Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception
This is usually celebrated on the 8th of December but this year is transferred to Monday the 9th when Mass will be offered at 1000. 

​Times of Christmas Masses
St Alphege       Christmas Eve
9 30 pm            Carol Service with Readings
10.00 pm          Mass of Midnight
St Alphege       Christmas Day
11.00 am          Christmas Day Mass
 
St Joseph PsJ  Christmas Eve
6.30 pm            Carols
7.00 pm            First Mass of Christmas
St Joseph PsJ  Christmas Day
09.00 am          Christmas Day Mass 

The Season of Advent
“Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us signs of the attention he has for each one of us. How often does God give us a glimpse of his love! To keep, as it were, an “interior journal” of this love would be a beautiful and salutary task for our life! Advent invites and stimulates us to contemplate the Lord present. Should not the certainty of his presence help us see the world with different eyes? Should it not help us to consider the whole of our life as a “visit,” as a way in which he can come to us and become close to us in every situation?
Advent becomes an opportunity to reawaken within ourselves the true meaning of waiting, returning to the heart of our faith which is the mystery of Christ, the Messiah who was expected for long centuries and was born in poverty, in Bethlehem. In coming among us, he brought us and continues to offer us the gift of his love and his salvation.
Thus, the Advent season “is in a particular way a period of joy, an interiorized joy that no suffering can diminish. It is joy in the fact that God made himself a Child. This joy, invisibly present within us, encourages us to journey on with confidence.”
Pope Benedict the 16th

Mass for the Holy Souls
in Haycombe Cemetery
1000 on Sat the 30th of November
in the Hilltop Chapel
During this Mass we will pray for those who are buried or interred in the Cemetery for our all our departed loved ones, family, & friends, and for all who have died with nobody to pray for them.  A collection will be taken to help cover the fee for using the Chapel.   Please note there will not be a Mass in St Alphege on that Saturday.  There will also be a collection at the Mass to help with the fee for the use of the Chapel. 
 
A Mass to Prepare for Advent
will be celebrated on Thursday at 1000 with St John’s School.  During the Mass Advent Candles will be blessed to them be taken back to each classroom. Everyone is welcome to attend and pray with our children. 

Mass for the Holy Souls
in Haycombe Cemetery
1000 on Sat the 30th of November
in the Hilltop Chapel
During this Mass we will pray for those who are buried or interred in the Cemetery for our all our departed loved ones, family, & friends, and for all who have died with nobody to pray for them.  A collection will be taken to help cover the fee for using the Chapel.   Please note there will not be a Mass in St Alphege on that Saturday.
I am very grateful to the staff at Haycombe for their generous help in enabling this Mass to be celebrated.   If you would like a poster to advertise this please e mail Fr Robert. There will also be a collection at the Mass to help with the fee for the use of the Chapel. 
 
Please pray for the repose of the soul
-  of Fr Bernard Carpenter, a retired Priest of the Diocese who died this week.  He was for a long time Parish Priest in Frome
- of Neil Charles McPherson who died recently, and for his family after this sudden loss
 

Poetry
A number of you asked me about the poem I mentioned during the Homily at Mass last Sunday. The text is below,

​It was written by the poet George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633).  His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognised as one of the foremost British devotional lyricists.  He was born in Wales into an artistic and wealthy family and largely raised in England. He received a good education that led to his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609. He went there with the intention of becoming a priest, but he became the University's Public Orator and attracted the attention of King James I. He sat in the Parliament of England in 1624 and briefly in 1625.  
 
After the death of King James, Herbert renewed his interest in ordination. He gave up his secular ambitions in his mid-thirties and took holy orders in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as the rector of the rural parish of Fugglestone St Peter, just outside Salisbury. He was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill and providing food and clothing for those in need.  He was never a healthy man and died of consumption at age 39.

​November – the month of the Holy Souls
During November we pray for and remember in a particular way those who have died, our family, friends, and all those dear to us, but also those who died un-mourned in this world who have nobody to pray for them.
I have left envelopes on the table by the Newsletter in which you can put the names of those whom you will be remembering.  These will be bought up and join those which were bought forward on All Souls Day to the Altar and Mass will be offered for the repose of their souls.
 
Pope Francis Prayer Intention for November
For anyone who has lost a child - we pray that all parents who mourn the loss of a son or daughter find support in their community and receive peace and consolation from the Holy Spirit.

​A Prayer for Peace composed by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem †Pierbattista Card. Pizzaballa
 
Lord our God, Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and Father of all mankind, who in the cross of Your Son and through the gift of His own life, at great cost You wished to destroy the wall of enmity and hostility that separates peoples and makes us enemies:
 
Send into our hearts the gift of the Holy Spirit, that He may purify us from every feeling of violence, hatred and revenge, enlighten us to understand the irrepressible dignity of every human person, and inflame us to the point of consumption for a peaceful and reconciled world in truth and justice, in love and freedom.
 
Almighty and eternal God, in Your hands are the hopes of men and the rights of every people: Assist with Your wisdom those who govern us, so that, with Your help, they will become sensitive to the sufferings of the poor and of those who suffer the consequences of violence and war; may they promote the common good and lasting peace in our region and throughout the earth.
 
Virgin Mary, Mother of Hope, obtain the gift of peace for the Holy Land that gave birth to you, and for the whole world. Amen.

​Platinum Jubilee of the Consecration of the Church
Monday the 7th of October is the 70th Anniversary
of the Consecration of the Church. 
Bishop Declan will say Mass at 7.00pm
and then there will be a reception in the Hall.
For the Reception, as I said last Sunday, could I invite you to bring something with you would like to drink and share, be that fruit juice, cordial, a can or two of something nice or a bottle of wine and place it in the Hall before Mass.  I am conscious that it is a working day on Tuesday but it would be lovely to pause and raise a toast to honour the life of our Parish past present and future. 
I am very grateful to the Bath Catenians who have made a donation towards some snacks to help with the celebration.

Pope Francis Prayer Intention for October
For a shared mission
We pray that the Church continue to sustain in all ways a Synodal lifestyle, as a sign of co-responsibility, promoting the participation, the communion and the mission shared among priests, religious and lay people.
 ​

Mass Times at Our Lady & St Alphege
 
Sun 22nd        25th Sunday of the Year
0900              People of the Parish         St Joseph’s PSJ    
1100                   Philip MacDonald Junior & Senior RIP
1800                People of the Parish
 
Mon 23rd       
No Mass
 
Tues 24th       Our Lady of Walsingham
1000              Mass with Year 7 from St Gregory College
 
Wed 25th        Weekday in Ordinary Time
1000              Mass with Year 7 from St Gregory College
 
Thur 26th        St Cosmas and Damian
1000              Mass with Year 7 from St Gregory College
1100              Exposition & Rosary           St Joseph’s PSJ
1715               Exposition & Confession
1800              Mass
 
Fri 27th           St Vincent de Paul
1200                                                                                   
 
Sat 28th          St Wenceslas
1000              Mass                                                       
1030              Confession – Sacrament of Reconciliation
 
Sun 29th         26th Sunday of the Year
0900              People of the Parish         St Joseph’s PSJ 
1100               People of the Parish
1800               
 
Exposition and Benediction
Next Sunday (29th) there will be Exposition, Rosary, and Benediction at 5 pm ​