Upcoming Activities & Offerings

Jan 18th - 25th  -- Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 

Sun. Jan 19th  --  Peace Sunday

Sun. Jan 19th  --  Joint services, Churches Together in Mildenhall, 4 pm at King’s Church (Baptist) Mildenhall

Sat. Jan 25th  -- Family Faith Club, 10:30 – 12 Noon at St John’s Mildenhall

Sun. Jan 26th  --  Word of God Sunday, Readers recommissioning

Sat. Feb 1st  --  Day of Prayer for Victims of Trafficking and those who work to combat it

Second Collection

Sun. Jan 19th  --  PAX CHRISTI

Sun. Jan 26th  --  SPUC – PRO LIFE

Sun. Feb 2nd  --  RACIAL JUSTICE DAY/CARJ

Pax Christi (The Peace of Christ) works for:

• Peace – based on justice. A world where human rights are respected, basic needs are met and people feel safe and valued in their communities.
• Reconciliation –a process which begins when people try to mend relationships –between individuals or whole countries after times of violence or dispute.
• Nonviolence –a way of living and making choices that respects others, challenges what is not fair or unjust, and offers alternatives to violence and war.

To do this Pax Christi works to:

• Support teachers, chaplains and youth workers in promoting a culture of peace in schools and amongst young people.
• Develop solidarity between people who are working non-violently for justice and peace. Pax Christi does this through joint actions for peace in Israel-Palestine, through events to encourage international efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and by celebrating the life and witness of peacemakers.
• Promote an understanding of sustainable security where human needs are met and the environment is protected, rather than seeking security through weapons and warfare. Pax Christi campaigns against military spending, the arms trade and nuclear weapons.

                                                                                           TC

Today there will be a collection on behalf of PAX CHRISTI

Joint services run by Churches Together in Mildenhall – 4 pm at King’s Church (Baptist) Mildenhall 

Today - Sunday 19th January.

Learn, pray and play…

Café for adults and Faith Based activities for Children – bring your children or your grandchildren and enjoy a cuppa (or two) and a natter whilst they explore their faith in fun and creative ways.

Next Faith Club: Saturday 25th January 10:30 – 12 Noon at St John’s Mildenhall

This month’s theme:  Candlemas - Jesus the Light

Pope Francis has asked that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be devoted to the celebration, 

study and dissemination of the Word of God. All readers present at both Masses on Sunday 26th will 

be recommissioned to proclaim the Word of God at Mass.

... with anointing of the sick, Feb 8th at the Cathedral in Norwich at 11:30 am.

(“Eucharistic Ministers”)  We are in need of more ministers to help minister the chalice at Mass, 

particularly at Mildenhall.  If you would like to know more about this important ministry to our 

parish and feel you could help, please speak to      Father Luke

50-50 Club subscriptions are shortly due for 2020. Renewal forms are at the back of each church wth details of the different ways you can pay. If you are not already a member, now is a good time to join. This forms an important part of Parish income. Please see Anna Liwak or David Thomas at Brandon or Janet Murphy or Philip Kemp at Mildenhall. Many thanks for your continuing support.

We are a small parish, as everybody knows and, unusually, we have to maintain three buildings. 

Fortunately, we have a congregation which, time after time, provides funds, through offertory payments, stole fees and donations. So we are very grateful. One way in which you can help the parish in the long term is to consider a bequest in your will. Talk to Fr Luke or Philip Kemp for further information about this.

A polite remember to parishioners that parking at St Thomas’s Church is limited.   In order to utilize the space please park  with consideration for other drivers.   When parking along the full length of the 

Church please fill from the top of the carpark first. This prevents the need for cars having to ‘run the gauntlet’ and squeeze past other vehicles to get to a place at the front. Parking is also available on the road and in Fengate drove, but as this is a residential area, it is imperative that people park considerately, not blocking pavements and drives. Please remember to be as charitable to one 

another on the road as you are in Mass. Thank you for your cooperation. Fr Luke

If you are free in the week, why not come to a weekday Mass? Mass lasts around 25 minutes and it is an excellent way to nourish your faith and pray with others.

