Saint Charles Swinton
Parish Newsletter
30 November 2014
First Sunday of Advent – Year B
Page 82 in Mass Book.
Waiting for
Patience
The week
Ahead…
Did you ever stay awake on
Christmas eve as a kid? And sneak
into a hidey hole in order to see the
Christmas tree being decorated? I
surely did.
Sunday
30 November
Moreover, we kids also had big felt
stockings hung on each of our
bedroom doors and I remember trying
to keep an eye open during the night
to see Santa or the Good Fairy or at
least somebody putting prizes into it.
I watched all night, until I woke up in
the morning to find a bulging stocking,
mysteriously full.
“I want patience and I want it now,” or
so the joke goes. Patience is not often
a virtue of the young. Fine, but
remember, the purpose of Advent is
to wait!
Hopkins, the Jesuit poet, has a poem
on patience that speaks to this first
Sunday of Advent. Please see the
footnote for a prose version of this
great poem.* And after that, it will
help to read it slowly, out loud.
Patience, hard thing! the hard thing
but to pray,
But bid for, patience is! Patience who
asks,
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his
times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these and,
these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience
masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose.
There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves
all day.
continued over…..
First Sunday of Advent
2.00pm Exposition/Holy Hour
ending with Evening Prayer of
the Church.
Sunday continued….
Today there is an opportunity
once again to sign Christmas
cards for, this year, persecuted
Christians. I encourage you to
collaborate in this – simple to do
at the back of church.
Monday
1 December
Advent Weekday
8.30am Mass.
Tuesday 2 December
Advent Weekday
Bed and Breakfast anybody?
Mary and Joseph are looking for
accommodation on their way to
Bethlehem. If you would like to give
them a resting place, please sign up
on the list on the table at the back of
church. Each host family will be
expected to collect them from the
previous home and there is a service
of prayer provided for this handover)
to which it would be good to gather
you family and hopefully friends or
neighbours.
There is a leaflet with all the
“instructions’ and suggestions.
This weekend you will be given the
Advent “Walk with Me” booklet
that contains the Gospel reading for
each day with space for reflection.
Do use it as a prayerful preparation
for Christmas.
8.30am Mass.
Wednesday 3 December
St Francis Xavier, Priest
a friend of St Ignatius of Loyola and one
of the first members of the ‘Company of
Jesus’. He preached in India and Japan
and died in China in 1552.
9.15am. Advent Mass for whole
school in school. All welcome.
7.30pm Scripture reflections
The Advent readings. Perhaps
something for Advent for you?
Thursday 4 December
Advent Weekday
8.30am Mass.
Friday 5 December
Advent Weekday
8.30am Mass
Bible Alive is also a great resource
for reflecting on the daily scripture
readings.
Day by Day also focuses on the
weekday readings.
The Wednesday Word is a guided
reflection on the Sunday readings.
Saturday
6 December
9.00am Mass in Cemetery
10.00am Sacrament of
Reconciliation
for children of the Sacramental
Programme and their families.
Who do you Think you are!?
Sacred Space website (see link on
Pray as You Go) is giving a podcast
retreat for Advent based on the
genealogy of Saint Matthew with the
above title.
11.30am – 12.00noon
Sacrament of Reconciliation.
So – no excuses for not using this
sacred time of Advent well!
Second Sunday of Advent
Sunday
7 December
We hear our hearts grate on
themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the
rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more
distils
Delicious kindness?—He is patient.
Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes
those ways we know.*
Our dearest plans and purposes
often come to wreckage, just like
ancient buildings did. Patience,
Hopkins says, resembles beautiful ivy,
spreading its way over the wreckage,
making it a picture of quiet
composure. The phrase, “Purple eyes
and seas of liquid leaves,” doesn’t just
remind us of how ivy looks, it bathes
us in the very luxury, the peace and
the relief of such a sight.
Hopkins portrays patience as
“delicious kindness,” a honey that fills
the combs of our lives.
This is a gift to us. God’s kindness
provides us with a comfort, a time,
which is an allowance of days, weeks,
years, and even lifetime, to get ready,
to prepare, to desire, and gradually,
along the way, to receive. Even though
infants demand that their every wish
be filled right now, our adult humanity
is simply too deep to get an instant
fill-up.
If there were nothing worth waiting
for, then patience would be silly. Yet
the birth of Christ into this world and
into our hearts is quite worth the
waiting for. Yes, his birth happened
once already, but also, in a surprising
way, it has not happened at all. We are
still mean to our neighbors. We still
hide truth from those who love us. We
envy and lust after what is not ours.
continued next column………
And there is terrible evil all around us
in this still young twenty-first
century.
What should we do, try harder?
