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 22nd SUNDAY ‘OF THE YEAR’ 29 AUGUST 2021 HOLY MASS THIS WEEK SUNDAY First Mass of Sunday is 7pm Saturday. Sunday morning 9.00 & 11.00 am MONDAY 12 noon (Sts Margaret Clitherow, Anne Line & Margaret Ward) TUESDAY 12 noon (St Aidan & the Saints of Lindisfarne) WEDNESDAY 12 noon St Edmund Arrowsmith THURSDAY 12 noon FRIDAY 12 noon Funeral Mass for Angela Sutcliffe (Read) SATURDAY 11.00 am (St Cuthbert) The church is open every day Monday to Friday from 11.45 am to 6.00 pm Saturdays from 10.45 am to 8.00 pm Sundays from 8.45 am to 12 noon (or later if Baptisms) Confessional times: Saturday 11.45 am-1.00 pm, 6.00-6.45 pm Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament: Saturday after 11.00 am Mass until 1.00 pm. My dear Parishioners will also remember three very bed and hole with their and Friends, brave women who were put swords, searching for priests to death for helping priests in or evidence of them. They It’s good to see numbers at those sad times. tied the family up, took Sunday Masses gradually Edmund’s parents off to creeping up as more people Edmund Arrowsmith was Lancaster gaol and left the pick up confidence. We must captured near Blackburn, four little children shivering in still though respect those after a desperate chase in their night clothes. who hesitate. Covid is still which his horse refused to with us. Having said that, the jump a ditch. He was born at To escape from the church is probably a safer Haydock in 1585. His family persecution, Edmund went place than most others. knew what it was to suffer for across to Holland and their Catholic faith. His Belgium, coming then to the grandfather, Thurstan recently founded English Last week I wrote a little Arrowsmith, was imprisoned College at Douai where his about St Ambrose Barlow, and died in Salford gaol. His learned uncle and priest, Dr one of the saints of our grandfather on his mother’s Edmund Arrowsmith, was a diocese. He was put to death side had also been arrested professor. Ordained priest in because he was a priest. as a Catholic. 1612, Edmund was sent to the English mission the During the coming week we Edmund was only eight years following year. will celebrate another martyr old when the Government who had close connections priest hunters raided his He came to his native with our diocese, St Edmund home. They turned everyone Lancashire and spent some Arrowsmith. On Monday we out of bed and tried every fifteen years in priestly work in and to the north-west of the priest and future martyr, Fr Dearman’s present Salford diocese, John Southworth, who was Reflections on the centred in Brindle between also a prisoner. Both were Chorley and Preston. A canonised by Pope St Paul Rosary: house in Gregson Lane, VI in 1970. THE ASSUMPTION Brindle, is known as ‘The Before he was hanged, House of the Last Mass’. When Jesus ascended to Here Edmund said his last drawn and quartered Edmund proclaimed “I die a heaven, he took his human Mass before his final arrest. body into heavenly glory, Edmund was described by a constant Roman Catholic”. contemporary as small but ‘of His last words were “Bone paving the way for all of us great innocency in his life, of Jesu, Good Jesus.” His body to share that glory in our great sincerity in his nature, was cut into four and bodies. We have to wait till of great sweetness in his exhibited, along with his the great Day of the Lord for conversation, and of great head, on the Castle walls. this to happen. But Jesus did industry in his function’, and One of the prison keepers at not want his Mother to wait always ‘of a cheerful the Castle collected the that long. Instead she was countenance’. martyrs’ relics. The most raised up at once, body and famous is his hand, He was betrayed by a venerated in St Oswald’s soul, to the glorious presence renegade Catholic whom he church Ashton-in-Makerfield. of God in heaven. Her had reproved for an glorification strengthens our incestuous marriage. This hope. We ask her to give us person reported Edmund to a The three brave women we trust in God’s promise that local Justice of the Peace. remember tomorrow, we shall share in that Warned that he was about to Monday, are Saints wonderful privilege of hers be arrested, Edmund set off Margaret Clitherow, Anne in God’s good time. on his horse towards Line and Margaret Ward. Preston. He was pursued All three were put to death for Our Father and captured and taken to sheltering and helping the Boar’s Head Inn, dating priests. It is possible that St Before each Hail Mary: from the 16th century and still Margaret Clitherow is buried 1 He has put down the functioning today as a in the Salford diocese. powerful and raised up the country pub on Blackburn Certain clues indicate that lowly Old Road, Hoghton. Here her body was brought to 2 Christ has been raised from Edmund was locked in a Lancashire from York and the dead: all men will be cowshed while his captors buried in Stydd Chapel at brought to life in Christ took his money, went to the Ribchester. A visit there 3 A great sign appeared in bar and spent it all on drink. makes for an interesting day Then they escorted him to out. heaven Lancaster Castle where he 4 A woman, adorned by the was imprisoned and put on sun, standing on the moon trial. and with twelve stars on her Next Sunday, 5 September, head The Judge, Sir Henry sees the opening of the 5 Blessed are you because Yelverton, was a Puritan and International Eucharistic you believed notoriously anti-Catholic. He Congress in Budapest. I will 6 Your praise will never violently threatened Edmund, be among a small group cease on the lips of men saying “You shall die”, to attending from this parish. which Edmund quietly replied 7 Father, I want those you Pope Francis will be there for have given me to be with me “And you too, my Lord, must the closing Mass on Sunday die”. The end came quickly. 12 September. where I am When the Judge read out his 8 Come, ye blessed of my death sentence Edmund This weekend is the August Father; enter the kingdom answered “Deo gratias; God Bank Holiday. The weather prepared for you be thanked”. On 28 August forecast is good. Let’s hope 9 You have changed my 1628, as he passed through we can get out and about. mourning into gladness the Castle yard on his way to Enjoy! 10 The great day of the Lord execution, Edmund received is near and hastening fast absolution from another Fr Allen Glory be .