A new book by a local Catholic author Derek Williams is available at the back of the Church priced £7.99.

“Tithing for Catholics is an innovative piece of writing that cuts to the heart of Scripture and Church 

Teaching…. the author takes us on a journey of first-hand experiences that demonstrate how tithing is a real service of faith that won’t let you down because God cannot be outdone in generosity”

                                                                                        - From the cover of ‘Tithing for Catholics’

Please place money in CTS box or give to Fr Luke directly.

Want to know more about the Church?  Perhaps you are a Catholic but missed out on making your confirmation as a youngster.

If this is you, please consider joining our RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) programme. Please write to Fr Luke expressing your interest.

The Parish - whole Church – depends on its members for finance to achieve its mission. That is why we have first and second collections at Mass and welcome people’s generosity in making donations. 

Have you considered continuing your contributions after you have departed? 

You can do this by making a gift in your will. You can specify what it is to be spent on and the charity that will benefit.  Talk to our treasurer for more information: 

Philip Kemp: Tel 07514430468; Email pjkemp1@gmail.com 

You can forget the chore of remembering to bring money for the Offertory by signing up to a Direct Debit. Talk to Philip Kemp. 

As a parish, we are dedicated to working for fair treatment of growers and suppliers in the Third World. 

Because of lack of support, we no longer have a Traidcraft stall at Mildenhall, but we are still obliged to use Fairly Traded tea and coffee. If these cannot be purchased from shops and supermarkets locally, Gillian Caple can order it from Traidcraft. Please ask her. 

Locally, Sainsbury’s have opted out of using the Fair Trade logo and, therefore, there is uncertainty about the status of their products. Non-fair trade brands such as Nescafe, Lavazza, etc. should not be used in St John’s. Please inspect purchases carefully for the Fairtrade logo. 

We have a number of ways of recording people for whom prayers are said, including, books at each church and this section of our weekly Newsletter. 

In the Newsletter we record the names of those whose anniversaries occur each month and sometimes those for whom special requests have been made. These names will, of course, re-appear the same time next year. Because of limited space, the anniversaries are for those who have died since 2010. 

Do you want to share our faith in everyday life here in the parish?

This autumn we have started a Proclaim! Group focusing on evangelisation. We are reading Sherry Weddell’s Forming Intentional Disciples together over six weeks and then we support each other to proclaim God’s Good News.  

Following the first presentation on Wednesday 25th September at St Thomas’ Brandon, it was thought that it would be good to share our prayers with the whole parish.  So a prayer pamphlet was enclosed in your newsletter on 29th Sep.

Please add these prayers to your own prayers at home. 

Pray for yourself; and 

for the group who are estabilishing the programme on Wednesdays; and 

for the whole parish: that we will have the desire and confidence to share the beauty of God’s love with others.  

Gracewing has just published a beautiful little book Devotions to St Thomas Becket by Fr John S. Hogan, a priest of the Diocese of Meath in Ireland, with illustrations by a monk of Silverstream Priory. As well as the Christmas Novena to St Thomas, Fr John's book offers an 'armchair' pilgrimage to Canterbury with the Seven Stations of St Thomas of Canterbury. The book retails at £7.99 St Thomas Becket, a popular little life of the saint, at £6.99 - you can find copies of these books at the back of the Church in Brandon. Please put money in the CTS pamphlet box on the wall. 

A new statue of the Virgin Mary under the title Our Lady of Walsingham has been donated to our parish for the Blessed Sacrament Chapel at St Johns. Please have a look at our new statue and take a moment to ask the prayers of Mary, Mother of God of Walsingham. 

Walsingham is our National Shrine and the centre of the New Evangelisation as designated by the Bishops of England and Wales, we are blessed to live so close to this beautiful and important site for Catholicism in our Country. 

There is sometimes confusion about what stole fees are and who receives them. 

They are amounts of money given to priests for various services (Baptisms, Marriages, funerals, etc.). In some countries, the priest keeps the fee. In East Anglia, because priests receive a modest stipend (salary) each month, Bishop Peter Smith decreed that fees should be part of the parish income. This is still the situation. 

