CHORLEY HOSPITAL: Please contact St Joseph’s, Harper’s Lane (262713). If you are scheduled for an operation and would like to receive the Sacraments while in hospital. In an emergency, the ward staff will call in whoever is the on-call priest via the switchboard.
BAPTISM PREPARATION COURSE: Would parents please contact Fr Marsden or Deacon Norman personally, after one of the weekend Masses, if they wish to enquire about baptism arrangments.
ST ANNE’S GUILD: Bingo this Tuesday 19th April 2016 at 19.45 in the Parish Centre.
FRIENDS OF UGANDA are having a Coffee Morning and Bring and Buy on Tuesday 19th April at 10.00-13.00 in the parish centre. Light lunch of sandwiches and cakes for sale, also Raffle and Tombola.
DIVORCED AND SEPARATED CATHOLICS: next support meeting and details of contact are on the notice board in the narthex.
ADVANCE WARNING: we had a visit from the electricity provider who informed us that on Tuesday 19th April at 19.00 they are carrying out works on the electricity substation by the church. Therefore a temporary generator will be installed nearby in our car parking area, hopefully just for a day. It is likely to be noisy.
CATHEDRAL EDUCATION SERVICE: Retired teachers are being sought to be trained and to offer two hours per month to guide visiting children around the cathedral on educational tours. Could this be you? Details on the notice board.
ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY UNIT AT CHORLEY HOSPITAL: You are probably aware that as from Monday, Chorley A&E is going to be downgraded to a Walk-In Centre, a unit run by GP’s and some nursing staff. The public have been given only five complete days’ notice of this serious change!
Rt Hon Lindsay Hoyle MP is asking the management to allow medics from the Armed Forces to step in and make a full A&E unit viable until the necessary recruitment of junior/middle doctors is achieved. We fully support Mr Hoyle in defending Chorley Hospital. It would be most regrettable if the 111,600 population of Chorley and a portion of the 109,100 of South Ribble did not have a viable local A&E department, and all had to go 10 miles to Fulwood (Preston), Blackburn, Wigan or Bolton for emergency treatment. Fulwood is very convenient site for the 140,500 people of Preston, but most of the population served by Lancashire Teaching Hospital live south of the Ribble, not north! Lancashire County Council have noted that Chorley is the fastest growing borough in the whole of Lancashire. The Hospital Management ought to take these facts into consideration.
Fr Francis Marsden 01257 262537
and Deacon Norman Arrowsmith
E-mail address:
Parish website: www.stmarys-chorley.org
Office hours Tues- Friday 9.00-13.00 (except Mass), 14.00-16.00
Parish Centre: 270122 or 0797 1025 985 (Manager – Heather Roscoe)
LIVERPOOL ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESAN TRUSTEES INC. Registered Charity No. 232709
St Mary’s Catholic Church Chorley
FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
17th April 2016
Jesus said: ‘The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life; they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me.
The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone, and no one can steal from the Father. The Father and I are one.’
MASSES, MASS INTENTIONS AND SERVICES
Rosary after Holy Mass - Tues,Thurs and Sat
Sun 17th April FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (C) (Mass book p.269)
World Day Of Prayer For Vocations
Sat 18.15 Mass – Derek Tranter (A)
08.00 Mass – Parishioners
10.30 Mass – Winston Donalds
11.45-12.45 Yr 4 Sacramental preparation programme in parish centre
16.00 – 17.00 Holy Hour for Vocations, with Evening Prayer at 16.30, Benediction
Mon 18th April
08.40 Morning Prayer
09.00 Mass – Bertram Livesey (A)
Tue 19th April St Alphege
09.30-11.45 Morning Prayer (09.30) and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament
12.00 Mass – Frank Wilson (A)
Wed 20th April St Beuno, Bd James Bell and John Finch
08.40 Morning Prayer
09.00 Mass – Michael Bolton, Leo, Rosie, Janet
Thurs 21st April St Anselm of Canterbury
12.00 Mass – Leo Bolton (A) and Family
Fri 22nd April
09.30-11.45 Morning Prayer (9.30) and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament
11.30 Divine Mercy Chaplet
12.00 Mass – Janette Bretherton
Sat 23rd April St George, Martyr, Patron of England
11.00-11.45 Confessions
12.00 Mass – Adrian Medford (A)
Sun 24th April FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (C) (Mass book p.271)
Sat 18.15 Mass – Robert Harrison (A)
08.00 Mass – Special Intention
10.30 Mass – Parishioners
14.00 Msza Swięta po polsku
16.30 Holy Hour, with Evening Prayer (16.30) and Benediction
Please pray for the sick and the housebound: Fr Bob Ellwood SMM, Lelia Addy, Rita Almond, Roland Anderton, Emily Atkins, Connie Atkinson, Frances Bond, Emma Beatty, Pauline Bennett, Brigid Cain, Marie Cannon, Michael Collins, Melville Coombes, Hughie Daly, Monica Donalds, Joan Doran, Sister Frances, Mavis Entwhistle, Yvonne Finlayson, Gerry Harrison, Martin Henry, Simon Holcroft, John Johnson, Joan Jones, Doreen Lang, Julie Lowe, Tusia Lynch, Debbie MacFarlane, Jude Mack, Kevin McCarrick, Frances McHale, Kathleen Mitchell, Veronica Mobbs, Canon Kevin Mullen, Catherine O’Donoghue, Anthony O’Malia, Kathleen Rae, Kathleen Reynolds, Margaret Rice, Sam Round, Paul Tiffin, Terry Tingey, Frank Waring, and parishioners in The Adelphi, The Gables, Westwood, Gillibrand Hall etc.
