PARISH OF ST. BONIFACE, SOUTHAMPTON

JANUARY 31st., 2016

FOURTH SUNDAY of ORDINARY TIME [C]

within the JUBILEE YEAR of MERCY

“No prophet is ever accepted in his own country”

Presbytery: St. Boniface House, 413 Shirley Road Southampton SO15 3JD Tel: 023 80771231

Parish Priest: Father David Sillince

Safeguarding Officer: Diana Agacy 023 80907128 Chair of Parish Pastoral Council: Mike Wood 023 80221730

Parish Secretary: Eileen B. Aylett Parish Office opening hours Monday Thursday and Friday 9.00am to 12.30pm

Newsletter deadline 9.00pm on Tuesday for inclusion on following Sunday, space permitting.

Parish Website: www.st-boniface.org.uk Parish Office e mail:

This Parish is within the Pastoral Area of Southampton Central & West. RC Diocese of Portsmouth Regd. Charity 246871

The Church is normally open on weekdays 8am-5pm, Saturdays 8am-7.45pm, Sundays 7.30am-5pm

CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK / We pray especially for:-
(Divine Office week 4)
Saturday / January 30 / ] / 6.30pm / Mass / Edith Agacy, RIP
Sunday / January 31 / ] FOURTH SUNDAY of ORDINARY TIME [C] / 8.30am
10.30am / Mass
Mass / Josephine Barber, RIP
Eva McDonald, RIP
Monday / February 1 / Feria, week 4 [St. Henry Morse, Martyr †London 1645] / 10.00am / Mass / Tommy Fanning, RIP
Tuesday / February 2 / Feast of the PRESENTATION of the LORD in the TEMPLE
(Candlemas)
Mass with Blessing of Candles at 10am / 10.00am / Mass / Mary Smith, RIP
Wednesday / February 3 / [St. Blaise, Bishop & Martyr †Sebaste, Armenia c.320;
St. Ansgar, Bishop †Bremen 865]
Blessing of St. Blaise after Mass / 10.00am / Mass / Deceased Benefactors of the Parish
Thursday / February 4 / [St. Stephen Harding, Abbot †Cîteaux 1134;
St. Gilbert, Founder, Abbot †Sempringham, Lincs. 1189;
St. Simon Stock, Carmelite †Bordeaux 1265] / 10.00am / Mass / Eric Biddlecombe, RIP
Friday / February 5 / St. Agatha, Virgin Martyr (†Catania, Sicily c. 251) / 10.00am / Mass / Kathleen Rogers, RIP
Saturday / February 6 / St. Paul Miki, Priest & Companions, Martyrs
(†Nagasaki 1597)
6.30pm Mass is of 5th. Sunday of Ordinary Time / 10.00am / Mass / Holy Souls

Confessions Saturdays after 10am Mass and from 5.45pm to 6.15pm PARISH PRAYER GROUP: Fridays 11am-12noon in the Hall, all welcome.

REFRESHMENTS in the Hall every Sunday after 10.30am Mass, also Fridays after 10am Mass (for our Parish charity)

COLLECTION: Jan 17: Loose £634.37, Envelopes £465.00. Apportionment: Bankers’ Orders £320.00, Gift Aid £180.00. Total £1599.37. Catholic Education Service £286.77. ‘Connect2Ethiopia’ charity £69.01 (£19585.60 Ethiopia total so far / £43235.33 Ethiopia + previous Kainmari ‘Connect’].

Many thanks for these kind contributions.

Next weekend: Building & Maintenance Fund.

DIOCESAN PRAYER INTENTIONS:

Su: Salesians in the Diocese. M: St. Brigid, West End. T: Our Lord Queen of Apostles, Bishop’s Waltham. W: Brigidine Sisters in the Diocese. Th: Holy Rood, Oxford. F: Sacred Heart, Bournemouth. S: St. Amand, East Hendred.

PARISH PASTORAL COUNCIL meets this Sunday January 31, 7 pm in the Hall (this is a postponement from January 17).

THE CRIB COLLECTION in all the Diocese is for the support of deprived Christian communities in the Holy Land via “Friends of the Holy Land”. The crib remains in the church until February 2.

Please pray for those who are sick especially: Colette Morfett, Sheila White, Rosemary FitzGerald, Kathy White, Aileen Lynn, Mary Hoskins, Geoffrey Milford, Edward Standley, Katie Smith, Jenny O’Farrell, Joan & Peter Turner, Dick Barber.

Please pray for the repose of the souls of those with anniversaries at this time: Stephen Caraher, Denzil Northover, Susanne Foote. May they rest in peace and rise in glory.

ALMA REDEMPTORIS MATER

[“Loving Mother of the Redeemer”, Antiphon to Our Lady appointed for Advent to Candlemas]

Mother of Christ, hear thou thy people’s

cry;

star of the deep, and portal of the sky.

Mother of him who thee from nothing made,

sinking we strive, and call to thee for aid.

O by that joy which Gabriel brought to thee,

thou Virgin first and last, let us thy mercy see.

SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM: Ebube Louis Ede will be welcomed and prepared for Baptism (10am) and baptised (6.30pm) this Saturday. January 30. At the 10am Mass on Saturday February 6 we welcome and prepare for Baptism Zach Anthony Coelho.

ALLELUIA 2: The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives.

COMMUNION 2: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven; blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.

The ROSARY GROUP will now, during this ‘Year of Mercy’, meet in the Hall on the first Saturday of the month after the 10am Mass, therefore next Saturday February 6. All welcome.

EVENING OF HEALING (Little Way Ministries), Fr. Lawrence Brassill OSA, Pauline Edwards and team. Highfield House Hotel, Highfield Lane SO17 1AQ Monday February 1, 7-9.30pm.. All welcome.

