TOGETHER Our Churches Have Been Closed As Directed by Archbishop Malcolm
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Newsletter for Catholics in Birkdale 29 March 2020 + Fifth Sunday in Lent + Sundays Year A + Weekdays Year 2 TOGETHER Our churches have been closed as directed by Archbishop Malcolm. For now your homes are a domestic church. I was delighted to see that Claudia has taken matters into her own hands and gathered her family for prayer! Masses Intentions 29 March—5 April Sat Col. Michael John Bennetts A Sunday Parishioners Mon Stephen Buckley Tues John Ormsby A Wed John Wade LD Thurs Fr Patrick O’Sullivan Fri Margaret Parr and Towers Family Sat Thomas and Margaret Kennedy A Palm Sunday Parishioners How Do I Make a Spiritual Communion? Alone or together with others in your household Make the sign of the cross You could read the Gospel of the day Then share prayer intentions quietly or aloud Say the Lord’s Prayer Then make an act of spiritual communion At home we can follow Mass online, Make a Spiritual My Jesus, Communion, Pray for those who are ill, the dying, NHS staff I believe that You are present who care for them, for one another. in the Most Holy Sacrament. Let’s not get lonely! Stay in touch using the telephone 568313 I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. or email [email protected], or join our Facebook Since I cannot at this moment page: Birkdale Catholics. Please share with family and friends. receive You sacramentally, At this time we can only send out the newsletter TOGETHER come at least spiritually into my heart. electronically. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me Lord Jesus Christ, to be separated from You. send the Holy Spirit over the world Amen. St. Alphonsus Liguori affected by the corona virus. In your goodness: Heal the sick! Close with the sign of the cross. Protect those in danger of being infected. Strengthen those who care for the sick. TOGETHER by email My life is in your hands. [email protected] to get this I trust in you. newsletter weekly Amen. in your inbox. Parish Priest: Fr Atli Jónsson Office: 40 York Road, Southport PR8 2AY, Tel 01704 568313 [email protected] Deacon: Rev Bill Ball, Tel 567788. Parish www.birkdalecatholics.com & www.stteresasbirkdale.org Deanery www.southportcatholicchurches.org Diocese www.liverpoolcatholic.org.uk Other Catholic churches in Southport: St John Stone & Sacred Heart Tel. 577722 * St Marie & St Patrick Tel. 531229 * Holy Family Tel. 532613 MASS THIS SUNDAY Gospel Acclamation Glory and praise to you, O Christ! Preface Fifth Sunday of Lent I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord; Eucharistic Prayer III whoever believes in me will never die. Glory and praise to you, O Christ! Entrance Antiphon Give me justice, O God, Gospel John 11:3-7,17,20-27,33-45 and plead my cause against a nation that is faithless. The sisters sent this message to Jesus, ‘Lord, the man From the deceitful and cunning rescue me, you love is ill.’ On receiving the message, Jesus said, for you, O God, are my strength. ‘This sickness will end not in death but in God’s glory, Collect and through it the Son of God will be glorified.’ By your help, we beseech you, Lord our God, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet may we walk eagerly in that same charity when he heard that Lazarus was ill he stayed where he with which, out of love for the world, was for two more days before saying to the disciples, your Son handed himself over to death. ‘Let us go to Judaea.’ Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you On arriving, Jesus found that Lazarus had been in the in the unity of the Holy Spirit, tomb for four days already. Bethany is only about two one God, for ever and ever. Amen. miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to sympathise with them over their A reading from the first book of Ezekiel 37:12-14 brother. When Martha heard that Jesus had come she The Lord says this: I am now going to open your went to meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. graves; I mean to raise you from your graves, my Martha said to Jesus, ‘If you had been here, my brother people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel. And you would not have died, but I know that, even now, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.’ ‘Your and raise you from your graves, my people. And I shall brother’ said Jesus to her ‘will rise again.’ Martha said, put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I shall resettle ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last you on your own soil; and you will know that I, the Lord, day.’ Jesus said: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. If have said and done this – it is the Lord who speaks. anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ Psalm 129 ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said ‘I believe that you are the Christ, Response: With the Lord there is mercy the Son of God, the one who was to come into this and fullness of redemption. world.’ Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, Jesus said in great distress, with a sigh that came Lord, hear my voice! straight from the heart, ‘Where have you put him?’ They O let your ears be attentive said, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept; and the Jews to the voice of my pleading. R. said, ‘See how much he loved him!’ But there were If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, some who remarked, ‘He opened the eyes of the blind Lord, who would survive? man, could he not have prevented this man’s death?’ But with you is found forgiveness: Still sighing, Jesus reached the tomb: it was a cave with for this we revere you. R. a stone to close the opening. Jesus said, ‘Take the My soul is waiting for the Lord. stone away.’ Martha said to him, ‘Lord, by now he will I count on his word. smell; this is the fourth day.’ Jesus replied, ‘Have I not My soul is longing for the Lord told you that if you believe you will see the glory of more than watchman for daybreak. God?’ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted Let the watchman count on daybreak up his eyes and said: and Israel on the Lord. R. ‘Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer. I knew Because with the Lord there is mercy indeed that you always hear me, but I speak for the and fullness of redemption, sake of all these who stand round me, so that they may Israel indeed he will redeem believe it was you who sent me.’ from all its iniquity. R. When he had said this, he cried in a loud voice, A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans 8:8-11 ‘Lazarus, here! Come out!’ The dead man came out, his People who are interested only in unspiritual things can feet and hands bound with bands of stuff and a cloth never be pleasing to God. Your interests, however, are round his face. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, let him not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit go free.’ of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and had possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to seen what he did believed in him. him. Though your body may be dead it is because of The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. sin, but if Christ is in you then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Something to Think and Pray about The shortest verse in the Bible is in this Sunday’s Gospel: “Jesus wept.” Reading these two words we learn that Jesus is a Prayer with the Pope March 2020 real human being, the son of Man, a man of the earth We pray that the Church in China may persevere in who weeps over a friend. its faithfulness to the Gospel and grow in unity. His was a human heart. He liked his friends. They https://www.facebook.com/thepopevideo gave him a home away from home. They took him away from the mob to safety for food, companionship www.thepopevideo.org and rest. We might picture him at a friend’s house; there is chat, laughter, prayer and people who know We Pray for the Sick how to keep silence. See him at table where food is Toby Peters aged two, Nella aged four, shared and a glass of wine raised in celebration of Eddie Grant, Jack Rogan, Canon Bert Shaw, goodness and joy.