Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Golden Jubilee of St Mary`s church, Forest Hall


This is a very busy week here in St Mary`s as we prepare this week to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the opening of the church. We have a Mass tonight with clergy who have served in the parish, clergy ordained from the parish and clergy from the deanery. On Friday night the bishop will come to confirm twenty young people from this parish and from SS Peter and Paul`s, Longbenton and on Saturday night we round off the celebrations with a Ceilidh in the Forest Hall club.

I`m delighted to say that the new icons arrived from Sr Petra Clare on Friday and today our joiner Davy and his son, using some ingenuity, managed to get them in position for tonight`s Mass. So now we have the first and last mysteries of the Rosary depicted behind the altar.

Work has been going on the last two days with a small and dedicated group of parishioners preparing the hall for the buffet and a display of photographs from the last fifty years. Our music group were still rehearsing at 10pm last night too.

So let`s hope all goes well. I`ve spent yesterday producing a booklet and this morning putting a homily together. Everything is ready now so I`m going for a rest.

9 comments:

icon seeker said...

The icons look beautiful, Father. I do hope they - and all your very hard work - will be appreciated. I am sorry I can't be there but I hope it all goes swimmingly.

Holy Family Guild said...

Wow! Can't wait to see the new additions in real life. Enjoy your celebrations, Father

Anonymous said...

Dear Fr Michael
Thank you for your efforts to return a sense of the sacred to the setting of Catholic worship. May the holiness of beauty help us to realize the beauty of holiness.
Joe

Fr Gary Dickson said...

It was obvious how much hard work had gone into the preparation for this evening: the buffet was excellent, the flowers marvellous, the singers enthusiastic and the readers strong and clear. I must also mention your homily which made some excellent points and which I think might well make a good post on here, Father. My only sadness was seeing the photographs of the Church before the so-called reordering. I longed for the new I knew and was received in.
P.S. There is also a professed male religious from the parish to be remembered here -Brother Martin- who is a member of SOLT.

Toby said...

The icons look great. Congratulations on the anniversary. Be assured of my prayers; I hope you have a wonderful celebration. Ad multos annos!

David O'Neill said...

Congratulations to the parish from your 'pseudo' traditional parishioners. The icons look great & we look forward to seeing them live on Saturday.

Rubricarius said...

The icons do make a significant difference and a huge visual improvement.

Fr Ray Blake said...

Splendid

Malcolm T said...

It was very good night and the hard work put in by all was clearly evident. just wished a few more had turn up? Thanks to all the clergy who turned up also, including those non-catholic friends. As for Fr.Dickson's comments regarding "re-ordering" - nice one!