spoken with in a while. Everyone likes to know that people are taking an interest in them, and it might brighten their day a little.

The discussion at Theology on Tap also skipped through the topic of do you have to buy fairtrade if you’re giving something somewhere else. If you’re a youth worker or someone doing a low waged job that helps a lot of people out should you have to suffer further by not being able to buy the food you want? Personally I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t cost that much more to buy local and fairtrade food and that we could all give a little up to do so, but there were very convincing arguments both ways.

Theology on Tap finished by moving the discussion on to whether the church is a brand and whether it should be. This is where next monday’s theology on tap is picking up so it would be great to see some of you there.

Youth 2000 Prayer Group

 

Last night we had the first meeting of the Youth 2000 prayer group for quite a long time (since last summer). Youth 2000 is an international movement of young people. It organises prayer festivals, retreats and formation in the faith for young people, but is also made up of local prayer groups. The prayer groups organise a weekly hour of prayer which is a combination of modern worship music together with classical Catholic devotion, Scripture, silent prayer and intercession. The focus and centre of a prayer group meeting is Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (more on that soon!). There is no formal membership. You are part of it if you turn up! We meet every Thursday evening at 8pm in Newman House chapel. It is open to all young adults. Come along and join us!

Copied by the Vatican

Well, well, well. Who would believe it? The Pope saw Fortydays and told his Cardinals he wanted a Lent website too. And here it is

Maybe next year they’ll have a blog too!

Catechesis

Just because it’s Saturday and there aren’t any events organised it doesn’t mean that there’s nothng for you to do. How about reading your bible for 10 minutes today, or set aside a while to pray? Or maybe you could listen to Arch-Bishop Vincent Nichols’ (of Birmingham) catechesis from the start of lent last year.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The recording is slightly abridged (I’ve cut a couple of the questions at the end), if you would like to listen to the recording in its entirity the click here

Q: How long did Cain hate his brother?
A: As long as he was Abel!