ANNIVERSARIES: Canon Jimmy Collins, Fr Bernard Bimson, Fr Tony Fleming, Derek Tranter, Bertram Livesey, Frank Wilson, Leo Bolton, Adrian Medford, Robert Harrison, Mary Wallbank, Florence Knowles, Millie Gent, Richard and Agnes Johnson, Ellen Morris.
OFFERTORY COLLECTION last week was £863 of which £430 was gift aided. This weekend there will be a collection for the Priests’ Training Fund. Envelopes can be found in the resource area. Many thanks for your continued support and generosity. As mentioned last week, the mandatory work on fire safety measures in the church, to comply with current law and legislation, will begin Monday 25th April. Please assist the Restoration Fund.
The Holy Father has asked for a special collection to be taken in all the Catholic Churches in Europe for the people of Ukraine at all Sunday Masses next weekend. Thank you to everyone.
READERS: 17/18th April: 18.15: Ian McLelland, 08.00: Volunteer, 10.30: Margaret Rossall. 23rd/24th April: 18.15: John Brown, 08.00: Monica Wilcock, 10.30: Robert Barnes
THANK YOU to Fr James Smale CCsR for being with us last weekend. His appeal and your great generosity raised £960 for the Redemptorist missions.
ARCHBISHOP’S VISIT: the quinquennial inspection of our parish will take place next weekend 23/24 April. We warmly welcome His Grace who will preside at all Sunday Masses. Please come and meet and greet His Grace after Mass or in the parish centre.
Please note: during vesting and preparation for the Sunday Masses only clergy and altar servers are allowed in the sacristy. Sacristans please prepare the sanctuary and then take your places in the pews. The sacristy MUST be quiet at least 10 minutes before each Mass.
CAR PARKING: please park your cars on the public council car parks (West St and St Mary’s) during the Archbishop’s visit. Thank you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: to Miss Stella Vigar who is our sacristan. Stella celebrated her 91st birthday. We give thanks to God for the great work that she does for St Mary’s.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON FILM SESSION: The next film will be on 22nd April at 2.15pm in the presbytery large dining room. We will look at St Clare of Assisi and St Richard Gwyn 1537-1584. (co patron of the Latin Mass Society) martyred in Wrexham.
GIFT AID ENVELOPES: The boxes addressed with your names containing your new numbered envelopes are in the resource area. numbers 1-100 Spare boxes for planned giving but not for gift aid are also available but unnamed.numbers 100+.
BIBLE BASIC SERIES: a walk through the Old Testament. Thursdays 14th April – 12th May, 19.30 -21.30 at St Wilfrid’s Parish Centre, Preston. For more details please see poster at the back of Church or contact Joe/Ruth on 07957 566741.
WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS – SUN 17TH APRIL
We welcome Mr Thomas Clarke, 3rd Year Seminarian at Oscott Seminary and who was here on placement recently. Thomas will talk at all the Sunday Masses this weekend and describe the life of a seminarian preparing to become a priest for the Archdiocese.
No family should regard the idea of a priestly vocation for one of their sons or grandsons as unwelcome. On the contrary it is a great blessing. The Vocations Direction, Fr James Preston, regularly holds discernment meetings, advertised regularly in this newsletter. Further information is available in the parish office or on the notice display. We will dedicated the Holy Hour this Sunday to prayer for Vocations.
The purpose of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations is to fulfill publicly the Lord's instruction to "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest" (Mt 9:38; Lk 10:2). As a climax to a prayer that is continually offered throughout the Church, it affirms the primacy of faith and grace in all that concerns vocations to the priesthood and to the consecrated life.
While appreciating all vocations, the Church concentrates its attention this day on vocations to the ordained ministries (priesthood and diaconate), to the Religious life in all its forms (male and female, contemplative and apostolic), to societies of apostolic life, to secular institutes in their diversity of services and membership, and to the missionary life, in the particular sense of mission to those peoples who have not yet heard the Gospel.
Father of mercy, who gave your Son for our salvation and who strengthens us always with the gifts of your Spirit, grant us Christian communities which are alive, fervent and joyous, which are fonts of fraternal life, and which nurture in the young the desire to consecrate themselves to you and to the work of evangelisation.
Sustain these communities in their commitment to offer appropriate vocational catechesis and ways of proceeding towards each one’s particular consecration. Grant the wisdom needed for vocational discernment, so that in all things the greatness of your merciful love may shine forth.
May Mary, Mother and guide of Jesus, intercede for each Christian community, so that, made fruitful by the Holy Spirit, it may be a source of true vocations for the service of the holy People of God.