St Edmund of Canterbury, Loughton

Dear Friends in Christ, 

Our Holy Week Journey has begun! This is the most sacred time in the Church’s liturgical year. We retrace the final days of Jesus’ journey that will lead to Calvery and Resurrection on Easter Day! It is a personal journey of faith also. I encourage all of our parish community to enter into the full spirit of this Holy & Most Sacred Week. It can be a real moment of grace for you and your families. This weeks’s Newsletter lays out clearly all the ceremonies and masses to help us enter into this incredible drama of Salvation history. (Also on the website & Facebook) The ultimate sacrifce that Our Lord made on Good Friday was for our Salvation, to free us from the slavery of sin, and allow us to enter into the new life of grace!

I make an impassioned plea to all of you to share in the Sacred Triduum: Holy Thursday & the Mass of the Lord’s Supper; The Good Friday Passion of Our Lord, and the Easter Vigil. This is one continuous celebration with three different facets to it. Obviously the high point is the celebration of the Easter Vgil commencing at 7.30pm on 31^st March 2018. This year there will be two receptions into the Church Samantha Gell & Lorraine Leith. Please pray them There will be a reception immediately after the Easter Vigil in the Parish Hall. If anyone would like to contribute some food for a finger buffett this would be very helpful, just drop it off at the parish hall before the Vigil commences. I really look forward to celebrating this Holy Week with you this year!

If you have never participated in the Triduum, this really is a wonderful time in the Church’s Liturgical Calandar. Or if you have not entered into the full–spirit of the Lenten Season, why not make a very special effort to join us for these three wonderful ceremonies. When we think of what Our Lord did for us, the least we can do is make a special effort to join with Him as he enters His Passion & Death, but also to rejoice with Him & in Him on his Day of Resurrection. I cannot stress enough the untold graces you will receive from God in participating in these sacred liturgies.

Dear Friends in Christ: 

As Holy Week rapidly approaches, this is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to ponder on the great mystery of our Salvation gained for us through Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection. Please read St. John’s Gospel Chapter 13 onwards this week.

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday of the Passion; we recall in a very vivid way the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and the cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David” greet Our Lord as the people lay their palm branches before him. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of this most “Holy Week”.

THE TRIDUUM OF THE LORD is the most powerful liturgy that we experience during the church’s liturgical year. I earnestly encourage you all to participate fully in these most wonderful celebrations of the Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. As we begin our Holy Thursday celebration with the sign of the Cross it is important to remember that the next time we cross ourselves will be at the end of the Easter Vigil; the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Good Friday Liturgy, and the Easter Vigil, are one continuous celebration of Salvation History.

Please make every effort to enter into the spirit of this Holy Week, attend the Masses and Services organised here at St. Edmund’s. This is a truly wonderful time for parents to teach children about these most sacred events in Our Lord’s life; bring your children with you and let them experience these most wonderful events of our Salvation.

There will be a Parish Reconciliation Service on 27^th March 2018 at 8.00 p.m. There will be several visiting Priests to help with the Sacrament of Confession. Please make every effort to be there and, avail yourselves of the Sacrament of God’s forgiving Love. There will also be other opportunities for Confession throughout Holy Week, please see your Parish Newsletter.

God Bless You All,

Dear Friends in Christ, 

It is with great joy this week that we welcome our new Bishop Alan Williams to our parish for his Pastoral Visitation and the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation. Bishop Alan will visit St. John Fisher School for an Assembly with the children. The Mass of Confirmation will take place at 7.00pm where 40 of our young people will receive the Sacrament. This is truly a momentous occasion in their lives of faith, and it has been a great joy to have helped them over the past several months prepare for this great day.

On behalf of the Candidates for the Sacrament of Confirmation, I would like to thank our six guest speakers over the past several months. They have certainly given a great insight into the importance and the sacredness of the Sacrament of Confirmation. Also I would like to thank our Catechists, who untiringly turn up to help our young people; To Mark Anthony, the Director of the Programme, Shirley Rooney, Andrew Burrowes, Ferdi Tisi, Mark Poulter, Ian Kendal, Ian McLay, & Aidan Potter. The wonderful input and example of these Catechists is truly inspiring for our young people and, for the whole parish community. Thank you!

Immediately after the Confirmation Mass, Bishop Alan will greet all the parishioners as they leave the Church. All the Confirmandi and their families are invited into the parish hall for light refreshments; this will be an opportunity to have a personal photo with Bishop Alan. This is also open to any parishioner who wishes to come in for a cup of tea.

In the afternoon I will be meeting one-to-one with Bishop Alan; we will be reviewing the whole parish. A Pastoral Visitation of a Parish is a wonderful opportunity to show the chief Shepherd of our Diocese how the Community of Faith continues to grow in this little pocket of the Lord’s vineyard.