Items left behind or lost are now accumulating. If you have lost anything please check what is in the narthex. We will keep abandoned items for one month, but will then have to dispose of them. Items of value may be kept longer, but we cannot take responsibility for these or anything else left behind. 

If you are struggling to get a roast dinner ready after Mass at Brandon, consider taking one home with you from the Orient Express Carvery! For £9:99 they give you a takeaway tin and you fill it with freshly cooked food and locally sourced meats. 

Thank you to Lina Busuttile, a member of the Mildenhall community who kindly created the new altar cloth for St Thomas’. Mass goers at St Thomas’ will also notice the new icons around the Church. These were purchased with the remaining funds that with given to the parish by an anonymous benefactor of the Divine Mercy Pictures 

Having a mass said or paying for flowers in the church are practical ways supporting the work of the parish. Please give your donations to Fr Luke or Philip Kemp. 

Has your house been blessed? Would you like a home visit and a blessing for you home and family? 

If you would like Fr Luke to visit you in your home and invoke God’s blessing upon your home and family, please speak to him after Mass or call the presbytery. 

Even if your home has been blessed in the past we can still pray together and ask for God’s blessing upon our lives. It’s also an excellent way for priest and parish to get to know each other! 

Just Traid, the Fair Trade shop next to St John the Baptist Church, St John’s Street, Bury, has launched an exciting new menu in their café and a wide range of goods in their shop. Well worth a break to rest your legs and your pocket, when Christmas shopping! 

• Just Traid are also looking for volunteers to help in the shop and the kitchen. For more talk to Gill Caple. 

The Fund deals with emergency grant applications from families or individuals in need. It also considers support for young people wishing to explore a third world project in their gap years or long vacations. 

The fund is administered by Caritas East Anglia. All applications come from the parish or endorsements from professionals working with applicants. 

Over the past year, the Fund has supported families and individuals facing homelessness or job losses resulting in rent arrears. Others helped have been dealing with the sudden onset of terminal illness. 

For more details go to:  https://www.rcdea.org.uk/caritas-east-anglia/ 

November is a traditionally the month when we pray for the dead. In both of our Churches you will find a ‘Book of the Dead’. 

Please put the names of your loved ones who have died in the book and they will be prayed for throughout November. I will also offer Mass for the Holy Souls at various points in November and they shall be remembered in those Masses. 

To add a name, simply find the page which corresponds to the month that they died and write the name in. Any name of any deceased person can be added, they do not need to have died in this last year nor do they need to be a Catholic. All people alive and dead can benefit from our prayers! 

The Lord knows full well how His children have limited the time they have for each of the many tasks they put upon themselves to the point of exhaustion. This seems especially true today when life seems lived at breakneck speed.

So, in May we have the chance to slow a little, take time out from the daily hustle. This is because May is the Month of Mary, Christ’s Mother and, thus, the Mother of the Church. 

She is the example, as well as the guide and inspiration, of everyone who, in and through the Church, seeks to be the servant of God and our sisters and brothers, and the obedient agent of the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

We have no evidence that Mary rushed about trying to do an impossible number of things all at once; nor that she scolded anyone; nor that she gossiped, argued or nagged to get her way. She took Time and did not let Time take her.

For Mary, God’s way determined her way (as in the Annunciation): she also knew that what she could not do, her Son would (Cana). Most of all, she understood that love - not the overbearing pressure of time - is the foundation and framework of a satisfied life,. Love springs from Faith and Mary lived a life of faith and piety. Piety is the virtue that protects us from reducing faith to unfeeling, loveless dogma and mindless praying.

So May is the time to renew our acquaintance of and love for God’s Mother. Saying one Hail Mary thoughtfully, or the Litany of Mary, are simple ways of renewing our reverence for her and reminding ourselves of the selfless, patient and faithful way she responded to God’s plan for her.

May this be the example we can follow in peace, freed from stress, now that the earth yields its fruits for us once more.