YOUTH CLUBS: Junior [‘Frogz’] for ages 8-10, SECOND & FOURTH Fridays of the month during termtime, 6-7.15pm. Next: Feb 12 (“Film Night”). Come and join us if you have made your First Holy Communion, for faith, fellowship and fun. In the Hall, all welcome. Details from Tina Quinn (023) 8033 3589.

Senior [‘Fanning the Flame’] for ages 12-18 Fridays 7.15-9pm. This is now intended to resume this Friday, February 5, including a talk on “Mary the Mother of God”.

IN THE PORCH:

Cafod Connect 2 Sebeya, Ethiopia – helping this community develop their irrigation and so be profitable in agriculture.

Poitiers Care food box for needy local families: suitable items list on lid of box.

Apostleship of the Sea box (blue) for bags of sweets, toothbrushes/paste, soap, Vaseline and moisturising cream for seafarers visiting our port.

GRANDPARENTS: Bishop Philip invites you to Mass at St. John’s Cathedral, Portsmouth on Friday February 12 at 12.15pm, to inaugurate the Catholic Grandparents’ Association in this diocese. There will be a talk after Mass by Catherine Wiley, founder of the CGA. Refreshments in the Cathedral Centre. Details: or 01328 560333.

SHARING THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL: TUESDAY FAITH FORMATION: at Holy Family Church, Tuesdays February 9 to March 15, inclusive, 7.30-9pm. Led by the Dominican Sisters of St. Joseph; six sessions in all based in the Catechism of the Church. Fuller details on church and hall notice boards.

“TRAVELLING LIGHT”, a quiet day in Lent: Saturday February 20 at Wisdom House, Romsey, 10am-3.30pm. 01794 830206.

Suggested offering £27 incl. refreshments.

“WHAT NEXT FOR THE FAMILY?” with Bishop Peter Doyle and Fr. Daniel O’Leary; perspectives on last autumn’s Roman Synod on the Family. At St. Peter’s Winchester SO23 8RY Saturday February 27, 9.30am-3pm. Bring packed lunch. Information and booking Robin Correa or 07825 392925.

PORTSMOUTH DIOCESE: FORMATION for MISSION: Events and courses 2016; a complete list, covering March to November, may be found on notice boards in the church porch and hall.

NEXT ‘ALPHA’ COURSE runs April 14 to June 30 Thursdays 7-9.30pm at St. George’s College, Swaythling. Taster session Thursday March 10; free hot meal, introductory talk. As well as covering the basics of Christianity, ‘Alpha’ also provides an introduction to the Catholic way of living out our Christian faith. (023) 80333589

St. GEORGE CATHOLIC COLLEGE:

Day of Prayer for Victims of Human Trafficking – February 8. To remember all those who are victims of human trafficking and modern slavery and to ask the intercession of St Josephine Bakhita, Patron of Trafficked People. Join us in prayer or in person, if you can, any time from 9am until 3pm in the college chapel. Please sign in at the reception.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK:

Last week: intercommunion. This week: a uniform date for Easter, an even more thorny subject.

Archbishop Welby is confident that a standard date for Easter, on a Sunday in mid-April, can be achieved within ten years. I think he is being optimistic. The Catholic Church put out feelers for this some time ago. The Archbishop invokes the support of the Coptic Patriarch in Egypt (not the most influential of the Orthodox Churches) and the Patriarch of Constantinople (i.e. Istanbul), who has a primacy of honour among Orthodox, but as a titular authority only, given the almost non-existent state of Christianity in modern Turkey.

Easter falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. That sounds simple. The spring equinox is March 21 (more or less – as to why there can be a fluctuation please consult an expert); the full moon is actually a so-called ‘ecclesiastical full moon’, an approximate correspondence with astronomical reality to be applicable to the whole earth. So it’s getting complicated already.

Then there’s the little matter of the Western Churches using the Gregorian calendar (introduced in Catholic Europe in 1582, in England only in the 18th. century) whereas many Eastern Churches stick to the old Julian calendar, which lacks the correctives contained in the Gregorian and so is getting more and more ‘out of synch.’ This can mean the Eastern Churches looking to a full moon one later in the cycle than ourselves, so that their Easter could be as much as 34 days later.

(Actually some Orthodox Churches do use the Gregorian calendar, while some use a revised Julian calendar, which puts the dated feasts like Christmas on the same date as ourselves, while retaining the Julian computation for the undated ones like Easter). Still with me?

Many Orthodox cling to the Julian calendar in worship as a real badge of honour. Attempts to bring unity within the Orthodox world have come to nothing. And the most powerful advocate of tradition is the Russian Church.

So now onto the scene walks the suspicious figure of Vladimir Putin. Putin is a great advocate of the Russian Church as a vessel for the preservation and expansion of ‘Russian-ness’. And the Church likewise hails Putin in the political field.

This year the Orthodox Churches are meant to be coming together for a Pan-Orthodox Council (the first since the year 787!) The date of Easter would be on its agenda. But there are already doubts as to whether this Council will take place because the Patriarch of Moscow is insisting on votive rights and a position of prestige which he feels corresponds to the strength of his Church, over against the purely notional supremacy of his colleague in Istanbul.

Those who oppose a date change say it would create a rift between the Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover. However such a rift occurred centuries ago, when it was decided that Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday, the Day of Resurrection, and not on the Passover day, the 14th. of the Jewish month of Nisan.

What a muddle! Maybe we Christians should just carry on as we are, leaving the state to insert whatever bank holiday it likes. Then the date of Easter would not be influenced by the needs of school timetables or the fears of ice-cream sellers in Skegness that they would not sell enough of their product on a chilly bank holiday ...