PARISH NEWSLETTER 18th August 2019 20th Sunday in OT PASTORS Abbot Paul Stonham and Dom Alistair Findlay Tel: 01432 - 374718 email:[email protected] www.belmontparish.org.uk Parish Rev Deacon Eddie Wyman Tel: 01432 - 263575 Safeguarding Representative Gabrielle Stanley 07939 472059 Articles for newsletter: [email protected] Dear friends in Christ,

This week, on 22nd August, we will be celebrating the feast of our own Herefordshire martyr, St John Kemble, and the following week we’ll give thanks for the martyr, Blessed Roger Cadwallador, two great men of faith, who willingly offered their lives for the Catholic faith they held so dear. We can’t help but ask ourselves the question, “What if I were called upon in this day and age to offer my life for Christ and for his Church?” What would I do? What would my answer be?

Now, we might not be called upon to shed our blood or to lose our heads, but are we prepared to stand up and be counted when it comes to the crunch? Am I prepared to speak out, or to do things differently to those around me, because of my beliefs and my faith and trust in God? It’s good to ask ourselves such questions from time to time, lest we forget who and what we really are.

They say that when it rains in August, that’s the end of Summer. Even so, I hope we get some good weather over Bank Holiday weekend. God bless you all, Fr Paul

Welcome to Belmont Abbey. If you are a visitor here and would like to Gift Aid your offertory collection, please collect an envelope from the Porch. Thank you! 1 V V V V V

Last 1st Collection £401.70 Dates for your diary Sunday’s Standing Orders £581.00 The 1st collection goes towards the main- 22 August tenance of our Abbey church and parish, Church cleaning diocesan levies and other related costs. 2nd Collection £262.98 Sunday, 25 August The 2nd collection is reserved for specific Parish BBQ from 12.30 charitable causes or appeals and our own Outreach projects as detailed in the Wednesday 4 September Newsletter. Last week was for Ely Diaconate of Br Augustine Memorial Fund. Thank You! 11:30 am

Hereford Hospital Chaplaincy Sunday 20 October at 3 pm Now that Fr Matthew has moved to Voskresenje Russian Choir Abergavenny, Fr Patrick is looking after Catholic patients in Wednesday, 11 December, Hospital, but he does not have access at 7.30 pm. to a patient list. If you know of a Advent Carol Service, led by patient who wants a visit from a Academia Musica Catholic priest, please ring Our Lady’s (265177) or inform Fr Alistair or Fr V V V V V Paul. V V V V V Catholic People: The new edition of If you know of anybody who is sick or Catholic People has arrived and is homebound in the parish and they available free of charge in the porch. would like to receive Holy Please take one. You will find a lot about Herefordshire again this month. Communion, please contact the V V V V V Parish Priest by phone or e-mail.

V V V V V Parish BBQ Sunday, 25th August, GDPR from 12.30 onwards Remember you need to let us know if You are all welcome to the BBQ next you want to put someone on the sick Sunday. Sausages, bread and other list and you must have their good things will be provided, but permission in writing. Let us know please bring a salad, fruit or a cake, through 1859belmontparish@gmail. indeed anything useful or edible, if com . Many thanks. you’re planning to join us.

2 V V V V V declaration forms. Please contact me for copies if you require them. Gift Aid - Important Notice For information, please see website at: hereford foodbank.co.uk. Many Will all parishioners who gift aid their thanks for your continued support. collections and donations please Chris Moore collect your annual statement of V V V V V donations given for the tax year 2018- 2019, from the box in the entrance foyer. Samaritan's Purse Shoe Box Appeal It is most important that you advise We now have two volunteers who us, in writing, by 31st August if you are taking on the management of are no longer a tax payer as we will the appeal in the Parish. So now is be submitting our claim to the Inland the time to start collecting those Revenue shortly thereafter. small, but very valued, gifts for your Gift aiding has proved to be an shoe boxes. excellent source of income for the V V V V V Parish and we would like to express our thanks to all who participate in Annual Pilgrimage the scheme. Any new members would In Honour of Lewis S.J. be very welcome and if you wish to 340th Anniversary of His begin Gift Aiding, the respective Martyrdom forms are also available in the Benediction at 3:00 pm, Sunday entrance foyer. 25th August 2019. V V V V V SS. and David Lewis Church. Porth - y - Carne Street, Usk. NP15 1RZ Food Bank See poster in Porch for more details. The Hereford Food Bank continues to V V V V V support families and individuals and is grateful for the support of all its Jennifer and John Hackman thank all donors. If anyone wishes to donate their friends for making their Golden cash, cheques should be made Wedding celebrations last weekend payable to Hereford Food Bank and so special. left in an envelope marked for my attention. Standing order forms are V V V V V also available as are Gift Aid