According to tradition, in an apparition to Lady Richeldis, the Blessed Virgin Mary fetched Richeldis’ soul from England to Nazareth during a religious ecstasy to show the house where the Holy Family once lived and in which the Annunciation of Archangel Gabriel occurred. Richeldis was given the task of building a replica house in her village, in England. The building came to be known as the "Holy House", and later became both a shrine and a focus of pilgrimage to Walsingham.

In passing on his guardianship of the Holy House, Richeldis' son Geoffrey left instructions for the building of a priory in Walsingham. The priory passed into the care of the Canons Regular of S Augustine, sometime between 1146 and 1174.

An immensely popular place of pilgrimage during the middle ages, the shrine was destroyed during the Reformation and restored in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The Slipper Chapel is now the centre of what has become the Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady and is regularly visited by people from the English dioceses and beyond. In mediaeval times this was the last staging post, where pilgrims began a 1 mile barefoot walk to the Shrine in the village. (Hence ‘Slipper’)

Carfin Lourdes Grotto, is a shrine in Scotland dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes, and was created in the early twentieth century. The "Carfin Grotto", as the shrine is locally referred to, was the brainchild of Father, later Canon, Thomas N. Taylor (died 1963), parish priest of St. Francis Xavier's Parish in the small, mining village of Carfin, two miles east of Motherwell. 

Following a trip to Lourdes, Canon Taylor's vision was to build a religious memorial in honour of Our Blessed Lady. Since its opening in the early 1920s, the "grotto" has attracted pilgrims in the hundreds of thousands. For the past 90 plus years, the grotto shrine has offered a pilgrimage season with Sunday processions, rosaries, outdoor masses and dedicated Feast Day events which runs annually from early May until late September. 

The evening of Thursday, 21 August 1879, was a very wet night. At about 8 o'clock the rain beat down in driving sheets when Mary Beirne, a girl of the village, accompanying the priest's housekeeper, Mary McLoughlin, home, stopped suddenly as she came in sight of the gable of the little church. There she saw standing a little out from the gable, were three life-size figures. She ran home to tell her parents and soon others from the village had gathered. 

The witnesses stated they saw an apparition of Our Lady, Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist at the south gable end of the local small parish church, the Church of Saint John the Baptist. Behind them and a little to the left of Saint John was a plain altar. On the altar was a cross and a lamb (a traditional image of Jesus), with adoring angels 

This is now Ireland’s National Marian Shrine, and is a popular pilgrimage centre, especially for those with illnesses or disabilities. 

Legend tells how, in the Middle Ages, a beautiful statue of Our Lady, her Son on her lap, and a burning taper in her hand, appeared on the banks of the River Teifi in Cardiganshire. Any attempt to move the statue to the parish church in Cardigan resulted in its reappearing at the spot where it first appeared. It became a place of pilgrimage and St Mary’s church was built on that spot in 1158. The original statue was destroyed in the Reformation. 

At the beginning of the 20th century, monks from Brittany gave their abbey church the name of Our Lady of Cardigan and revived the devotion. They made the same dedication to the small church they built in Cardigan in 1912 The monks left in 1916 and the devotion lapsed. 

In 1952, Bishop Petit learned that there had once been a shrine in Cardigan and decided to restore it. He commissioned a new statue, which was blessed in Westminster Cathedral in 1956. 

The Shrine of Our Lady of the Taper is now the national shrine for Wales and parish for the people of Cardigan and surrounding areas. 

John Henry Newman (1801 – 1890) was one of the foremost churchmen and theologians of his day. He studied and then taught at Oxford University, and became the Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, the University Church; he was known for his intellect, his pastoral care, and his preaching. 

A leading light of the Oxford Movement, which was seeking to move the Church of England in a Catholic direction, Newman left his considerable prospects and many friends behind when he converted to Catholicism in 1845, at a time when there was still widespread prejudice against Catholics in Britain. 

Founding the first Oratorian community of priests in Birmingham in the late 1840s, he continued to write major works of theology and philosophy as a Catholic. He founded a university for Catholics in Ireland and, in 1859, The Oratory School in Edgbaston, Birmingham. 

He was made a Cardinal in 1879 and he died in 1890. 

Pope Benedict XVI beatified him in 2010. 

