PARISH OF ST. BONIFACE, SOUTHAMPTON
DECEMBER 21st. & 28th., 2014
FOURTH SUNDAY of ADVENT & The HOLY FAMILY [B]
“He will be called Son of the Most High”; “The child grew to maturity”
Presbytery: St. Boniface House, 413 Shirley Road Southampton SO15 3JD Tel: 023 80771231; stboniface@portsmouthdiocese.org.uk
Parish Priest: Father David Sillince
Saturday
Sunday
December 20
December 21
Monday
Tuesday
December 22
December 23
Wednesday
December 24
CALENDAR FOR TWO WEEKS
]
] FOURTH SUNDAY of ADVENT [A]
(“O Morning Star”) Divine Office week 4 this week
of the Day (“O King of the nations”)
of the Day (“O Emmanuel”) Parish Office reopens Jan 5
[St. John of Kęty, Priest †Kraków 1473;
St. John Stone, Martyr †Canterbury 1539]
Christmas Eve
Thursday
December 25
THE SEASON OF CHRISTMAS BEGINS
6.30pm First Mass of Christmas
Midnight Mass, preceded by Vigil of Carols
and Readings at 11.20pm
CHRISTMAS DAY. Masses 8.30am, 10.30am
Friday
December 26
Saturday
December 27
Sunday
December 28
Monday
December 29
Tuesday
Wednesday
December 30
December 31
Thursday
January 1 2015
Friday
January 2
Saturday
January 3
Feast of St. STEPHEN, First Martyr
[Bank Holiday, church open 9am-11am]
Feast of St. JOHN, Apostle & Evangelist
no Confessions
6.30pm Mass is of the HOLY FAMILY
Feast of the HOLY FAMILY of JESUS, MARY & JOSEPH
Divine Office week 1 this week
Feast of St. THOMAS BECKET, Archbishop of Canterbury
& Martyr (†Canterbury 1170)
of the Day, Sixth Day of the Christmas Octave
of the Day, Seventh Day of the Christmas Octave
[St. Sylvester, Pope †335]
5.30pm 1st. Vespers of Mary, Mother of God,
and Benediction in Thanksgiving for the Year 2014
Solemnity of MARY, MOTHER of GOD
[Bank Holiday, church open 9am-11am]
SS. Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops
and Doctors of the Church (†Caesarea 379,
Nazianzus c.389)
of the Day, Friday before Epiphany
[The Holy Name of Jesus]
6.30pm Mass is VIGIL MASS of the EPIPHANY
(transferred)
6.30pm
8.30am
10.30am
10.00am
10.00am
Mass
Mass
Mass
Mass
Mass
We pray especially for:Mary Gillen, RIP
Regina Dzień
Mary Cox
Benny Fernandes, RIP
Mary Cox
10.00am
Mass
Monica Morgan, RIP
6.30pm
12midnt
Mass
Mass
Fleming family deceased
Doris Cracknell, RIP
8.30am
10.30am
10.00am
Mass
Mass
Mass
George & Edith Duke, RIP
Lesley Corston, RIP
Lionel Andrews, RIP
10.00am
6.30pm
8.30am
10.30am
10.00am
Mass
Mass
Mass
Mass
Mass
Julia Newman
Rita Herbert
Betty Abraham, RIP
Brady & Tartari families
Saturnino Pereira, RIP
10.00am
10.00am
Mass
Mass
Ronald Howell, RIP
5.30pm
Vesp.
......................................................................
10.00am
Mass
Simon Barrow, RIP
10.00am
Mass
Scariya family
10.00am
Mass
Kenneth Eartlham, RIP
Confessions Saturdays after 10am Mass and from 5.45pm to 6.15pm
Dec 24: A VERY HAPPY AND
PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS TO
ALL OUR PARISHIONERS
AND VISITORS;
CHRISTMAS IS NOW
BEGINNING, NOT ENDING!
