MESSAGE ON THE 3RD SUNDAY OF EASTER (YR C)
Friday 2nd May 2025.
My dear people,
The whole world is still saddened by the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday this year. The scene of him moving through the crowds in the popemobile the day before he was called home by the Father will be on our minds forever. We thank God for his ministry as Vicar of Christ on earth and pray for the repose of his soul. We pray also for the cardinals who now face the daunting task of electing the next Successor of St Peter at the conclave which starts on 7th May.
As we come towards the end of this second week of Easter, we are still in the mindset of celebrating the Resurrection of Our Lord. Our Holy Week was simply tremendous with the wonderful participation of so many people in the liturgies. The prayerfulness of the liturgies moved me. It was really good to see that many people attach importance to Easter as it is the most important event in the liturgical calendar.
The Feast Day of our Patron Saint was on Tuesday, 29th April, and this date was also the Feast Day of our parish. On that day, I had the privilege of blessing the new statue of St Catherine of Siena and Siena Square at CRC. You are all welcome to wander around that area just outside the Year 7 building and say a prayer in front of the statue of our Patron Saint, when you are here for Mass on weekends
We were due to celebrate our Parish Feast Day with a dinner on 26th April 2025 at 7.00pm in the CRC Cafeteria. Since the Pope’s Requiem Mass was happening at that time, we had to postpone our parish Feast Day Dinner to tomorrow evening. I look forward to seeing all of you who are able to come to the dinner.
Our two parish primary schools are also celebrating our parish Feast Day. I celebrated Mass this afternoon at St George Preca and the whole community of Christ the Priest will be here for Mass on Tuesday at 12:30pm. Moreover, next Friday, 9th May will be the feast of St George Preca, and the community of St George Preca be here for Mass at 12pm.
It is wonderful that we have started our Parish Bingo last Monday 28th April. There were about 50 people in attendance and the night was extremely successful. There was a wonderful feeling around the room. The funds raised from our Parish Bingo will go towards the extension of the church building and to build a hall. Parish Bingo will be held every fortnight at 7pm at the CRC Cafeteria, and the next one will be on 12th May. We are having two other fund-raising activities in the month of May. The first one is the Mother’s Day fundraiser. The details of this fundraiser are in the bulletin. We will also have a Dance Night to raise funds, and this will take place on Saturday 31st May. Please put that in your diaries and more information will be made available very soon.
On Sunday 11th May, we will have the first monthly Healing Mass in our parish. It will be at 5pm, preceded by the rosary and Praise and Worship at 4pm. We will welcome Fr Wahid Riad as the Principal Celebrant of that Mass. The monthly Healing Mass will be on the 2nd Sunday of the month with the same timetable.
So far, we have had some very positive and encouraging results as part of our Parish Offertory Giving Program. I thank all of you who have already returned your pledge cards. I strongly encourage those of you who have not yet returned your pledge cards to please do so ASAP. This will enable us to gauge the success of the program.
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