MESSAGE ON PENTECOST SUNDAY (YR B)
Friday 17th May 2024
My dear people,
Last night, we held our second Leadership Summit for 2024. As I have mentioned on other occasions, the purpose of our Leadership Summits is to help grow our ministry coordinators as leaders and raise up future leaders aligned to missionary renewal. It was wonderful to experience and see the level of enthusiasm and unity as we continued to work together on developing and embedding a culture of missionary renewal within our many ministries. We ask for your prayers, that through our summits, our current and future leaders will continue to hear and respond to God’s call and their role in continuing to grow a welcoming and dynamic faith filled catholic community.
On Sunday, at 2:30pm and 4:30pm Masses, our younger parishioners from St George Preca Catholic Primary School will be confirmed by Bishop Martin Ashe, the Auxiliary Bishop for the Western Region. We continue to pray for all these younger parishioners of ours that, in confirming their faith, the Holy Spirit will fill them with gentle promptings to always stay close to our Lord. We also thank Bishop Ashe for his generosity in confirming them.
This weekend, we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost. As we commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and our lady, let us pray that we also will be filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and respond by using them to serve our Lord.
Our Men’s Group will occur this evening Friday 17th May. We will start with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at 7:00pm. There will be a period of Adoration when the Sacrament of Confession will be available, and Fr David Cartwright will be here for that. We will conclude with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at 7:45pm and supper in the meeting rooms of the church. Fr Nicholas Pearce will be our guest speaker and he will speak to us about issues related to men’s spiritual health.
As I mentioned last week, the time to leave for the pilgrimage is now 4 days away. On 21st May, 29 pilgrims and I will “set sail” for Europe. Since we will spend time at Marian Shrines and in Siena, the place where our Patron Saint lived, we have a prayer petition box next to the statue of Our Lady. You are invited to place your petitions in the box, and I will take the box with me throughout our pilgrimage and pray for your intentions daily.
Returning on 1st June, I will be present for the Confirmation of our younger parishioners from Christ the Priest Catholic Primary School on 2nd June. I will then leave that night to accompany my dad to Mauritius for 10 days to support him in a court case he has there. That will then be followed by my month of annual leave for this year, from 17th June until 17th July. As things turn out (the court case being outside my control), I will be away from the parish from 21st May until 17th July, but will be here for the Sundays of 2nd June, 16th June and 7th July. Please keep me in your prayers as I keep you in mine. Again, I do not leave you orphans and have organised priests to be here to look after you in my absence.
We continue turning to our patron saint and we ask for her intercession.
St Catherine of Siena, Pray for us.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Fr Richard Rosse PP