Please pray for those who are sick
especially: Colette Morfett, Jane Willcox,
Sheila White, Kathy White, Edward
Standley, Aileen Lynn, Geoffrey Milford,
but not on Saturday December 27
Mary Hoskins, Katie Smith, Beryl Lyons,
Eugene de Cruz, Mary Brant.
Please pray for the repose of the souls
of those with anniversaries at this time:
Frank Pearse, Henry Wasiak, Donald
Houston, Anne Wymbs, Brian Fry, Agnes
Kennard, Mary Molloy, Ronald Howell,
Franciszek Marczak, Joanna Painter.
May they rest in peace and rise in glory.
COLLECTION:
Dec 14:
Loose
£502.59,
Envelopes
£529.00.
Apportionment: Bankers’ Orders £320.00,
Gift Aid £180.00. Total £1531.59. Building &
Maintenance £385.43 (includes £82.50 from
‘Shirley Quilters’).
‘Connect2Ethiopia’
charity £74.51 (£11773.77 Ethiopia total so
far / £35386.76 Ethiopia + previous
Kainmari ‘Connect’].
THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION is
by custom an offering to the Parish Priest.
Very many thanks for these kind contributions.
No Retiring Collection till Jan 18.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
An Canada an employee who attended a
Christmas office party, got drunk, crashed
her car, and suffered multiple injuries has
been awarded some $300,000 against her
company on the grounds that they should
not have allowed her to drive home.
Maybe the fear of litigation will now frighten
companies off holding Christmas office
parties – which may be a commendable
idea.
But it makes one ask the question: at what
stage do we assume responsibility for
ourselves?
If you buy a coffee from
Macdonalds, for example, and start to gulp
it down as soon as you remove the plastic
lid, you might think it is your own fault if
you scald yourself. But not according to at
least one notorious legal verdict.
There are some people who think the
whole “Health and Safety” issue is getting
completely out of hand. Of course one
would not wish to go back to the old days
when private mine owners could treat
workers as dispensable and force them to
risk their lives with dangerous machinery.
But where is the boundary between
reasonable care and mollycoddling?
In the book of Genesis are two different
creation accounts. The first may be called
the “high risk account”. God makes man
and woman in his own image and likeness
and then just leaves them to get on with it.
The second may be called the “health and
safety” account. Adam is warned not to eat
of the tree in the centre of the garden, for
it will do him more harm than good. When
he and Eve disobey, and are expelled from
Paradise, they are still clothed in “garments
of skin” to show that, even though fallen,
they are yet protected by God.
Our Christian lives must exercise a balance
in everything, including this: risk on the one
hand, knowledge of protection on the
other. If we did not know that we were
‘protected’, i.e. redeemed by Christ, capable
of forgiveness, we would fall into despair. If,
however, there was no element of risk,
there would have been no proclamation of
the Gospel. Indeed, there would have been
no Gospel to proclaim.
God took the risk of creating us and
becoming human.
We take a risk in
following the Gospel of his Son. But we
are not left alone. Happy Christmas.
MANY THANKS to all who at the time
of writing are devoting much time to
preparing the various liturgies of Christmas
and will be decorating our church.
THE
CRIB
COLLECTION
as
throughout the Diocese will be for the
support of Christian communities and
schools in the Holy Land.
CHILDREN: for the 6.30pm Mass on
Christmas Eve are invited to come as angels
or shepherds and join in the procession.
THIS NEWSLETTER is a double issue.
The parish office is closed after December
22, and reopens on Monday January 5.
FIRST HOLY COMMUNION:
Last call for applications as deadline is
December 31. Programme runs February
11 to May 20.
DIOCESAN PRAYER INTENTIONS:
First week: Soton East Pastoral Area;
Collaborative Ministry; Chaplains to those
with special needs; Bishop’s Council;
Children in care; Altar servers, St. Stephen,
Winchester; St John the Evangelist,
Wallingford.
Second week: Child
victims of war, terrorism and violence; St.
Thomas of Canterbury, Cowes & St.
