Prayer in Preparation for the Feast of Pentecost
It would be wonderful if we could continue to join together in this time of prayer and each day, wherever
we are, pray the great prayer of St Pope John the 23rd.  
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Father, pour out your Spirit upon us, and grant us
a new vision of your glory, a new experience of your power, a new faithfulness to your word, and a new consecration to your service, that your love may grow among us, and your Kingdom come:
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I’m really glad to finally arrive in Bath and be able to take up my appointment as Parish Priest of St Alphege and Peasedown St John.   After almost 16 years as a Regular Chaplain in the Army I am of course sad to leave behind a community of people and friends I have come to know and love so well – I will certainly miss them.    However now I’m looking forward to meeting you and becoming part of this (our) community in the months ahead.
 
Of course, this week marks change in the life of our Diocese.  Bishop Elect Bosco will be consecrated to his new ministry and Bishop Declan will move to a well deserved quieter pace of life after so much devoted service to the Diocese.  Please keep them both in your prayers.
 
In fact, I have known St Alphege Church for a while.  When I was younger (admittedly a long time ago) my mother and I lived outside Norton St Philip and though I learnt to serve Mass in the Church there, for some big Sundays we would come to St Alphege for Mass as a treat.  I also nearly joined Downside Abbey rather than the Diocese so being in Churches and Parishes with a Benedictine heritage is a real joy for me.
 
On Thursday this week we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension, the Lord’s return to the Father, and his great commission to each of us to “proclaim the Good News to all creation”.  The Church then begins a novena of prayer to prepare for our celebration of the Feast of Pentecost, praying that the gifts of the Holy Spirit might be renewed within each one of us to fulfil this mission. 
 
It would be wonderful if we could, from Thursday, join together in this time of prayer and each day, wherever we are, pray the great prayer of St Pope John the 23rd. 
 
Father, pour out your Spirit upon us, and grant us
a new vision of your glory, a new experience of your power, a new faithfulness to your word, and a new consecration to your service, that your love may grow among us, and your Kingdom come:
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Monsignor Robert Corrigan 

Think not then, my brethren, that when the Lord says, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another,” there is any overlooking of that greater commandment, which requires us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind; for along with this seeming oversight, the words “that you love one another” appear also as if they had no reference to that second commandment, which says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” For “on these two commandments,” He says, “hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 But both commandments may be found in each of these by those who have good understanding. For, on the one hand, he that loves God cannot despise His commandment to love his neighbor; and on the other, he who in a holy and spiritual way loves his neighbor, what does he love in him but God? That is the love, distinguished from all mundane love, which the Lord specially characterized, when He added, “as I have loved you.” For what was it but God that He loved in us? Not because we had Him, but in order that we might have Him; and that He may lead us on, as I said a little ago, where God is all in all. It is in this way, also, that the physician is properly said to love the sick; and what is it he loves in them but their health, which at all events he desires to recall; not their sickness, which he comes to remove? Let us, then, also so love one another, that, as far as possible, we may by the solicitude of our love be winning one another to have God within us.
 
 
From Tractates on the Gospel of John, #65, by St. Augustine of Hippo.
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Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)
 
Jesus the Good Shepherd defends, knows, and above all loves his sheep. And this is why he gives his life for them (cf Jn 10:15). Love for his sheep, that is, for each one of us, leads him to die on the cross because this is the Father’s will – that no one should be lost. Christ’s love is not selective; it embraces everyone. He himself reminds us of this in today’s Gospel when he says: “And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd” (Jn 10:16). These words testify to his universal concern: He is everyone’s shepherd. Jesus wants everyone to be able to receive Father’s love and encounter God.
 
Pope Francis, homily, Fourth Sunday of Easter 2021

​The ‘Resurrection’ to which [the Apostles] bore witness was, in fact, not the action of rising from the dead but the state of having risen; a state, as they held, attested by intermittent meetings during a limited period (except for the special, and in some ways different, meeting vouchsafed to St Paul). This
termination of the period is important, for, as we shall see, there is no possibility of isolating the doctrine of the Resurrection from that of the Ascension.
The next point to notice is that the Resurrection was not regarded simply or chiefly as evidence for the immortality of the soul. It is, of course, often so regarded today: I have heard a man maintain that ‘the importance of the Resurrection is that it proves
survival’. Such a view cannot at any point be reconciled with the language of the New Testament.
On such a view Christ would simply have done what
all men do when they die: the only novelty would have been that in His case we were allowed to see it happening. But there is not in Scripture the faintest suggestion that the Resurrection was new evidence for something that had in fact been always happening. The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the ‘first fruits’, the ‘pioneer of life’. He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.
 
