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Category: Fr John’s Weekly
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Ukraine Invasion By Putin of Russia (3)
If we see Zelensky and Putin embrace what will you think? So much hatred there has been, so much suffering and death, and unhappiness will dominate the lives of millions. And those two embrace? Would you feel glad or angry? Have you been praying for peace or for victory? If the two leaders embrace it…
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Church, Community And Parish
Church is a community of people and the name given to the place where they gather. Parish is a territory, established by Church law regularly called Canon law. We are free to attend any church, feeling part of the community wherever we go; but we are required by Church law to be registered in a…
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Easter Prayer And Joy
Thank you to all who made possible our celebrations during Holy Week and Easter. The changing decor of the church reflected the themes of each service, which were reverently attended and served by our liturgical teams – sacristans, stewards, readers, ministers of the Eucharist, musicians and singers, the Maundy Thursday offertory procession. Thank you to…
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Black Jesus
Pax Christi (Peace of Christ) thank us for our support at St Joseph’s and St Paul’s schools. We have just ordered another 10,000 of the Black Jesus Window prayer cards in Birmingham, Alabama, with the message of reconciliation and love. People locally and from around the country are asking us to send them packs. Each…
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Windsor Framework
I was disappointed as I listened to Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen presenting their vision for Northern Ireland: how fortunate the North for having such a privileged economic position, we were told. Northern Ireland is not an economic question, it is an emotional one. The DUP will not accept this offer. They want…
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Humble Of Heart
Pope Francis awaits. He is trusting us to pray, think and act with all our heart. Do you throw a few words in God’s direction and call them prayer? That is how the only parish priest saint in the history of the Church accused his people of thoughtless prayer. Are we the same? We know…
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Abba, Father
At mass on Sunday 5th February I was overwhelmed. I told the people later. We were saying the first part of the ‘Gloria’ and I knew I was talking to the Father as Jesus told us we could, in the beauty of a child-parent relationship which, we all know, lasts a life-time. I was praying…
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Acts of Kindness
Farmer Fleming heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He ran and saw, up to his waist in black muck, a terrified boy, screaming and struggling…
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Pope Benedict XVI (RIP)
In his book ‘Light in the Darkness’ Pope Benedict spoke with a journalist he trusted on a range of topics. It is there we read what he said in 2005 at Good Friday Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum in Rome “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who,…
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World Cup 2022
In 1492 Christopher Columbus “discovered” Central and South America. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI gave those territories to the powers of Spain and Portugal and reduced to slavery the native peoples. The beautiful church of St Mary Majors in Rome has a ceiling decorated by gold sent by the Spanish conquerors, so the slaves were…