Thomas of Canterbury and St. Thomas
More, Emsworth; Holy Family Sisters; In
thanks for 2014; God’s blessing on 2015;
Sisters of Our Lady of Charity; Holy
Redeemer, Highcliffe.
Dec 31: A VERY HAPPY
NEW YEAR of 2015
TO ALL OUR PARISHIONERS
AND VISITORS
A CHURCH TIMELINE for 2015AD
15AD – Jesus is aged between 18 and 20,
having passed the ‘difficult age’ (but not for
Jesus).
115AD – The Roman historian Tacitus
writes that “the pestilential superstition (of
Christianity), checked for a while, burst out
again, not only in Judaea but in the city of
Rome also”.
215AD – The theologian Tertullian is the
first to state the doctrine of the Trinity
actually using the Latin word: Trinitas.
315AD – An edict forbids priests from
remarrying if their wife dies; St. Athanasius
in Alexandria gives the definitive list of the
27 books we know as the ‘New Testament’.
415AD – The feast of the Annunciation is
introduced, at the initiative of St. John
Chrysostom in Constantinople.
515AD – St. Germanus, bishop of Paris,
founds what is the oldest church in the city,
Saint-Germain-des-Prés, burial place of
some of the earliest French kings.
615AD – Death at Bobbio in N.Italy of the
Irish monk St. Columbanus, who took the
faith and monastic life to the border lands of
France, Germany and Switzerland.
715AD – The closing date of the Liber
Pontificalis, giving biographies – factual and
fanciful – of the first ninety Popes from St.
Peter onwards.
815AD –
End of the ‘iconoclastic
controversy’ in the East, whereby the
Emperor in Constantinople had forbidden
the use of icons in order to pacify his many
Muslim subjects offended by representations
of the divine.
915AD – Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were
discovered in 1947, this was the date of the
earliest surviving Hebrew manuscript of the
Old Testament. Comparison with texts on
the Scrolls (which date from 125BC) show a
total constancy in the text over 1000 years.
1015AD – Death of St. Vladimir I of Kiev,
who had converted to Christianity in 988
and thus introduced the faith to what we
may loosely call ‘Russia’.
1115AD –
The great Cistercian St.
Bernard is bidden to leave the mother
house near Dijon and make a foundation at
the so-called ‘Valley of Bitterness’ – which
he remained ‘Bright Valley’ or Clairvaux.
Since the French Revolution the buildings
have been a prison.
1215AD – In signing Magna Carta, King
John, earlier excommunicated by the Pope,
guarantees first and foremost the freedom
of the Church in England.
1315AD – Beginning of the Great Famine
in Europe, which gave rise to many heretical
sects who laid the blame on corruption in
the Church.
1415AD – The Czech reformer Jan Hus,
summoned to the Council of Constance to
defend his beliefs, is, despite being under a
safeguard, tried and burnt at the stake, thus
giving rise to a great reformation movement
in central Europe which pre-dates Martin
Luther. And ....
1515AD – The Augustinian friar Martin
Luther in Germany first formulates his belief
in ‘justification by faith alone’, before
embarking on his battles with the
Dominican Johann Tetzel, the notorious
seller of indulgences.
1615AD – The Roman Inquisition first
investigates the teachings of Galileo and
puts a ban on the teaching that the earth
revolves around the sun.
1715AD – The ‘Old Pretender’, James
Francis Edward Stuart, embarking on the
rising which would lead an army as far south
as Preston, appeals to Pope Clement XI for
his help and protection.
1815AD – Birth at Castelnuovo, near
Turin, of St. John Bosco, whose Salesian
Order would so influence the spiritual
formation of the young.
1915AD – Systematic persecution by
Turkey of the Armenian people and their
ancient Church (largely established in
Eastern Turkey).
To this day, the term
‘genocide’ is vigorously rejected by the
Turkish government.
2015AD – The world may end, according
to an interpretation of the book of Daniel.
Or maybe in 2333AD. Don’t get excited ...