Taken from ‘Miracles’, Chapter 16, by C.S. Lewis

Divine Mercy Sunday
 
This Sunday is known as Divine Mercy Sunday and is so named in order to highlight the Message of Divine Mercy as proclaimed by Sister Faustina Kowalska and promoted by Pope John Paul II.
The faithful are encouraged to spend time to discover more about the mercy of God, to learn how to trust in Jesus, and to respond to the invitation to live lives which are as merciful to others as Christ is merciful to us.
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The faith of the first community of believers [in the Resurrection of the Jesus Christ] is based on the witness of concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary "witnesses to his Resurrection", but they are not the only ones - Paul speaks clearly of more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and also of James and of all the apostles (1 Cor 15:4-8; cf. Acts 1:22.).
Given all these testimonies, Christ's Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. It is clear from the facts that the disciples' faith was drastically put to the test by their master's Passion and death on the cross, which he had foretold (cf. Lk 22:31-32). The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that at least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized ("looking sad”, (Lk 24:17; cf. Jn 20:19) and frightened. For they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an "idle tale" (Lk 24:11; cf. Mk 16:11,13). When Jesus reveals himself to the Eleven on Easter evening, "he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen” (Mk 16:14).
Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the disciples are still doubtful, so impossible did the thing seem: they thought they were seeing a ghost. "In their joy they were still disbelieving and still wondering” (Lk 24:38-41). Thomas will also experience the test of doubt and St. Matthew relates that during the risen Lord's last appearance in Galilee "some doubted” (Cf. Jn 20:24-27; Mt 28:17). Therefore, the hypothesis that the Resurrection was produced by the apostles' faith (or credulity) will not hold up. On the contrary their faith in the Resurrection was born, under the action of divine grace, from their direct experience of the reality of the risen Jesus.
 
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paras. 642 - 644

The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark
Palm Sunday tells us that
it is the Cross
that is the true tree of life

​Easter Ceremonies St Alphege
 
Tuesday of Holy Week (Reconciliation Service) ..19.00
Maundy Thursday ………………………………….19.00
Good Friday (Children’s Stations of the Cross) …10.30
Good Friday …….…………………………………..15.00
Easter Vigil ………………………………………….19.00
Easter Sunday …………………………………….. 11.00
This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.
The 11 o'clock Mass will start in the parish hall for the commemoration of the Lord's entrance into Jerusalem. The palms (provided) will be blessed and then we will process to the church.
The Passion of the Lord according to St Mark will be read in three parts.  
RECONCILIATION SERVICE at 7pm on Tuesday 26 March in preparation for the Easter Tridium. Everyone is encouraged to come.
Maundy Thursday and Easter Vigil: Please do bring a bell with you which you are invited to ring during the Gloria.
There will be a Children's Stations of the Cross on Good Friday at 10.30am in the Church. All are welcome.
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Easter Ceremonies 2024
Palm Sunday                 24th        11.00       Mass & Blessing Palms
Tue of Holy Week         26th        10.00        Mass
Maundy Thursday         28th        19.00       Mass (watching at Altar of Repose until 10 pm)
Good Friday                   29th        15.00       
Easter Vigil                   30th        19.00
Easter Sunday              31st        11.00   (Remember the clocks go forward!)                       
                                                      No 6 pm Mass
Easter Monday              1st           No Mass
Tuesday                         2nd           10.00
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday,  the beginning of Holy Week.
The 11 o'clock Mass will start in the parish hall for the commemoration of the Lord's entrance into Jerusalem. The palms (provided) will be blessed and then we will process to the church.
The Passion of the Lord according to St Mark will be read in three parts. 
Maundy Thursday and Easter Vigil: Please do bring a bell with you which you are invited to ring during the Gloria.

Christ and Nicodemus, Crijn Hendricksz Volmarijn, 1604–1645
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