News

Our sister parish of Our Lady of Lourdes in Hungerford has released a special edition newsletter. Please find the download below to find out the latest news from their parish.

We are writing to let you know that, as things stand, churches including ours are allowed to remain open at this time. However, the new variant of Covid-19 is highly transmissible and it is crucial that we maintain the highest level of controls to avoid transmission at church. As such there will be changes at Mass from this weekend and, in addition, we must remind you of some basic safety requirements:

Merry Christmas to all our parishioners, friends, family, visitors and everyone else.

We wish you a very enjoyable, peaceful and safe celebration for the birth of Jesus, the light of the world.

Mark and Tim Craig have completed another lively, uplifting video, The Virgin Mary had a baby boy, just in time for Christmas! The video features singers and instrumentalists, performing virtually, from St Francis de Sales, St Joseph's, Our Lady of Lourdes and from across the UK and Europe.

Dr Anna Rowlands, St Hilda Associate Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice at Durham University, pre-recorded the reflection on Fratelli Tutti that was featured in last week’s webinar on Fratelli Tutti and the work of CSAN and CAFOD.

We need more volunteers before we can open the Church for private prayer and so we will be unable to open this Thursday, 25th June, as we had hoped.

Our Lady of Lourdes in Hungerford is open for private prayer on Wednesdays between 12 and 4pm, if you would like to go there. Alternatively, please volunteer yourself!

Apologies, we had some technical issues this week, which delayed the service start and meant last minute having to drop our remote readers and music.

Fortunately, we were still able to proceed with plans to close with a performance from our very own Fr Zbigniew, who took the internet by storm by personally performing the closing hymn on a his guitar. The audience were all at home, but we're sure they were clapping and cheering at the end.

If you missed it, you can find the clip here.

As we cope with coronavirus in the UK, CAFOD asks us to think of our sisters and brothers in developing countries who are facing this pandemic with fragile health systems, some of which have almost no intensive care beds or ventilators.

Add to this rising food prices, loss of jobs and income, lack of access to washing facilities and limited ability to social distance. The likely impact will be devastating.

Congratulations to Fr Zbigniew on the Anniversary of his ordination.

Please keep him, along with others with special occasions at this time, in your prayers as they celebrate under the current unusual circumstances.