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Macaulay school is launching a new free playgroup for toddlers and pre-school children from 18 months onwards to attend with parents/carers.
Some major roof maintenance started this week. The old roof is being re-covered but with new upstands and skylights ( to replace the existing, many of which are broken). The new ones are triple glazed, improving heat performance.
On Sunday 18th May 2025 as part of the 10.30 a.m. Parish Mass the annual meeting of parishioners and the annual parochial church meeting will take place.
This week is Good Shepherd Sunday, a day to reflect on what it means to be called to hear Christ’s words and follow him. John 10:22-30 reminds us that we belong to God and, if we belong to God, we also belong to one another, called be part of a community that cares for each other. As God’s flock, we are promised abundant life. Life which is experienced and enjoyed only when we share it with others. This week, as we celebrate the work of Christian Aid, striving to bring abundant life in poor communities across the globe, we commit ourselves to living lives of generosity and love, trusting in Christ’s promises of abundance and faithfulness.
The Easter holidays are over, everyone has returned to work or school and all is back to normal. Yet our readings insist that life post-resurrection cannot just go back to normal. Something has changed and we need to change too. In John 21:1-19 the risen Jesus is just the same as he always was: calling to the fishermen, filling their empty nets with an abundance of fish, breaking bread with them, just as he had before his death. He is the same but he is inviting them to change, to begin again but this time to follow his lead. The last time he broke bread with his disciples they betrayed and abandoned him, last time Peter warmed himself at a fire he denied Christ. Now they, and we, have a chance to try again, to risk ourselves for love of God and God’s people. That this will have its challenges is clear from Acts 9:1-20: here the risen Christ offers Saul a new beginning but it is Ananias who struggles to put into practise all that he has learnt about love: must he really embrace an enemy? Must he care for and support those who have threatened him? Must we? Change is hard but so is not changing. Easter, once more, gives us the chance to embrace it.
Christ is always returning to us, continually offering us the gift of the spirit, repeatedly inviting us to begin again. The fact that we are failures makes us perfect for the job too. Knowing how rubbish we are at being Christian, at doing God’s will, puts us in the perfect position to forgive the faults and failings of others and invite them to begin again alongside us.
Last Sunday we rejoiced at the resurrection, the disciples, however, didn’t. A week later our gospel, John 20:19-31, finds them hiding away in a locked room afraid of what the future holds for them. Thomas often gets a bad press for doubting but the other disciples are not doing much better: Jesus has already come to them offering peace, sending them out as the Father sent him but a week later, when Jesus returns, they still haven’t moved. Perhaps Thomas did not believe them the first time because despite encountering the risen Lord, they hadn’t changed. However, the fact that they doubt, that they fail to act, is what makes them perfect for the job; because the job is forgiveness, and who better to know the joy of forgiveness, the significance of a new beginning, than someone who has been in need of forgiveness not just once but again and again. By the time we come to the story in Acts 5:27-32, the disciples have changed, they have started to live as if new life were truly possible.
Christ is always returning to us, continually offering us the gift of the spirit, repeatedly inviting us to begin again. The fact that we are failures makes us perfect for the job too. Knowing how rubbish we are at being Christian, at doing God’s will, puts us in the perfect position to forgive the faults and failings of others and invite them to begin again alongside us.
We gather before dawn to light the Easter Fire from which the Paschal Candle is lit. This is carried into the dark church, a sign of Christ, our light guiding us into the new life of the resurrection. We hear Peter proclaiming the resurrection in Acts 10: 34-43 and how, through his death and resurrection, Christ has ushered in a new way of life in which there is “no partiality” but embraces all who come to him. In the gospel, Luke 24:1-12, we see how this new life is hard to comprehend: the first witnesses of the resurrection experience bewilderment, terror, disbelief and amazement. The power of the resurrection is felt when the community begins to live a resurrected life together, focused not on that which is life-denying but that which is life-affirming. Christ’s resurrection is the beginning of our resurrection. In our Festival Mass at 10.30 we all renew our baptismal vows, remembering that we too are made one with Christ in his death and resurrection and that we too are sent to bring that risen life to others.
This evening we commemorate the last night that Jesus broke bread with his disciples. In the first three gospels this is the Passover supper but in John’s gospel 13:1-17, 31b-35, this takes place just before the Passover; John interprets Jesus’ death as the Passover. He is the one who will lead his people from bondage to worldly power to freedom as children of God. In our first reading we recall the people of God preparing for the first Passover, Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14. They do so by eating together, sharing in equal portions, making sure that small households are included as well as large. Jesus prepares his disciples by taking the role of the servant, showing us how to treat each of God’s children as of equal value. This new Passover will lead us to a way of life in which all God’s children are restored to equal dignity and worth. As a symbol of our commitment to this way of life, we have our feet washed as the disciples did. The service concludes with silent prayer at the side altar as we remember Jesus’ last night of prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.