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Please pray for sick in our hospitals & nursing homes around the parish.
ANNIVERSARY OF DEATH: William Mardon, Mary Tolmie
General
Food Bank is requesting items for Easter, such as Easter eggs, cakes, etc
for hampers to distribute for Easter.
School admission appeals panel members required for appeals usually in May,
June and July. Full details in porch.
Employment vacancy: part time office administrator requires at Alexander
House working with finance tea. Salary circa £20,000. Full details and
application form from www.cliftondiocese.com/diocese/working-for-us
Bishop Declan is celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation during Lent
at various venues across the diocese. This week at St John, Trowbridge. Complete
list of dates and venues in porch.
Coronavirus: the diocese follows the guidance issued by the Bishop’s
Conference. As new information comes guidance will be updated. To keep well
informed see https://www.cbcew.org.uk/home/our-work/health-social-care/coronavirus-guidelines/
Please, if any parishioner has travelled and returned from any of the
countries that the NHS has identified as a high risk place for contracting or
imparting Covid-19, for the sake of yourself, your family and parishioners,
exercise self quarantine/isolation for 14 days. Thank you for your understanding
and cooperation.
This Week
Coming Events
Gospel commentary for 3rd Sunday of Lent
Many Jews avoided travelling through Samaria. Jesus, however, felt impelled
to go there. One can imagine the travel-weary Jesus asking humbly for
hospitality wherever he went, including on his journey through Samaria.
Samaritans were reluctant to talk to Jews but Jesus could quickly turn everyday
chatter into heart-to-heart encounters.
The Samaritan woman in our story evidently had a colourful past, which Jesus was quick to recognise. The meeting with Jesus turned out to be a love that would never die. She was probably looked down on by the other residents of her town because of her troubled marital history, but went on to take Jesus’ words of life and love to them. As the Gospel writer tells us, “Many Samaritans of that town had believed in him on the strength of the woman’s testimony”.
Today many are still thirsting for an experience of God that makes them feel truly loved and known. It is easy to be seduced by worldly attractions. Just as the woman kept having to go back to the well, some people find the happiness the world promises illusory and short-lived. You do not have to keep coming back for more, Jesus assures us. He offers us himself as the true source of life and joy. Drink of God’s Spirit, he says, and you will never be thirsty again.
Whatever our past story, God longs to win us back. This Mass is an invitation to enter into deeper communion. If we are tired of encounters that are only ever brief ones, Jesus offers eternal union. He is waiting for each one of us at the well.
Year of Communion –3rd Sunday of Lent
In the Jewish faith, water was used often as a powerful metaphor. In such a
semi-arid environment water was a precious gift to relieve thirst and bring
refreshment. Within the UK we have recently experienced anything but a thirst
for water – such have been the terrible floods affecting so many people.
However, in today’s Gospel, we will hear of a different thirst which needs
quenching. Jesus is thirsty because he is tired and hot, but there is another
kind of thirst in him – a thirst for the woman he meets at the well, to be
transformed. Jesus offers living water, a spring of water willing up to eternal
life. This is the water we all thirst for, the living water of the Holy Spirit.
Lent is a time to quench our thirst, to be transformed by him, just as the woman
was transformed. The Lord wants to give us living water so that we might have
life and have it abundantly. Drinking from this well, changes us so that we
become, like the woman, true disciples, ready and able to share what we have
encountered, the love of Christ in all its fullness.
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Holy Father’s
March prayer intention |
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 A Bible –is available on the
table in St. John Fisher church, for your use.
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For
our immigrant parishioners:
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Clifton Diocese Polish Directory:
Lists Polish chaplains, societies, Masses etc. throughout the diocese
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Yellow Parish Introduction Cards in Polish: Available at the doors.. |
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Next Holydays of Obligation:
Holy
day Masses are usually celebrated at the following times:-
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Sacrament
of Reconciliation: |
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CTS
faith booklets-
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Parking for 11.15 Mass: |
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Parish
structure: Parish
Pastoral Council Parish
Outreach Committee (Chair: Pending new appointment.) Finance
& General Purposes Committee Parish
Forum (Facilitator: Parish
open Annual General Meeting: Who
does what: Our main
parish functionaries |
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Parish
Projects: |
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Welfare: Crisis
pregnancy? Nearest
LIFE centre for impartial support: Also “Alternatives” in “Message in a Bottle:” With
an easy form, so 999 services find your needs.
FREE by church doors. Details:
Poster, Fr. Vincent
. Parish Visitors –support any in need: lonely, sick, bereaved.. Tel. Fr Vincent Hospitalisations:
With
no priest based at Sacrament
of the Sick: Available
after the homily at Sunday Mass once each quarter. |
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Deadlines: For
the Parish Diary: For inserts into the parish weekly bulletin: Posters
to display: |
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Every
effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this diary, but you should check
details in the "This Week" section, or get in touch. |
