Phone/Fax: 0161 773 2324

OUR LADY OF GRACE Parish web page: www.ourladyofgrace.co.uk PRESTWICH Parish Email: [email protected] ‘Stay with us, Lord, on our journey’ Diocesan web page: www.dioceseofsalford.org.uk

26th SUNDAY ‘OF THE YEAR’ 27 September 2020

HOLY THIS WEEK SUNDAY First Mass of Sunday is 7pm Saturday. Sunday morning 9.00 & 11.00 am MONDAY 12 noon (St Wenceslaus/St Lawrence Ruiz & Companions) TUESDAY 12 noon St , St & St WEDNESDAY 12 noon St THURSDAY 12 noon St Therese of the Child Jesus FRIDAY 12 noon The Holy Guardian Angels SATURDAY 12 noon

The church is open Monday to Friday from 11.45 am to 4.00 pm, and on Saturdays from 11.45 am to 3.00 pm, opening again at 6.40 pm on Saturday evening for the first Mass of Sunday at 7.00 pm.

My dear Parishioners and well educated according ends of the earth’. Today her and Friends, to the standards of the time. Sisters minister to people as She was a delicate young far apart as North America This week will see us firmly woman, barely five-foot-tall and Africa, Papua New into Autumn – ‘Season of and of fragile build. But she Guinea and Peru, Chile and mists and mellow was no shrinking violet, Jamaica, Argentina and fruitfulness’, as the poet put described as ‘a little woman Australia, Ireland and it. It is now over six months brimful of energy and Bosnia, , Scotland since we suffered the will’. Aged 29, Elizabeth and Wales, in diverse lockdown in Spring. Are we Prout was chosen by God to climates and cultures. any nearer the end of it? found a Congregation of Judging from the media, it Religious women to bring the Elizabeth was born in would seem not. Meanwhile, compassion and love of Shrewsbury in 1820. Her we have to carry on, trusting Christ to the poor. This she mother was a staunch ever more in God’s love for did over a period of sixteen Anglican, her father a lapsed every one of us, and asking years of self-sacrifice, Catholic. Elizabeth was Our Lady’s protection. It is grinding poverty and total baptised and brought up in good to know that our submission to the will of the Anglican tradition. The churches still remain open God. She died at the age of family moved to Stone in and that we can have daily 43, her mission where her Mass here at Our Lady of accomplished. She had laid father’s meant that the Grace. the foundations of the family could live comfortably. Congregation of the Whilst at Stone she met the Italian Passionist, Blessed Sisters of the Cross and Yesterday should have seen Passion, an international , who had a celebration to mark the missionary Congregation, come as a missioner to 200th anniversary of the birth dedicated to keeping alive England. She became a of . Who was the memory of Christ’s Catholic and entered a she? Elizabeth was gently Passion, Death and convent at Northampton. nurtured, refined, intelligent Resurrection ‘even unto the Due to illness she returned home and then made her way to looking Dire poverty was often their shepherd leading him to life for work. She got a job lot. This was a radical (336)’. The Church thanks teaching in St. Chad’s departure from the God for our helpers, the School, at that time in established Religious Orders angels, particularly next Ancoats, and then in Angel of the day and many local Friday and on 29 September, Meadow, Manchester’s worst clergy questioned their the feast of the slum. prudence. Some called for Michael, Gabriel and the Institute to be Raphael. Manchester in 1849 was at suppressed. Bishop Turner the height of the Industrial set up a diocesan enquiry The funeral Mass for Mr Revolution. The poor lived which vindicated the new Kayombo Tshikaya of and worked in appalling Institute. Shelley Road is next conditions. Many were Thursday at 10.00 am. Catholic, famine refugees Elizabeth died in 1864. Her Admission by invitation only. from Ireland. Children body together with that of worked long hours in the Blessed Dominic Barberi and Thank you for your mills; they could neither read Fr lies in generous offering of £447.74 nor write. Thousands were the shrine of St Anne’s for the Church in the Holy without any religious Church, Sutton, St Land in last week’s instruction. Mill girls were Helens. The church and collection. particularly vulnerable. shrine are now a place of Fr Allen Shocked by this inequality pilgrimage. After her death and injustice Elizabeth and a numbers grew. New works Fr Dearman’s reflections few companions were moved were undertaken. In 1875 on the Lord’s Prayer. to do something about it. In the Sisters were affiliated to Part Twelve: The Power and the Glory 1852, in St. Chad’s church, the Passionist Congregation, Cheetham Hill, with the founded by St Paul of the It is the custom in Catholic support of local priests and Cross. They changed their devotion to end the Lord’s Bishop William Turner of name to Sisters of the Prayer after “Deliver us from Salford, Elizabeth founded Cross and Passion and evil” with the word Amen. the Institute of the Holy ever since have worn the This declares our agreement Family. As Mother and distinctive Passionist sign. with all that has gone before. Leader, Elizabeth was given Elizabeth’s Cause is now If another person has said the name Mother Mary being examined by the Holy the rest of the prayer, we of Jesus. See with a view to eventual can say Amen as the

canonisation. equivalent of “Hear, Hear!” Elizabeth Prout’s Institute was a new venture. The Other Christian traditions Sisters lived in community Angels are servants and round off the prayer with a combining a humble, austere messengers from God. In doxology or hymn of praise: and prayerful life with an unseen ways the angels help “For thine is the kingdom, active ministry outside the us on our earthly pilgrimage. the power and the glory, for convent. Anyone who was The idea that each soul has ever and ever. Amen.” The truly virtuous and could work assigned to it a personal , in a spirit of for the support of the Institute guardian angel has been ecumenism, has introduced could be admitted. There long accepted by the Church. this doxology into the rite of was no class distinction Next Friday we keep the Holy Mass, after a prayer by among members. No dowry memorial of the Holy the celebrant which was required. Lack of Guardian Angels. The develops the theme of education was not an Gospel reading from St deliverance from evil. obstacle. Sisters went out to Matthew that day tells us: teach, to sew, to work in the ‘See that you do not despise It is good to end our prayer mills or in any employment one of these little ones, for I with a recognition that God compatible with their say to you that their angels in the Father, despite his religious state. They had no heaven always look upon the wonderful approachability, is property, no patrons, no face of my heavenly Father’. still the supremely powerful security. They pooled their The Catechism of the and glorious King and wages and when they were Catholic Church says: Creator of the universe. out of work they, like their ‘Beside each believer stands neighbours, went hungry. an angel as protector and AMEN!