All is ready . . .

Wishing everyone a very Happy and Blessed Christmas!

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Gaudete - 'Gaudete in Domino Semper . . . '

'Rejoice in the Lord always . . . '

Well, we certainly did that at St Ann's on Sunday.

Our flower arrangers came up with a beautiful arrangement for the sanctuary . . .

We lit the rose candle on our Advent wreath . . . 

There was much joyful singing, and many smiles all round . . . 

Let us use the remaining days of Advent to prepare well for the coming of Our Lord.    'The Lord is near!' as the antiphon says.

Blogging - labels, tags . . .

I've just added a gadget to the side-bar which links to all the various 'tags' or 'labels' that you see underneath each post.  You'll find it right at the bottom of the side-bar at the right-hand side of the page.

I hope you'll find this useful.  The idea is that it will help you if you are looking for a post on a particular subject.

Rather a pleasing side-effect is that it shows how many posts have been written with the same 'label' and the more the subject has been blogged about, the larger the font of the label.

It was encouraging to see certain 'favourite' important topics that have been covered more frequently than others.  For example; 'Confession' 26 times! The same number for 'Feast Days'. And 'Liturgy', 'Holy Mass' and 'Marriage' all come in at 12 mentions each.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions . . . 

An Excellent Talk on the Holy Mass . . .

Last night about 50 of us gathered in St Ann's parish hall to welcome back Fr James Bradley and to listen to his talk on the Holy Mass.  It was good to see quite a few of our Confirmation candidates present too.  I'm sure they gained a lot from the evening.

I think I can safely say that we were not disappointed.

Fr James gave a detailed explanation and exploration of the Holy Mass, taking us through the liturgy of the Mass beginning at the very beginning with the priest vesting in the sacristy and guiding us through the introductory rite, to the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Eucharist and finally to the dismissal at the end of the Mass.

Looking at people's faces, I would say that all present were following Fr James' exposition closely and with great interest.

Fr James also spoke at some length about the reception of Holy Communion at Mass; about the way in which we physically receive Holy Communion, our internal disposition and our state of worthiness.

After speaking for almost an hour, which seemed to fly by, Fr James took some interesting questions from some of those present including a question on the new translation of the Missal and the position of the cross at the centre of the altar, as seen in Masses celebrated by Pope Benedict, and now by many other priests around the world.

We are now looking forward to our third and final talk from Fr James in this series which will be on Tuesday 5th February when the subject will be 'Prayer'.

I do hope to see the hall full once more.  All are welcome.

An idea for the Year of Faith . . .

Are you looking for ways to deepen your knowledge and understanding of our Catholic faith in this Year of Faith?

This looks like an ideal way to do this. 'School of Faith' is a new study course on the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the Year of Faith.

There are 12 talks from a variety of excellent speakers.  You can go to any individual talk or register for the full course.  The course runs from 9th January to 23rd March 2013 and takes place at the Archdiocese of Southwark's Centre for Catholic Formation in Tooting Bec Road.

I do encourage anyone who is interested to go along.  I'm sure you will find it very helpful.