May God Bless You All,

Dear Friends in Christ 

St. John’s Gospel was written some years after the Synoptic Gospels and is the fruit of the Apostle’s long reflection on the life of Jesus. As he reflected John came to understand Jesus’ death on the cross as his ‘glory’ and his ‘hour’. It is remarkable, isn’t it, that an instrument of torture and execution, on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem, should become the world’s greatest symbol of self-sacrificing love? For John, Jesus was born to die: this was his destiny.

Jesus noted that in nature a kernel of wheat has to be buried in the ground – seemingly to die – before it rises again, producing a sheaf of wheat and many seeds. He was speaking prophetically about the fate he knew awaited him. From death comes life, from dying comes rising, from losing our lives comes finding our lives. This is an important principle of the Christian life: one we are called to appropriate and put into practice.

The season of Lent, and especially Holy Week, affords us the opportunity to focus on Jesus’ death, his hour of glory, and seek to penetrate ever more deeply the mystery and message of the cross. Scripture teaches us to view Jesus’ death as the power of God. In Paul’s words, ‘the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God’. Do you experience Jesus’ cross as God’s grace, power and wisdom?

One way we can know the power of the Cross in our own experience is by examining what it is to boast of. We tend to boast of the external: in power, position, possessions and so on. Paul, however, taught that we should boast of the cross. He said: ‘far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world’. In other words, he praised and thanked God for Jesus’ cross; he glorified in the cross and rejoiced in it. We can be expectant that, as we glory in the cross, we will experience its power to transform our lives.

Today is ‘Laetare Sunday’, the word ‘Laetare’ means to ‘rejoice’. It marks the mid-way point of our Holy Lenten Season. This gives us all a wonderful opportunity to review our Lenten resolutions. If we have been remiss in our resolve to renew and improve our lives of faith, it’s still not too late to make an extra special effort over the next few weeks of Lent. Obviously, this is a very personal journey that we make during this Lenten season. There is no one looking over our shoulder telling us what we should, or shouldn’t do. But personal self-discipline is very much at the heart of this Holy Season. Our Prayer, our fasting, our works of charity, our personal penance, all of these areas certainly help us on our spiritual journey to the Joy of Resurrection faith on Easter Day. To look forward in Rejoicing in the Lord Jesus is at the heart of our Liturgy today. Let us all really look forward to the remaining weeks of Lent as we anticipate the Joy of Easter!

Our First Holy Communion children on Sunday will participate in the celebration of Holy Mass. As part of their preparation for the Holy Eucharist the children have been systematically learning about each part of the Mass, this is their opportunity to participate in a tangible way by reading at mass, praying the prayers of Intercession, joining in the Offertory Procession. My sincere thanks to our Catechist Kathryn Poulter, and her great team of helpers who are doing the most wonderful job in preparing the children for the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist.

Today is also Mothering Sunday: We thank God for the gift of our mothers and motherhood. Let us make an extra special effort today to do something special for our mothers. For all those whose mothers are no longer with us, but are with God in heaven, we ask them to continue to pray for us, and we remember them with great love and respect, and think of all the wonderful things they were able to teach and share with us.

Dear Friends in Christ 

In the course of his late-night conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus makes reference to a highly symbolic story from the Old Testament. When Edom denied God’s people permission to pass through his land on the way back to Canaan, the Promised Land, and God instructed Moses not to fight him. The Israelites were far from being impressed at being forced to undertake a long and arduous journey going in the opposite direction to their destination and grumbled bitterly. As punishment for their rebellion God sent venomous serpents among them and many died. Repenting of their rebellious hearts, they begged Moses to help them. In response to his prayer, God told him to make a bronze serpent and raise it high on a pole, promising that if those who had been bitten looked up at the serpent raised on the pole, they would live. This incident was a prophetic reference to the cross of Jesus Christ. In the same way that Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man was lifted up on the cross, and everyone who believes in him will live.

St. Paul and John taught that the One who had no sin became for us a worm, a serpent and sin so that we might be reconciled to God and become the righteousness of God. Underpinning and overarching this revelation is the simple but profound truth that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’. This is the Good News. This is the kerygma, the basic proclamation of the gospel.

The simple message that God is love and showed his love by sending his Son has the power both to transform our own lives as part of our on-going conversion and also to transform our world. This is the message of eternal life to which we bear witness. The greatest symbol of love isn’t the heart but the cross, because while every heart will one day stop beating. The cross of Christ is an eternal, infinite testimony that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.

As we are now well into our Holy Lenten Season, it’s important for each one of us to evaluate how we think our Lent is unfolding! The three disciplines of Lent, as we heard on Ash Wednesday – Prayer, Fasting & Almsgiving (Charity), are at the heart of this holy season. Have we put time aside each day for personal prayer, deepening our relationship with the Lord Jesus? Do we really enter into the spirit of the Mass when we attend each Sunday? Have we made an extra special effort to attend an extra mass each week, or pray the rosary, or attend Stations of the Cross? Have we really exercised restraint with food and drink, and have we fasted on Fridays? Are we conscious of those who are less fortunate than ourselves, especially during this very cold weather? Do we contribute to the Aid Agencies? Do we give time to family or friends or even the stranger who may need our help? These are all questions we can ask ourselves during Lent!

