Latest Update 28th August 2010

Lenten Project 2010: Mary’s Meals

This year for our Lenten project, we decided to support Mary’s Meals (www.marysmeals.com), an international charity that was started by two brothers in Scotland.  It works in fourteen different countries where children are prevented from having an education largely because of poverty and hunger.  The children receive a nutritious meal when they come to school.  The education is free and the meal costs the charity only £6.15 per pupil for a year!  This is taken from their website:

Mary’s Meals is an international movement to set up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education.  Mary’s Meals provides daily meals in school for over 375,000 children in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

We hoped to raise £18,800 in order to build a warehouse for the charity in Liberia.  This will lengthen the shelf-life of their produce and enable the charity to buy in bulk (bringing down the cost of feeding the children).  We exceeded our target with a total raised of £20,251.42.  A very big THANK YOU to everyone who gave so generously.

Visit their website: www.marysmeals.com

The Polish Tradition of Blessing of the Easter Food Baskets

On Holy Saturday Polish families bring small baskets containing a sampling of Easter foods to church to be blessed. The blessing of the Easter foods is a tradition dear to the hearts of every Polish family. This is a sign of gratitude to God for all His gifts of both nature and grace. As a token of this gratitude, they have the food of their table sanctified in the hope that Spring, the season of the Resurrection, will also be blessed by God's goodness and mercy.

Please click the photo below to see more information and photos from the day.

IJust as the mother of pearl fish lives in the sea without taking in a single frop of salt water, just as near the Chelodonian islands springs of fresh water may be found in the depths of the sea, and just as the firefly passes through flames without burning its wings, so also a strong, resolute soul can live in the world without being infected by any of its moods, find sweet springs of piety amid its salty waves, and fly through the flames of earthly lusts wihout burning the wings of its holy desires for a devout life. [...]
The world vilifies holy devotion as much as it can. It pictures devout persons as having discontented, gloomy, sullen faces and claims that devotion brings on depression and unbearable moods. But just as Joshua and Caleb held both that the Promised Land was good and beautiful and that its possession would be sweet and agreeable, so too the Holy Spirit by the mouths of all the saints and Our Lord by His own mouth assure us that a devout life is a life that is sweet, happy, and lovable.

- St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) "Introduction to the Devout Life"

I"I am the good shepherd; I know my own, and my own know me” (Jn 10:14). Rejoice that the Lord has made you members of his flock and knows each of you by name! Follow him with joy and let him guide you in all your ways. Jesus knows what challenges you face, what trials you endure, and the good that you do in his name. Trust in him, in his enduring love for all the members of his flock, and persevere in your witness to the triumph of his love. May Saint John the Baptist, the patron of Jordan, and Mary, Virgin and Mother, sustain you by their example and prayers, and lead you to the fullness of joy in the eternal pastures where we will experience for ever the presence of the Good Shepherd and know for ever the depths of his love. Amen.”
(Pope Benedict XVI, Pilgrimage to the Holy Land)

22md Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
Ecclesiasticus 3:17-20,28-29
Psalm 67
Hebrews 12:18-19,22-24
Luke 14:1,7-14

Click here for a reflection on Sunday's readings.

NEXT WEEK
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
Wisdowm 9:13-18
Psalm 89
Philemon 9-10,12-17
Luke 14:25-33