3 A date for your diary: V V V V V On Wednesday, 4th September, Br Safeguarding - Important Update Augustine Primavesi will be ordained a deacon by Archbishop George. The Please could you contact Gabrielle if Mass begins at 11.30 am and all are you are on our parish list and your CRB welcome. There will not be Mass at 12 (the old version of the DBS) certificate noon in the Oratory on that day. was issued before December 2012? Cardiff Safeguarding Office have stated that anyone with an old CRB who is volunteering in the parish with children or vulnerable adults, or taking Holy Communion to the sick or infirm needs to update the CRB to a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) V V V V V as a priority. The parish lists are on notice boards in the porch and in the Parish Library parish centre. Gabrielle has the date A new selection of recommended when you received your certificate if books are on display in the parish you are unsure about this. hall. V V V V V It may be that you are no longer volunteering in this capacity, in which case there is no need to fill out a new I would like to express my gratitude to form, but please tell Gabrielle so that the monastic community and parish the parish list is up to date. for the prayer support my mother Elizabeth and I received in her final If anyone is volunteering in this way weeks. and has never had a DBS check, could Particular thanks to those who you please let Gabrielle know? attended and supported me at her funeral and for all kind words of Thank you very much, condolence. My thanks also to those who Gabrielle [email protected] contributed to her chosen charity 01432 842986 07939472059 which raised £105 at the funeral collection for Aid To The Church In Need. Christopher Cleveland

4 V V V V V the terrifying reality of fire’s destructive force. It is easy enough to Marriage: Our congratulations to start a fire, but not always possible to George James Murless Knight and contain it. In periods of prolonged dry Angeleen Margaret Dellar, who were weather, the careless lighting of a married at Belmont on Saturday, 17th barbecue may wreak havoc. Wildfires August. consume not only vast tracts of forest V V V V V but people’s homes and farms as well, not to mention the habitat of Advance notice for your diaries: countless creatures. We see images on the news of roads blocked by Vespers at Tintern Abbey: Sunday, 8th carloads of panic-stricken families; of September, at 3pm. lines of firefighters in terrifying temperatures; of scorched, Vespers at Hereford Cathedral for St blackened, treeless landscapes. Even Thomas Cantilupe sung by the with sophisticated fire-fighting monastic community: Tuesday, 1st equipment, a wildfire may prove October, at 5.30pm. inextinguishable for weeks. V V V V V Gospel Teaching To ancient Jews, fire symbolised the Homily unapproachable purity of God. The “I have come to bring fire to the earth, book of Exodus describes the and how I wish it were blazing billowing of smoke as God descended already!” to Mount Sinai. No one dared approach for fear of being vaporised Illustration in its consuming heat. Yet holiness Fire can evoke a happy image of cosy also held an irresistible attraction. winter evenings; the smell of autumn God encouraged to approach, bonfires; or of summer nights under and not for the first time. God had the stars, toasting marshmallows on already spoken to him from a burning the embers of a campfire. There is bush in the wilderness, and instructed something about staring into the him to remove his shoes, for he was flames that induces a mellow mood of standing on holy ground. That is the trusting companionship. Around a fire effect on anyone who draws nearer to we share our stories and draw closer. God: transformation. The encounter Firelight can make contemplatives of with pure goodness is likely to make us all. us better, humbler people. And just as Yet the news of devastating wildfires Moses’ bush blazed but was not in recent years have awakened us to consumed, so we, too, may burn with 5 God’s own holy presence and survive between neighbours. The two unharmed; for God does not desire to disciples on the road to Emmaus destroy, but to beckon us closer. The exclaimed that their hearts burned experience of holiness, it seems, is within them. It is possible for every only intolerable to those who harden heart to feel like that: burning with themselves against its purifying love for God; with compassion for effect. those who suffer; with indignation at In today’s Gospel we hear how Jesus injustice. said, “I have come to bring fire.” He There is a saying attributed to Jesus wished it were already blazing across by the early Christian scholar Origen the earth. This was not intended to which does not appear in the Bible: terrify: Jesus had come neither to “Whoever is near me is near the fire.” judge nor to destroy, but to save. His That may not sound very vision was of a holier way of life comfortable. Not everyone wants to spreading like wildfire across the smoulder with selfless love. Some earth. He believed that God was may even shrink back in terror. Jesus beginning to intervene in this world in is certainly a disquieting presence, as a new and unstoppable way. Jesus did he himself acknowledges in today’s not say, “Stand clear,” but “Come to Gospel. Indeed, following the path of me.” And all who did, however sinful, discipleship carries the risk of found themselves forgiven and upsetting those people around us cleansed in his holy presence. John who find our honesty and integrity the Baptist had foretold that the too challenging. We might even meet Christ would come to baptise with with scorn within our own families, as fire. So it was that at Pentecost, Jesus warns. “tongues” of fire came to rest upon In the presence of pure goodness, it the heads of his followers. It was not, seems, no one can remain indifferent. as John had anticipated, an avenging Jesus did not set out to divide fire. Gods desire was to purify all families, nor to be a destructive force, peoples in an outpouring of God’s yet the fire of purifying love that he own Holy Spirit, the burning ardour of set ablaze across the world obliges pure love. people to make a choice: either to Application allow their lives to be changed or to Imagine the whole world enveloped resist God’s sanctifying presence. Let in God’s own divine life, with cruelty our choice be to step forward into the and meanness melting away in its divine life God so longs to share with heat. Imagine sparks of joy and us. generosity igniting friendship

