Year of St Paul

A special year dedicated to St. Paul was officially inaugurated by Pope Benedict XVI last Saturday, 28th June with the celebration of Vespers at the Roman Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls.

The Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople was also present at this celebration to open the Pauline year.

The Holy Father has granted a Plenary Indulgence to any of faithful who fulfill the necessary conditions during the Pauline Year. Thanks to Fr Ray Blake at St Mary Magdalen for the link to the Urbis et Orbis Decree giving details of the Plenary Indulgence. He also has some super photos of the celebration of Vespers on Saturday evening.

Mass with Anointing of the Sick

“If any one of you is ill, he should send for the elders of the church, and they must anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him. The prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up again, and if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.” (James 5:14-15)

This afternoon at St Ann's we celebrated a Mass with Anointing of the Sick. About 30 people attended including many from the nursing homes in the parish and other housebound parishioners who would not normally be able to attend Mass in church. The Anointing of the Sick is one of the seven Sacraments of the Church and brings strength, confidence and many times physical healing to the sick.

This is a valuable experience both for the sick and the rest of the parish. Our sick and housebound parishioners are a silent 'power house' of prayer. We all benefit from their faithful devotion even though many in the parish are unaware that these prayers are being offered on their behalf.

It is a great to joy to welcome our housebound parishioners and let them know that they are an important part of our parish community. For some this may be the only opportunity they have to come to church.


This is why we always provide tea and cakes in the hall afterwards so that we all have a chance to chat with one another and make new friends. I was pleased too to see one of our regular altar servers who came along to serve Mass.

I am very grateful to everyone who makes this possible. As in any parish, we are very blessed to have volunteers who give so much time to organising lifts and visiting people in their homes and in the local care homes.

Deanery lunch at Epsom

Today Fr Bill hosted a farewell lunch party for the clergy of the Deanery at St Joseph's, Epsom before he begins his sabbatical leave.

In this picture you can see Fr Viktor, a visiting priest from the Ukraine. He is well known to Epsom parishioners and he may look familiar to St Ann's people too as he has celebrated Mass at Banstead on an earlier visit to the UK.

New CTS Website

Back in early May I added a post on some new children's books we had received from the Catholic Truth Society.

I mentioned that they are available to order via the parish or from the CTS bookshop in Victoria but omitted to say that of course they also also available to order online from the new CTS Website.

Many of us now have access to the Internet and I know for various reasons it is not always possible to visit a particular shop in person. I do recommend that you have a look at their new website. As well as books, you can also order DVDs CDs and other items and you'll find some downloadable publications there too.

Don't forget we also have a very good selection of CTS booklets in the display stand at the back of church. These fairly inexpensive booklets are often a very good source of information for many of the queries you may have about our Catholic faith and practice.

Hooray, 1,000 visitors!

Well I thought I couldn't let this landmark pass without some comment.

When I started this blog somewhat tentatively just a few months ago, I had no idea if anybody would actually look at it but luckily they have. I must say, I think we reached the 1,000 mark a little bit earlier than we might have done thanks to a mention on Joanna Bogle's blog, auntie joanna writes. Do please return the favour and drop in to her excellent blog some time.

Meanwhile here's a picture of a very good way to celebrate!

More photos of the Going Forth celebrations

Thanks to Rosemary for forwarding these lovely photos of the cake with some of the children and Bishop Kieran.

Another visitor ...

Welcome back Fr Jarek. Yesterday morning I collected Fr Jarek Wasilewski from the airport. He'll be with us in the parish for a week of his well-earned summer break in between visiting his family in Poland.

Fr Jarek is working in Kimberley Diocese on the edge of the Kalahari Desert and has been there since 2004. I know he looks forward to his brief visits to the UK during his summer break and we in turn are very pleased to welcome him back. Please say hello to him if you see him around the parish.