Dear Friends,
Lent begins very late this year, on 9 March. There are still three Sundays before Ash Wednesday, and so we have more time to think what we shall do during this special season of the Church.
The culmination of Lent, and of course the reason for it, is the great Easter celebration, which this year will be on 21–24 April. At S. Michael’s this is very much the centre of our liturgical year, and we make special provision for the whole week from Palm Sunday (17 April) until Easter Day. In this 160th anniversary year we are privileged to have as our Holy Week preacher Bishop George Connor, retired Bishop of Dunedin.
In preparation for Easter you may like to join a special Lent study group, or a Lent prayer group, which we shall arrange at suitable day and evening times. These will provide opportunities to ask all the things that you have not got around to asking before. I hope that one daytime group will be at a suitable time for School parents and caregivers. A schedule of such opportunities will be available at the church during the next three weeks.
In particular there may be some of you who would like to be prepared to be baptised or to renew your baptismal commitment at Easter. It is for this purpose in particular that the forty days of Lent were first set aside, and it is a great gift to a congregation to have some among it who are preparing in this way. Please contact me if you are interested.
On Sunday 6 March, we shall give thanks for the harvest. Because Lent and Easter are late, we can celebrate this closer to the actual time when we harvest the produce from our gardens and farms.
The daily Mass at S. Michael’s is the focus of this parish’s ministry of prayer, which I take very seriously. Through Christ we are glad to offer prayer for the sick and the troubled. The parish list includes people having an acute health (or other) crisis, those having planned surgery or treatment, and those in their last illness. It also includes some chronically ill, those in pain, frailty, or disability over a long period. By printing the list this faith community commits itself to pray for these people, and we must all take our part in that. This does not mean that the whole list, or indeed any of it, needs to be read at every Mass. The important thing is not that the names are paraded, but that the people are prayed for. Each of us can do this in whatever way is convenient—at home, at spare moments during the day, and while waiting for Mass to begin. That is why the list is provided. Of course we can pray with greatest understanding for the people we know. Between us all will be covered.
This being the case, it is acceptable, in the Prayers of the People, to offer the list as a whole, without reciting any or every name. I certainly undertake to read all the names at one of my Masses each week. At other times, I trust that all those whom we carry on the list and in our hearts are being gathered up in the prayer of Christ among us. He knows every need, and invites us to share in his compassion through our prayer.
May God bless you all.
Fr Peter Williams
Lent begins very late this year, on 9 March. There are still three Sundays before Ash Wednesday, and so we have more time to think what we shall do during this special season of the Church.
The culmination of Lent, and of course the reason for it, is the great Easter celebration, which this year will be on 21–24 April. At S. Michael’s this is very much the centre of our liturgical year, and we make special provision for the whole week from Palm Sunday (17 April) until Easter Day. In this 160th anniversary year we are privileged to have as our Holy Week preacher Bishop George Connor, retired Bishop of Dunedin.
In preparation for Easter you may like to join a special Lent study group, or a Lent prayer group, which we shall arrange at suitable day and evening times. These will provide opportunities to ask all the things that you have not got around to asking before. I hope that one daytime group will be at a suitable time for School parents and caregivers. A schedule of such opportunities will be available at the church during the next three weeks.
In particular there may be some of you who would like to be prepared to be baptised or to renew your baptismal commitment at Easter. It is for this purpose in particular that the forty days of Lent were first set aside, and it is a great gift to a congregation to have some among it who are preparing in this way. Please contact me if you are interested.
On Sunday 6 March, we shall give thanks for the harvest. Because Lent and Easter are late, we can celebrate this closer to the actual time when we harvest the produce from our gardens and farms.
The daily Mass at S. Michael’s is the focus of this parish’s ministry of prayer, which I take very seriously. Through Christ we are glad to offer prayer for the sick and the troubled. The parish list includes people having an acute health (or other) crisis, those having planned surgery or treatment, and those in their last illness. It also includes some chronically ill, those in pain, frailty, or disability over a long period. By printing the list this faith community commits itself to pray for these people, and we must all take our part in that. This does not mean that the whole list, or indeed any of it, needs to be read at every Mass. The important thing is not that the names are paraded, but that the people are prayed for. Each of us can do this in whatever way is convenient—at home, at spare moments during the day, and while waiting for Mass to begin. That is why the list is provided. Of course we can pray with greatest understanding for the people we know. Between us all will be covered.
This being the case, it is acceptable, in the Prayers of the People, to offer the list as a whole, without reciting any or every name. I certainly undertake to read all the names at one of my Masses each week. At other times, I trust that all those whom we carry on the list and in our hearts are being gathered up in the prayer of Christ among us. He knows every need, and invites us to share in his compassion through our prayer.
May God bless you all.
Fr Peter Williams
