St. Agatha’s Catholic Church 1 Wyndham Road CLERGY Kingston upon Thames Fr. Anthony Oleh, MSP — Parish Priest Surrey, KT2 5JR Fr. Ebuka Umekachikelu, MSP – Assistant Priest Tel: 020 8546 4633 www.stagathaschurch.org.uk Rev. Robert Beresford — Deacon [email protected] The parish office should be your first port of call for any enquiries, including appointments, and arrangements for all sacraments (e.g. baptisms, weddings, funerals). Please email Karin Rattray, the Parish Secretary, at [email protected] or call on 020 8546 4633. The office is open from 10am to 3pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (closed Wednesdays). Could you please limit telephone calls outside these hours to emergencies only. FEAST DAYS, MEMORIALS AND MASSES Archdiocese of Southwark SUNDAY 15TH MARCH 2020. 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT (A) Saturday 14th 9.30am Fanny Margaret Cook RIP 6.30pm Sheila McCormick RIP Sunday 15th 3rd Sunday of Lent 9.00am People of the Parish Coronavirus Update 10.30am Wellbeing of Keith Fraser 6.30pm Wellbeing of Philip Cockle The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has Monday 16th updated its advice to Dioceses and Parishes regarding the Patricia Cotmore RIP necessary measures to be taken to combat the spread of the 9.30am Mary Dae Devine RIP Coronavirus. A Decree relating to these has been issued by the Tuesday 17th St Patrick, Bishop, Patron of Ireland, Feast Archbishop. This Decree is mandatory within the Archdiocese. 9.30am Holy souls Wednesday 18th ARCHDIOCESE DECREE ON CORONA VIRUS 9.30am Wellbeing of Keith Fraser ➢ The sign of peace is suspended at Masses. St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thursday 19th Patron of the Universal Church, Solemnity ➢ No reception of Holy Communion from the chalice at Masses. 9.30am Rev. Fr. Casper Lutz RIP ➢ Those who choose to receive Holy Communion on the tongue th Friday 20 should consider receiving on the hand instead as an act of 9.30am Thanksgiving for safe birth of Baby Rafferty & Family loving charity to the community. Saturday 21st 9.30am Thomas Gerard Luson RIP ➢ Holy water stoups have been emptied and sanitisers are Marco Vincenzo & Gino Straccialano RIP provided. Please use this to sanitise your hands when entering 6.30pm John Davis RIP and leaving the church. Exposition: Monday to Saturday 8.30 – 9.20am. ➢ Please do not to use the shared hymn books or Mass books Morning Prayer: Monday to Saturday 9am. Confessions: Saturday 10-10.30am, 6-6.15pm & at call. during Mass, hymn sheets will be provided. The sheets will be Baptisms: By previous arrangement – Sunday at 12.30pm. for single use only and we ask that you take them home after Marriages: Six months’ notice required – Diocesan rule. Mass and do not leave them in church. ON THE FIRST SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH (4th April 2020) WE WILL Ensure that you maintain good hygiene (we should be doing HAVE ONE HOUR OF EXPOSITION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT ➢ BETWEEN 10AM & 11AM. this already), especially at mass and parish gatherings. The best way of protecting us from the spread is for everyone to use PLEASE PRAY FOR THE SICK AND HOUSEBOUND universal good hygiene, which will effectively disrupt the Please pray for the sick and housebound of our Parish: Christina spread of the virus. Ward, Clare Horgan, John Sewter, Keith Fraser, Trish Taylor, Ryan ➢ ▪ Catch it - sneeze into a tissue ▪ Bin it – bin the tissue ▪ Kill Morrison, Philip Cockle and Melba De Silva. Please let the Parish it – wash your hands with soap and water or alcohol hand gel. Office know in writing if either you or your relatives want to be Do not touch your face unless you’ve washed your hands mentioned on our sick list. ➢ Ensure good regular cleaning of surfaces lots of people touch ANNIVERSARIES regularly, including such things as door handles. Alphonse Schembri, Gerry Byrne, Herbert Lewis, Thomas Francis ➢ If you consider yourself vulnerable (for example, elderly, Mulcahy, Mary Pickard, Rita Da Silva, Aaron Bennett, Mary weakened immune systems and long-term conditions like Chisholm, Virginio Anghileri, Anne Lally, Frederic Leo Strawson, cancer, diabetes and heart disease), please refrain from large John McSorley, Robert Thomas Amon Kotei, Patricia Scott, Maria parish gatherings and stay at home. You may request for Winifred Taylor, Alfred Shoppee, Charles Kaufman, Mary Letitia communion to be brought to you by the priest. Lally, William Kitchen, Joseph William Kilkenny, Valentine Percival If you think you have cold or flu symptoms, you are Hafner, Patrick Cremin, Bernadette Teresa Clarke, Edith Conlon, ➢ encouraged to refrain from attending Liturgy and public events Stantey Cook, Peggy McManus, Norman Owen, Bridget (Bridie) (it may be ordinary cold but equally, it is essential to ensure a Crehan, Mary McGhee, Ann Rosemary Parker, Corina Gomes. +++ May they rest in Peace +++ precautionary approach). ➢ Tea and coffee will not be offered after Mass on Sundays. LET US REMEMBER ALL WHO HAVE DIED RECENTLY ➢ Collection bags will not be passed along the pews, please make Let us remember those who have died, those whose anniversaries your way to the collectors to make your offerings. occur about this time and their families, with love and affection during this time of grief. May the Lord grant eternal rest to all PLEASE TAKE THIS HOME WITH YOU, DO NOT who have died. RETURN TO THE TRAYS. THANK YOU. The Most Reverend Peter Smith RIP THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT, CYCLE A SUNDAY, MARCH 15TH, 2020 Emeritus Archbishop of Southwark Gospel Reading John 4:5-42 Jesus reveals himself to the Samaritan woman at the well. (shorter form: John 4:5-15,19b-26,39a,40-42) Reflection On this Sunday and the next two Sundays, we break from reading the Gospel of Matthew to read from John’s Gospel. The Gospel of John is the only Gospel not assigned to a particular liturgical year. Instead, readings from John’s Gospel are interspersed throughout our three-year liturgical cycle. In today’s Gospel, the dialogue between Jesus and a woman from Samaria is among the most lengthy and most theological found +++ May he rest in peace +++ in Scripture. The most startling aspect of the conversation is that it happens at all. Jesus, an observant Jew of that time, was expected to It is with great sadness that I write to inform you that avoid conversation with women in public. The animosity between the Archbishop Peter Smith, our beloved Archbishop Emeritus, died Jews and the Samaritans should have prevented the conversation as peacefully on Friday 6 March 2020, at the Royal Marsden Hospital, well. The woman herself alludes to the break from tradition: “How can Chelsea. you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Yet Jesus not Archbishop Peter had received the sacraments and prayers of only converses with the woman, he also asks to share her drinking the Church, and his former secretary, Fr Philip Glandfield, was with vessel, an action that makes him unclean according to Jewish law. him when he died. I was able to visit him earlier that evening, together The initial conversation between Jesus and the woman is better with the Vicar General, Mgr Matthew Dickens, and the Hospital understood if we consider the importance of water, especially in the Chaplain, Fr Joseph McCullough. Mr John Toryusen, the Director of climate of Israel. At first, the woman understands Jesus’ promise of the Archdiocese of Southwark Youth Service, accompanied “living water” in a literal sense: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” With no Archbishop Peter during his illness and his time in hospital. running water, the daily trip to the well by the women of the Archbishop Peter was visited in hospital by family and friends, and by community was of paramount importance. The women of the town Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster. would have travelled to the well in the early morning, but this woman Archbishop Peter’s illness progressed very quickly following his came to the well at noon, the hottest time of the day. The timing of diagnosis of cancer just a few weeks ago. He was a much loved her visit is a clear sign that she is an outcast within the Samaritan brother, uncle, and friend; a priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark, community. We learn in her conversation with Jesus that she is an Rector of St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, Bishop of East Anglia, outcast because of her “many husbands.” Archbishop of Cardiff and Archbishop of Southwark until his Behind the conversation lies the animosity and rivalry between retirement in July 2019. While Archbishop of Southwark, he also the Jews and the Samaritans. Samaritans shared Jewish ancestry, but served from 2014-2015 as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Samaritans had intermarried with foreigners when they lived under Arundel and Brighton. So many good wishes have been passed to the rule of the Assyrians. Samaritan religion included worship of him in the past few weeks, and prayers and Masses offered. Thank Yahweh, but was also influenced by the worship of other gods. When the Jews refused Samaritan help in the building of the Temple at you for all of these. Jerusalem, the Samaritans eventually built a temple for themselves at Our gift to Archbishop Peter now is to pray for the repose of Mt. Gerizim (the same mountain mentioned by the woman at the his soul, and to remember prayerfully his family, friends and loved well). Like the Jews, the Samaritans believed that a Messiah would ones at their time of loss. come. In a ministry that spanned almost fifty years, Archbishop Peter The high point of the conversation is when Jesus reveals himself made an outstanding contribution to the Catholic Church across three to her as the Messiah.