Cardinal John Henry Newman is to be canonised after a second miracle in his name was confirmed by the Pope in February 2019. The canonisation (which has been welcomed by the Church of England) took place on October 13th 2019. It will make Newman the first English person who has lived since the 17th century to be officially recognised as a saint by the Church. 

"I think to myself, 'I, too, could be here.’ That is, none of us can be sure that we would never commit a crime, something for which we'd be put in prison." 

"We all make mistakes in life.  And we all must ask forgiveness and make a journey of rehabilitation so we don't make them again."

“It must be kept in mind that penal sanctions have the aim of rehabilitation, while national laws should consider the possibility of establishing other penalties than incarceration. In this context, I would like once more to appeal to governmental authorities to abolish the death penalty where it is still in force, and to consider the possibility of an amnesty." 

"Losing our freedom is not the same thing as losing our dignity.  That is why we need to reject all those petty clichés that tell us we can't change, that it's not worth trying, that nothing will make a difference."

“Prisoners who are re-entering civic society ought not be punished anew by neglect, indifference or, worse, contempt.” 

 If one’s work as a Catholic is not united to Christ Jesus, it is no longer the “mission” to which the Church is called, Pope Francis told a group of religious brothers on Monday 29tth October. 

“Let us not forget that the condition of every mission in the Church is that we are united to the Risen Christ as branches to the vine. Otherwise what we do is social activism,” the pope said Oct. 29. 

“This is why I repeat to you the exhortation to remain in [Christ],” he continued. “First of all, we need to let ourselves be renewed in faith and hope by Jesus alive in the Word and in the Eucharist, but also in sacramental forgiveness. We need to be with him in silent adoration, in lectio divina, in the Rosary of the Virgin Mary.” 

On October 14th Pope Francis canonised Pope Paul VI (1963-78). Pope Saint Paul oversaw the Vatican Council, making numerous reforms. 

On October 14th, Blessed Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (1917 – 1980) was canonised by 

Pope Francis. St Oscar lived almost all of his life in El Salvador. 

On 23 February 1977, he was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador. Welcomed by the 

government, many priests were disappointed, especially those openly supportive of 

liberation theology. Progressive priests feared that his conservative reputation would 

negatively affect commitment to the poor. 

However, just 17 days after his appointment, something happened which had a profound effect on him. Fr. Rutilio Grande a personal friend who had been creating self-reliance groups among the poor, was assassinated. St Oscar later said: "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.' Romero urged the government to investigate, but they ignored his request. Furthermore, the censored press remained silent. 

He devoted the rest of his life to defending the vulnerable against the violence and cruelty of what became a Civil War. His sermons and broadcast speeches created many enemies in a country where assassination was commonplace. In March 1980 he urged soldiers who were Christians to keep to their faith and not follow orders to unjustly persecute and kill. The next day, saying mass at a hospital chapel, he was shot and killed. The revulsion and demands for justice raised by Salvadorans and the International Community have not yet led to the murderers being identified. 

When he was beatified, Pope Francis said of him: "His ministry was distinguished by his particular attention to the most poor and marginalized.” Hailed as a hero by supporters of liberation theology, St Oscar, according to his biographer, Jesus Delgardo, "was not interested in liberation theology" but faithfully adhered to Catholic teachings on liberation and a preferential option for the poor, desiring a social revolution based on interior reform. 

St Oscar agreed with the Catholic – and not the materialist - vision of liberation theology. A journalist once asked him: 'Do you agree with Liberation Theology' And Romero answered: "Yes, of course. However, there are two theologies of liberation. One is that which sees liberation only as material liberation. The other is that of Paul VI. I am with Paul VI… The most profound social revolution is the serious, supernatural, interior reform of a Christian. The liberation of Christ and of His Church is not reduced to the dimension of a purely temporal project. It does not reduce its objectives to … a material well-being or only to initiatives of a political or social, economic or cultural order. Much less can it be a liberation that supports or is supported by violence." 

A Prayer 

St Oscar Romero, pray for us that we too will model our lives on Christ and have the courage to face evil and work for justice.