6 Ministries for next Sunday 25 August 2019 Year C Cycle 1, Week 21 in Ordinary Time 08:30 9:30 11:00 Celebrant Fr Paul Fr Jonathan Fr Paul Welcomers Liz Norman Nickerson Family Hackman Family Sacristan Rob Corrigan 1st Reading Julia Davey Polly Maund-Powell Jean Wise 2nd Reading Jacqui Ramage-S Anna Rossini Bidding Prayers Richard Batho Sergio Pavia Offertory Hayes Family Gillick Family Extraordinary Seamus Hayes & Deacon Eddie & Ministers Kath Parry Gabrielle Stanley Next Sunday: Supporting Catholic Education

CHILDREN’S LITURGY Low Mass in the Extraordinary Rite (Tridentine Mass) is usually celebrated here at Belmont Abbey Summer Break on Wednesday evenings at 7 pm and Sunday afternoons at 4 pm.

Please pray for all who have died: May they rest in peace. (W/C 18 August)

Deaths: Maureen Regan, Drusilla Ransford, Elizabeth Cleveland and Chris Asprey

Anniversaries: Archbishop Vaughan OSB, Hilda Lampard, John Jeffrey Taylor MBE, Andrew Massey, John Bennallack-Hart, Vincent Hourahane, Andrew Pracey, Rose Rogers, Francis Spolnik, John Jeffrey Taylor, Edwin Townsend , Margaret Ward, Mary Margaret Smith, Agnes Rosser, George Hyde, Sr Mary Rawlinson and Noel Ignatius Warde.

The Sick: Please pray for: Boho family especially Tom age 13, Kathleen Hanna, Derrick Murphy, Sally Johns, Mick Parry, Seamus Hayes, Sally and Robin Hayward, Jennifer Hackman, Kenny Hanna, Gil Savory, Chris & Sue Rogers, Shirley Brymer, Edward Medlicott and Dame Catherine.

Belmont Abbey Parish is part of Belmont Abbey Mission Trust (Registered Charity - 226277)

7 Liturgy for Sunday 18 August 2019 Cycle C; Weekdays: Year 1 - Wk 20 Entrance: Turn your eyes, O God, our shield; and look on the face of your anointed ones; one day within your courts is better than a thousand Week 20 in elsewhere. Ordinary Time Acclamation: Save us Saviour of the world ….

Communion: With the Lord there is mercy; in him is plentiful redemption.

Principal Celebrants, Extraordinary Ministers, Readers, etc. 8:30 am 9:30 am 11:00 am Celebrant Fr Paul Fr Alex Fr Paul Welcomer Kath Parry Patrick Walesby Anne & Ross Williams Sacristan Jeremy Hogan 1st Reading Fran Grant Menna McBain Liz Morawiecki 2nd Reading Adrian Eyre Margaret Rose Bidding Prayer Liz Norman Pat Wood Hayes Family Frances Riddell & Offertory Anthea Morton-S Extraordinary Deacon Eddie & Deacon Eddie & John Minister(s) Linzy Parry Hackman Mass Intention Richard Hayes Jr RIP Franek Spolnick RIP Second Collection: Supporting Catholic Education Food Bank Collection: Jan & Eddie Wyman

What’s On for the week Mon Feria: Mass at 8 am Tue St Bernard: Mass at 8 am Wed St Pius X, : Mass at 8 am; Midday Mass in the Oratory Thu The Queenship of Our Lady: Mass at 8 am; ER Mass at 7pm Fri St : Mass at 8 am; Adoration 11 am; Midday Mass in Oratory Sat St Bartholomew, apostle: Mass at 8 am; Sacrament of Reconciliation 10 am

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