Yes, but the real trying is a patient
waiting for the Spirit of God to be
born into our lives, to contribute to
this world.
************
*Taken from Gerard Manley
Hopkins: A Critical Edition of the
Major Works, edited by Catherine
Phillips (London, New York, etc.,
Oxford University Press, 1986),
#176.
Parts of this poem may be difficult
to understand immediately, so I want
to be crass and suggest the meaning in
prose, stanza by stanza:
First stanza: Patience is difficult
because usually it grows only in
adversity.
Second stanza: Yet patience is like
ivy because it gradually covers the
ruins in our lives with quiet beauty
(the “purple eyes” are ivy’s berries).
Third stanza: Our hearts are like
stones chafing on each other, bruising
themselves dearer (the word “dearer”
is used in England to mean “at great
cost”). Yet even so, we ask God to
bend our defiant wills to him.
Fourth stanza: A comparison of God
to the bees who—patiently—fill up
honeycombs.
John Foley S.
J.
(from The Centre for Sunday Liturgy
website of Saint Louis Jesuits – another
good source for reflection on and study of
Sunday readings)
*******************************************
Further
ahead……
Saturdays
6/13/20 December.
Children of the Sacramental
Programme celebrate their First
Reconciliation.
Monday 8 December
11.00am Installation of Bishop
John Arnold as the new Bishop of
Salford
I have invited Vincent and Rita
Condron to represent the parish
for this occasion. (it is a ticket
only occasion)
Wednesday 10 December.
Carols, mince pies and sherry for
Senior Citizens in Saint
Ambrose=Barlow High school.
Flyers in porch.
Sunday
14 December.
6.30pm. Service of Nine
Lessons and Carols celebration
here in Saint Charles.
I was hoping to make it an ecumenical
collaboration with choirs from our
neighbour churches, but although the
enthusiasm was there, the logistics
proved very difficult, so I have decided to
go ahead anyway and make it another
special contribution to the spiritual input
of our Jubilee preparation.
Tuesday 16 December.
2.00pm. School Christmas carols
in church
Thursday 18 December
7.00pm. Farewell Mass for Mrs.
Marie Garside in Saint Ambrose
Barlow High School.
Friday 19 December.
Schools break up for Christmas.
*******************************************
A member of Churches Together in Swinton and Pendlebury
Parish Priest: Rev Mgr Paul F Smith STL   0161 794 1089   paulsmith@saintcharles.freeserve.co.uk website: www.stcharlesswinton.co.uk
MASS TIMES
Saturday: 6.00 pm (First Mass of Sunday)
Sunday
 8.45 am (Church Parade every second
Sunday of the month)
 11.00 am (with children's Liturgy of the
Word)
Registered Charity No. 250037
SACRAMENT OF
RECONCILIATION
Saturdays: 11.30 am to 12.00 noon
and after evening Mass
BAPTISMS
By appointment. Parents are expected to
attend a course of preparation.
Monday to Friday: usually 8.30 am
Holy Days
7.30 pm (eve), 8.30 am
WEDDINGS
Six months notice is normally required.
Saint Vincent de Paul Society
Monthly as announced
Union of Catholic Mothers
First and third Tuesdays at 7.15pm
Beaver Scouts
Mondays in school at 6.00pm
Cub Scouts
Tuesdays in school at 6.00 pm
Brownies
Wednesdays in school at 6.00 pm
Rainbows
Thursdays in school at 6.00 pm
If you would like to receive this weekly newsletter by e-mail please give me your e-mail address.
A member of Churches Together in Swinton and Pendlebury
Parish Priest: Rev Mgr Paul F Smith STL   0161 794 1089   paulsmith@saintcharles.freeserve.co.uk website: www.stcharlesswinton.co.uk
MASS TIMES
Saturday: 6.00 pm (First Mass of Sunday)
Sunday
 8.45 am (Church Parade every second
Sunday of the month)
 11.00 am (with children's Liturgy of the
Word)
Registered Charity No. 250037
SACRAMENT OF
RECONCILIATION
Saturdays: 11.30 am to 12.00 noon
and after evening Mass
BAPTISMS
By appointment. Parents are expected to
attend a course of preparation.
Monday to Friday: usually 8.30 am
Holy Days
7.30 pm (eve), 8.30 am
WEDDINGS
Six months notice is normally required.
Saint Vincent de Paul Society
Monthly as announced
Union of Catholic Mothers
First and third Tuesdays at 7.15pm
Beaver Scouts
Mondays in school at 6.00pm
Cub Scouts
Tuesdays in school at 6.00 pm
Brownies
Wednesdays in school at 6.00 pm
Rainbows
Thursdays in school at 6.00 pm
If you would like to receive this weekly newsletter by e-mail please give me your e-mail address.