Dear friends,
As we prepare to mark Passion Sunday, and the final fortnight of Lent, our hearts and minds turn of course to Our Saviour’s sufferings for our sake. We are mindful likewise of the pain of many throughout our world today. And yet, as Fr Francesco Patton, former Custos of the Holy Land, has observed, ‘prayer and fasting are the only “weapons“ we [as Christians] are permitted to take up‘: let us therefore redouble our efforts to walk in the footsteps of the Prince of Peace, as we approach Holy Week this year.
(Please note that on Good Friday, a special collection will be taken for the Jerusalem and Middle East Church Association, which is appealing for funds to support the Al Ahli Hospital – the only working hospital in Gaza, which carries out a thousand operations a month, and contains the only three ICU beds to serve a population of half a million people.)
The fifth session of our shared Lent Course will take place (tomorrow) on Friday evening this week, here at St Mary’s, beginning with Stations of the Cross at 7pm. After this, and over light refreshments, we will consider how we can offer up our sufferings to the Lord in prayer: ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus, / All our sins and griefs to bear! / What a privilege to carry / Everything to God in prayer.’
Please note that the 6pm Vigil Mass on Saturday will be said simply, in the Blessed Sacrament chapel – on account of the Stanmore Choral Society concert in church at 7pm (tickets here). There will likewise be no public Evening Prayer on Saturday, or Confessions.
This Sunday at the 10.30am Parish Mass, we will welcome as a cover organist Mr John Wearmouth MA (Oxon.) FRCO, who has over 40 years’ experience as a parish organist and choirmaster in Wellingborough, Kettering and Leighton Buzzard. Earlier today, I visited in hospital our Director of Music, Peter Crawford, who is making encouraging progress as he recovers after illness: please continue to keep him in your prayers.
Please sign up to deliver a handful of Easter invitations to homes in the parish: there is a list of the roads to which these cards need to be sent. And any more of our young people who would like to earn some Easter pocket money doing so should see me after Mass on Sunday.
Our guest preacher on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Day this year will be the Rt Rev’d Norman Banks SSC, Emeritus Bishop of Richborough (who last visited us for Candlemas, last year). Educated at Oriel College, Oxford and St Stephen’s House, Bishop Norman served as a provincial episcopal visitor from 2011-2024, following parish ministry in Newcastle, Whitley Bay and Walsingham. A chaplain to Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Bishop Norman will celebrate his 72nd birthday with us on Holy Saturday!
Our beautiful Easter lilies may be sponsored in memory of a departed loved one: please PRINT CLEARLY on the list in church the names of those you wish remembered, and then place your donation (suggested £5/name) into the basket at the back, or ask to use the contactless facility. Please make any final donations by Palm Sunday, 29 March.
Those unable to come in person to the Fulham Chrism Mass on Tuesday in Holy Week, 31 March (at 11am, at St Andrew, Holborn – please sign up in church to travel together, from Northwick Park) can follow the service online, via YouTube here.
And please let Pat know what you can contribute to the bring-and-share parish party in the Hall after the Vigil and First Mass of Easter, on Saturday 4 April at 8pm.
There is also a card in church for Fr Edward, in remembrance of Katherine Lewis: please include your memories, and messages of condolence, by Easter Day.
We will again be taking a group to the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage this summer, 3-7 August – a fun-filled week of worship, fellowship and outdoor activities in the beautiful north Norfolk countryside, for young people aged 11-18. The PCC will generously subsidise participation in this Pilgrimage, with just £50 asked for each young person from their families. Please speak to me this weekend, to put your name down to attend.
Similarly included with this mailing are an invitation from Bishop Jonathan to join him for a Solemn Mass on the Solemnity of The Annunciation; details of the patronal festivities at St Magnus-the-Martyr, London Bridge, and a flier for Festival Evensong and Pontifical Benediction at St James, Sussex Gardens.
And thank you, finally, to those who kindly helped put together the Mothering Sunday posies last week, and/or who helped veil the church for Passiontide this week – or who took home a veil or two, to iron!
Bless, O Lord, your people, who long for the gift of your mercy,
Fr Richard