Dear Friends in Christ 

The Greek philosopher Aristotle said: ‘Anybody can become angry – that is easy; but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.’ We can be sure that in clearing the Temple of the market traders, Jesus was angry with the right people, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way.

This was surely the only time in human history when the emotion of anger was expressed perfectly, righteously and without sin. For as Aristotle says, being righteously angry isn’t easy and isn’t within everybody’s or indeed perhaps anybody’s power. Jesus’ zeal for his Father’s house, the temple, was the motivation and the source of his righteous anger. Market traders and merchants were operating within the temple precincts – their rough trade didn’t detract from the worship of God, it undermined it, and was offensive, sacrilegious and blasphemous.

We are temples of God because the Holy Spirit lives in us. We tto need cleansing of the temple through the grace or repentance, conversion and contrition. Through examining our lives, inviting the Holy Spirit to shed light on our thoughts, words and actions, we can be set free form ways of thinking and acting which are not worthy of the Lord. Examining our lives is never easy; it requires certain courage to reflect on our behaviour. Self-knowledge and self-awareness are truly gifts of the Holy Spirit.

One way to cleanse the temple of our own lives is to examine how we stray from God through our senses and bodies. Our eyes covet money and possessions, our ears and lips indulge in gossip and slander, our hands lead us into temptation, our feet rush towards situations and circumstances which are occasions of sin, our sense of smell leads us to commit sins of gluttony. The Holy Spirit creates in us a zeal and enthusiasm to live the Beatitudes and to put the Sermon on the Mount into practice. On fire with holy zeal, enthused by God’s Holy Name, we drive out from our lives all that desecrates and diminishes our love and worship of God.

As we embark upon our second week of Lent. We are reminded in our Gospel that the ultimate prize of a life lived well in faith, will be eternity with God. The Apostles glimpse the future glory of Jesus, and are reassured as to who he really is, the Son of God! Learning about Jesus Christ is fundamental to being a Roman Catholic Christian. The Scriptures give us the greatest insight into the life of Christ. This Holy Season of Lent affords us the opportunity to study and pray the Scriptures; reading a short passage every day is a wonderful way of gaining in knowledge and understanding! Even the little Day-by-Day booklets are a great help.

Our Weekly attendance at the Holy Eucharist, apart from being our obligations at Catholics, is the invitation given to us by the Lord Himself, to “Do this in memory of me.” As we gather together as a Community of Faith, we bring with us all our joys and sorrows, we lay them at the Altar of the Lord and we ask him to receive us into his loving embrace. The Eucharist is the “Source and summit” of the Christian life, where earth unites with heaven in this Sacred action. To be fed and nurtured by the Body & Blood of Jesus fulfils the greatest longing of the human spirit, to be one with Christ! Lent give us this opportunity to deepen our love for the Holy Eucharist. If you get a chance during the week to pay a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, you will never be disappointed with the time you spend with the Lord.

Dear Friends in Christ 

Peter’s witnessing of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor wasn’t sufficient to enable him to withstand the overwhelming doubt and confusion he experienced when, gripped by fear and cowardice in the midst of the events of Jesus’ Passion and death, he denied Christ three times. This foretaste of the kingdom high on Mount Tabor couldn’t help him resist the temptation to betray his Lord. We do know that once he turned back, he would strengthen the believers with his witness of what occurred on the mountain.

Peter bears eloquent testimony to the  Transfiguration event, proclaiming that it was when he saw first-hand Jesus’ majesty and glory and heard the Father’s voice say: ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. For a moment Jesus disclosed his divine glory and revealed that the way of the cross is the way into God’s glory. First the shame (the cross), then the glory (resurrection). Just before Jesus began his public ministry, he was baptised and the Blessed Trinity was revealed. Just before he entered his Passover, he was transfigured and the Blessed Trinity was revealed. As St. Thomas Aquinas said: ‘The Father in the voice, the Son in the man Jesus, the Spirit in the shining cloud.’

Through baptism we are immersed into the death and resurrection of Jesus and the blessed life of the Trinity. Our dignity and our destiny rest on the living hope that at the coming of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead we will be raised up body and soul, just as Jesus was raised up body and soul. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of the resurrection life to come, but first we too must embrace the cross of suffering.

The walk of holiness means that day after day we are being transformed, so that one day, like Jesus on Mount Tabor, we will reflect the glory of Christ, and this life will make us shine resplendently. Lent is a time for us to taste and see that the Lord is good, and part of this means glimpsing, rather as the disciples did, the future glory of being a son and daughter of God.