The Catholicism Project . . .

Look what was in my email inbox today. Encouraging times ahead!

Catechesis . . .

A lot has been said and written about poor catechesis in recent years. Not just poor catechesis but a general decline in any sort of catechesis.

This affects not only our children but also our adults who have sadly been lacking good teaching in their formative years.

As Pope St Pius X said,

“If faith languishes in our days,” he said, “if among large numbers it has almost vanished, the reason is that the duty of catechetical teaching is either fulfilled very superficially or altogether neglected.”

His point was that it was one of the primary duties of the priest to ensure that his parishioners received adequate catechesis. One can engage the laity in supporting the priest in this endeavour; indeed, nowadays it is almost essential as most priests find themselves without an assistant priest in the parish. It is nevertheless the responsibility of the Parish Priest to avail himself of every opportunity to help the people develop a better knowledge and understanding of their faith.

Todd Hartch develops this idea further in his excellent post on 'Catholic Thing' here

A very successful evening . . .

Last night we welcomed Fr Emmanuel CFR to the parish. He is a member of the Community of Friars of the Renewal based in Canning Town and had kindly agreed to come and talk to us about the Mass.

I was delighted to see that our parish hall was nearly full. Among the parishioners were parents of our First Holy Communion children and, especially pleasing, a good turnout of young people from our Confirmation group.

Fr Emmanuel gave a very interesting, lively and, at times, amusing talk about the Mass; looking at the importance of preparing well for Sunday Mass, the Eucharistic Fast, the importance of being in a suitable condition to receive Holy Communion and reverence and respect for the Real Presence.

He also looked at the various parts of the Liturgy of the Mass.

There was time afterwards for questions and it was apparent that everyone had found the evening very interesting and helpful.

We look forward to a similar evening next month when one of the Friars will be talking to us about the Sacrament of Reconciliation on

Tuesday 3rd November at 8pm.

A busy week ahead . . .

A busy week ahead for us in the parish . . .

This evening our Confirmation programme gets under way with 24 young people led by a group of enthusiastic catechists, and at the same time (in another room!) we have our monthly Baptism Preparation, and tomorrow evening Our First Holy Communion programme gets off to a cracking start with a talk on The Mass by one of the Friars of the Renewal.

I'm very grateful to all our catechists who give of their time and skills to help with this very important ministry in the life of the parish.

Why do you wear those funny clothes?

"Why do you wear those funny clothes?"

Yes, I was actually asked this one day. Admittedly by a very young child whose family were not church goers and this child had probably never seen a priest in clerical dress before.

Now our young altar servers are used to seeing me in 'these funny clothes' and I hope they don't think there's anything 'funny' about them at all.

Sometimes, however, when in the sacristy before or after Mass I take the opportunity to talk to the young servers about the vestments worn by the priest and what they symbolise.

Whilst looking for some good pictures of vestments on the Internet, I came across this video which I think you might find interesting. It is a little long (about 5 minutes) but worth watching as the priest explains very clearly and demonstrates how and why each item is worn, as he is vesting.

I hope you find it helpful.

Ever felt like this??

It's a very busy week, and it's only Tuesday! You can certainly tell it's October; the schools are back and the parish office is a blaze of activity.

Yesterday evening we had the first session of our Confirmation programme; Baptism preparation; and an enquirer into reception into the Catholic Church. All within the space of about three hours and I managed to attend part of all three - beat that if you can!

This evening we have the first Parents' Session for our First Holy Communion programme and I'm on fire with enthusiasm.

Today is also our Parish Golf Day, a fundraiser for St Anne's School Building Fund and sadly, I will have to miss the dinner in the evening. If anyone taking part has any photos of the event please email them to the parish office and I'll put them on the blog in the next couple of days.

First Holy Communion Programme

Our First Holy Communion programme got off to an excellent start yesterday with a Holy Hour for Children.

It was very encouraging to see so many of our children and their parents in church responding to the invitation of Christ, 'Let the children come to me'.

As well as bringing your children to Sunday Mass which is of course 'the source and summit' of our Catholic life, it is also good to encourage them to come along to other devotions such as this.

We are looking forward this year to using a new book for our First Holy Communion programme, Jesus Comes to Me, by Dora Nash.

We used Dora Nash's book, Confirmed in the Faith, for our Confirmation programme last year and were very pleased with it so I'm sure her First Holy Communion programme will also be excellent.