Fr Tony writes.....

THE EMMAUS PROGRAMME (R.C.I.A.)

I would like to remind you that that we are beginning this week the new programme for those enquiring into the Catholic Faith. A number of people have expressed an interest in joining, and we look forward to meeting them and anyone else who might be interested on Tuesday evening at 7.30 at “Villa Maria” in Campbell Road. Villa Maria is the home of the Servite Sisters who have generously invited us to meet in the comfortable surrounding of their home.
As I wrote earlier, we will meet as a group every other Tuesday when we can look at particular questions and learn more about the Catholic Faith. Each enquirer will have an appointed companion who will meet with them during the intervening two weeks to look at a small book we will be using and to discuss the issues that arise.

MOTHER TERESA POPE JOHN PAUL II CARDINAL JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

Sunday October 9th would be the feast day of Blessed John Henry Newman if it were not a Sunday. On Saturday October 8th we are going to bless the new Chapel of the three recently beatified witnesses to the Gospel. This will take place at the 10am Mass on Saturday. It has been very obvious that the chapel has become a focus of prayer and devotion for many people since we established it in May when Blessed John Paul II was beatified in Rome by his successor.
During his visit to England last September Pope Benedict blessed a special candle for each parish. We will be placing that candle in the chapel as a permanent reminder of the Holy Father’s visit. I hope that, as we use this chapel as a special place of prayer within the church, we will pray there for the Holy Father, for the Church worldwide and for our own Parish, as well as for our own personal intentions.

I wrote a few weeks ago about a new programme for people who are enquiring into the Catholic Faith. The programme is based on what is known as “The Rite for the Christian Initiation of Adults” (RCIA). In this parish we have called it “Journey in Faith”. Reflecting on our experiences in previous years we have identified two important elements in the programme. Meeting together as a group can be a very valuable experience as we journey together and support one another. We also need to spend time on a one to one basis in order to ask our own individual questions. With this in mind we are going to allow ourselves much more time. In this way people can move at their own pace. We will meet as a group every other Tuesday when we can look at particular questions and learn more about the Catholic Faith. Each enquirer will have an appointed companion who will meet with them during the intervening two weeks to look at a small book we will be using and to discuss the issues that arise. We are going to call the programme “The Emmaus Programme”, remembering how the Risen Lord Jesus walked with the disciples on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday explaining the Scriptures to them. “Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road?”
I am writing today to encourage you to tell people you know about this programme. We start on Tuesday October 4th and meet at Villa Maria in Campbell Road at 7.30 pm. Villa Maria is the home of several Servite Sisters who have generously invited us to meet in the comfortable surrounding of their home.

Next weekend we will celebrate the first anniversary of the Beatification of Cardinal Newman. Many of our parishioners were present in Cofton Park, Birmingham, for the Mass celebrated by the Holy Father on the last day of his historic visit to this country. During our Novena of Prayer leading up to the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows we are remembering with gratitude the inspiration and encouragement the Holy Father gave us during those four days last year.

Since the Beatification we have placed photographs of Cardinal Newman, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul in the church. So often in the past, saints have seemed rather remote characters depicted in a highly stylised way in stained glass windows. By contrast many of us have had the privilege of meeting both Pope John Paul and Mother Teresa, and for anyone who has studied theology Cardinal Newman is a very familiar figure. It seems to me that this makes the idea of holiness much more accessible.

Pope John Paul was keen to canonise more lay people as examples of holiness. Sadly most of these are not familiar names in this country, but perhaps we should think of giving more honour to English laymen and women who offer us an example of Christian living. We recently kept the feast of St Margaret Clitherow and St Anne Line, two remarkable young women who gave their lives for Christ and for the Mass in the sixteenth century. The history of the Church gives us “a great cloud of witnesses” to the transforming power of God’s love in human lives.

This weekend we start to use the new translation of the Roman Missal. We are starting with what is known as the “Ordinary of the Mass”, the parts that we use throughout the year. The “Proper of the Mass”, that is the texts proper to each day, will come into use at the beginning of Advent. The official Latin edition of the Missal was published in Rome in 2003, and now the English translation of the Missal is being introduced throughout the English speaking world. As we have said before, one of the reasons for this new translation is to express as fully as possible the rich ideas in the original Latin text, and especially to highlight those many phrases that have come from the Scriptures.

I am sure that we will take a while to get used to the new texts. We have, after all, been using the existing texts for nearly 40 years. We will need to be patient with each other as we get used to it. The most important thing however is to take this opportunity to “re-discover” the words of the Mass and to deepen our participation in the Holy Sacrifice. As Pope St Pius X said more than a century ago, we need to “pray the Mass”.