Friday, 9 April 2021
Renewal of Catholic Education: Regina Caeli Academy
Thursday, 8 April 2021
Can you help?
JUST CLICK ON THIS LINK
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/justgivingstpetersclassrooms?utm_term=8Z47NzD6a
This was one of the classrooms when we started!
And where the TV screens will be going now.
Saturday, 3 April 2021
Easter Sunday and Easter Week
Please note that there are two opportunities for you to attend Easter Mass. Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 8.30am
Holy Saturday
The Easter Vigil
& First Mass of Easter at 8pm
Easter Sunday. 8.30am Easter Mass
Monday of the Easter Octave 9.30am
Tuesday of the Easter Octave 12 noon (EF)
Wednesday of the Easter Octave 9.30am
Thursday of the Easter Octave
7pm Novena & Benediction
Friday of the Easter Octave 9.30am
Saturday of the Easter Octave Confession 11.30m - 11.50am
Mass (EF) 12 noon
Divine Mercy Sunday 8.30am & 10am
2021 Easter Message
from the Most Reverend Malcolm McMahon OP
Archbishop of Liverpool
The events of the first Easter morning began quietly, in stark contrast to the violence and baying crowds which accompanied the crucifixion on Good Friday. Mary Magdalen went to the tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week – while it was still dark – while it was quiet with no people around and none of the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem, the busy city. Things began to change when she saw that the stone had been rolled away, she ran to Simon Peter and the disciple John saying, ‘they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him’. The disciples ran to the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying on the ground, they believed.
Mary though was not joyful, she did not have hope, she stood outside the empty tomb weeping asking where the body of Jesus had been taken. Yet as she recognised the risen Jesus her life was transformed moving from darkness to light, from sorrow to joy and from despair to hope.
For over a year now we have been living under the darkness of the pandemic, just as the light of the Risen Christ is always with us so we have seen light in that darkness through the bravery, generosity and kindness of others. The light offered to us by the heroes of our NHS, carers, and all who have worked to keep our country going.
Easter is always a time of reawakening and this year as a country we are approaching our own reawakening. Our villages, towns and cities have been quiet, but they are slowly and cautiously coming back to life. We are seeing hope through the vaccine, developed through the gifts of science, giving us hope for a better and safer future.
There have been times of grief, loss, doubt and despair during the dark days, and we hold in prayer all who have suffered. We bring those times to our celebration of the resurrection which begins in darkness in our churches with the lighting of the Easter Candle symbolising the risen Christ. A life-giving light overcoming the darkness, bringing healing to a broken world.
Just as the lives of Mary Magdalen and the disciples were transformed on the first Easter morning so too our lives may be transformed as we embrace the light of the Risen Lord who sheds his peace on all humanity.
May God bless us all on this glorious Easter Day.
Friday, 26 March 2021
Palm Sunday and Holy Week
Palm Sunday
8.30am Mass
10am Mass
Monday in Holy Week. 9.30am Mass
Tuesday in Holy Week. EF Mass 12 noon
Wednesday in Holy Week. 9.30am Mass
SACRED TRIDUUM
Holy Thursday.
Mass of the Lord’s Supper 7pm
Good Friday.
Passion of the Lord 3pm
CONFESSIONS afterwards
Holy Saturday.
The Easter Vigil
& First Mass of Easter at 8pm
Easter Sunday. 8.30am Easter Mass
Friday, 19 March 2021
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Two special celebrations this week.
On Tuesday the Bishops of England and Wales have asked that we all participate in the National Day of Reflection for Covid 19 to mark the anniversary of the first lockdown. We will do so here by offering a Votive Mass at 12 noon for deliverance from death in time of pestilence, according to the 1962 Missal.
Thursday is the Feast of the Annunciation. We will begin the Stations of the Cross by reciting the Angelus.
This Sunday marks the start of Passion Week. Liturgically, our Lenten preparations are ratcheted up a notch, as we see statues and images veiled in church.
MASSES THIS WEEK
SUNDAY
8.30am
10am
Monday --- No public Mass today
Tuesday 12 noon (EF). Mass to mark the National Day of Reflection
Wednesday 9.30am. Lenten Feria
Thursday: Feast of the Annunciation. 7pm STATIONS OF THE CROSS
Confessions following on from Stations
Friday 9.30am. Lenten Feria
Saturday 11.30 - 11.45am CONFESSIONS
12 noon (EF) Feria in Passion Week
Wednesday, 17 March 2021
Heads Up Interview
Principal at St Peter's International College in conversation on the Heads Up Podcast of Matthew Burke at St Edward's Senior School in Cheltenham on the challenges, philosophy and hopes of a new school.
Click on the link below to listen - just 17 minutes.
Spotify – Heads Up... with Matthew Jackson - Heads Up | Podcast on Spotify
Saturday, 13 March 2021
Inclusive language and Synod 2020 in the Archdiocese of Liverpool
I spent yesterday on a Zoom conference for Synod 2020 here in the Archdiocese of Liverpool and, oh my, am I depressed. The Recommendations we were being presented with (now available HERE) are drawn from the previous Proposals (HERE). The very fact that each Recommendation begins with "We the people recommend..." echoing the Introduction to the United States Constitution, appalls me. To me, it comes over as rather pompous, but also associates us immediately with a Constitution of a State that is built on separating itself from religion. God get's a mention - "one nation under God" - but is then left out of everything else. Is this a good model for us to draw on? The Church is not a democracy where we can choose what we want. Jesus stated His case and you either went with it or you didn't. He didn't take a straw poll of who the crowd wanted to be Blessed when He was giving the Sermon on the Mount.
The Recommendations are all couched in language so vague as to be capable of many interpretations.
This makes it look churlish to disagree with any of them.
***
It also means that we can vote yes to a Recommendation with no real idea of what that means.
Do we believe women are equal, valued, visible and heard - Yes, certainly. But does that mean founding an Order of nuns of diocesan rite to teach in our schools or does it mean picketing the Vatican for women's ordination?
The same is true of most of the Recommendations.
***
So we don't really know what we're voting for. EXCEPT that the whole language and process used throughout the Synod indicates a direction of travel that is more of the same thing we've been doing for some years now and it's that very path that has led us to the necessity of calling a Synod because things are so dire.
The whole language is that of the secular world and the politically correct. None of it is really couched in Gospel terms or the language of the Saints or the philosophy of our Tradition of 2,000 years. It mimics the corporate world, it apes the realm of secular governance. Replace the words "Church" or "Archdiocese" with "Tesco Ltd" or "Government Department of Health" and anyone in those realms would recognise and feel right at home with the terms of reference.
What's missing, to me - and I know to many others - is the supernatural, the spiritual, the challenge to the world to come with us or go crawling unknowingly on the road to perdition.
***
This will sound extreme to some but I'm not alone in thinking along these lines. There are many in the Archdiocese, priests and laity, who have grave concerns. The truth is that there is a hidden Archdiocese that feels very much excluded by the soi-disant inclusive language of the Synod; that is to say (in Synodese): inclusive does not include those who think the Synod is going in the wrong direction.
This hidden Archdiocese mostly stays quiet because it thinks (it experiences) that it is futile to go against the direction of travel. Everything about the process and the manner in which it's carried out tells us so. At least, that is how it feels to to some of us: that we are given lip-service but not really listened to, not really included. These are not all people often identified as Mad, Bad and Trad, but a swathe of the people of God here very much distressed and frustrated.
I say all this in charity for all the other ordinary members of the Synod whom I know act and speak in good faith. But we are here too "We the excluded!), another part of the People of God who believe that the push towards this type of modernity is not the right way forward. May the Holy Spirit guide us all.