Dear Parents/Carers

PLEASE HELP US FILL OUR HARVEST BASKET!

For our harvest celebration this year we will be collecting for the food bank at St. Philomena’s High School for Girls. We will be supporting this charity which benefits not only our schools’ community but local families as well. We would be most grateful if your child could bring into school a gift of any of the goods listed below. Items need to be in-date for 4 months. Pasta shapes, spaghetti, rice; Tinned fruit and vegetables; Tinned foods such as Baked beans, Spaghetti, Rice Pudding, corned beef, tuna or sardines; Sugar, coffee, tea, cooking oil; Breakfast cereals Ketchup, mayonnaise, soup; Biscuits, chocolate, jam; Toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shower gel, shampoo, deodorant, face/wash cloths Fr. Anthony from St. Margaret’s of Scotland, Carshalton Beeches, will celebrate our Harvest Mass on Wednesday 13th October, so it would be most appreciated if your donations could be brought into school by that date. However, we will be making our final delivery to St. Philomena’s High School after the Infant Harvest Mass on Monday 18th, so we will be accepting donations up until that date.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity of thanking you once again for all your support.

Yours faithfully

Mrs. M. Norbury Lay Chaplain

Liturgical Year: Ash Wednesday/First Sunday of Lent Cycle: B
Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11

This week, we are praying with Matthew’s Gospel which describes Jesus’ temptation in the desert (Please click on the link to play the video).

“A Culture of Care as a Path to Peace”

This year Pope Francis’ World Peace Day Message focuses on the need for us to care for each other as the way to build a peaceful world. He asks us to “combat the culture of indifference, waste and confrontation”, reminding us that global peace starts within each of us and within our own individual communities. Peaceful hearts, lead to peaceful words and actions. In these days of the COVID-19 pandemic there is a greater need than ever that we care for each other, with kindness and respect.

This Sunday is Peace Sunday

“… may we strive daily, in concrete and practical ways, to form a community composed of brothers and sisters who accept and care for one another.”

     (Pope Francis, 2021 World Peace Day message)

Pax Christi, the international Catholic movement for peace, is offering a Peace Sunday reflection via Zoom on 16^th January, 6-7pm. Click here to register.

Next week is the octave of prayer for Christian Unity. This year the resources have been prepared by the ecumenical Monastic Community of Grandchamp in Switzerland which has fifty sisters, women from different generations, church traditions, countries and continents. This year’s theme is based on John 15:1-17, ‘Abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit’. Resources, including daily reflections, are available for download here: https://ctbi.org.uk/resources-for-week-of-prayer-for-christian-unity-2021/

Lord, you invite us to abide in you who are the vinedresser who cares for us with love.

You call on us to see the beauty of each branch united to the vine, the beauty of each person.

And yet, too often the difference in others makes us afraid.

We withdraw into ourselves.

Our trust in you and one another is lost.

Come and direct our hearts toward you once again,

That as one family we may praise your name. Amen.