Cyclists well along the path to Rome

Friday's update on the Via Romea blog has the young cyclists from Blackfen reaching Chalons en Champagne on Friday afternoon, and intending to make some more ground in the evening. I heard from their Dad today that they had reached Chaumont. This is not bad going at all.

The family had visual updates, tear-off slips for the web address to donate, and cakes for the children after Mass this morning. (The cakes are a good idea - makes people stop around and look at the display.)

If you haven't already donated (Mary's Meals & Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative), call on over to the Fundraising page.

Updates at the Via Romea blog, and you can write on the wall at the Facebook Group.

Evening of Recollection

On Friday 23 July, starting at 7.30pm, there will be an evening of recollection for young people with a spiritual talk, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, confessions, Benediction and a gathering in the Small Hall afterwards with pizza.

The evening is open to young people of secondary school age, sixth formers and young adults.

Young parishioners cycling to Rome

Three young parishioners, Anna-Marie, Joseph and Gregory Treloar, are planning to cycle from Sidcup to Rome this summer by way of holiday and pilgrimage. The distance is approximately 1200 miles. As you can see from the above map, they have planned the route meticulously.

The intrepid three have raised the money for the cost of the trip and want to use the opportunity to raise additional money for two excellent charities: the Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative which is run by the Sisters of the Gospel of Life and Mary's Meals. They have set up a Facebook group for the event: Anna-Marie, Gregory and Joseph Treloar cycle to Rome. They also have a blog to give news about the trip: Via Romea.

The description is as follows:

This summer, we're cycling from our home in Sidcup to Rome, a total distance of 1200 miles, passing through France, Switzerland, and Italy before we finally arrive in Rome.

The trip is a holiday and a pilgrimage, but we'd like to take the opportunity to raise money for two fantastic charities. We're funding the trip ourselves, so all monies raised will go directly to the charities, in equal proportion.

Mary’s Meals provides a staple, daily meal in schools for children in some of the poorest countries in the world, thus fighting poverty through tackling malnutrition and encouraging education. The Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative provides non-judgemental practical, spiritual and emotional support for mothers in the UK, struggling with crisis pregnancy and the prospect of bringing up a child alone.

So please give generously- £1, £5, £10... Whatever you give will make a difference; Mary's Meals can feed a child for a year from just £6.15.

Thank you very much! We're very grateful for your support, it will get us up those mountains! We will keep all our sponsors in our prayers en route.

Here is the Fundraising page where you can make a donation. You wouldn't really want not to.

An encounter with reptiles

Recently our youth group Cross Section had a visit from a favourite presenter whom I tend to refer to as "Reptile Man". He speaks about the care of reptiles and his talk is educative in terms of zoology. It is also an opportunity to cross the threshold of "ugh" as our picture shows.

Youth Evening of Recollection

Friday 7.30-10pm

Young people of secondary school age, sixth formers (and indeed any university students on holiday) are invited to an Evening of Recollection. This will begin with a talk, Rosary and Benediction, followed by a showing of the film “Arise Once More” and a question & answer session with Fr Finigan. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided.

Join the Facebook Group.

Sponsored Cycle Ride

Two children from the parish are doing a ten mile Cycle ride along the Thames Path this weekend, in order to raise money for the Manna Centre. There will be a “bucket collection” after Mass or, if you prefer, you can drop a donation into the presbytery letterbox during the week, marked “Sponsored Cycle Ride.”

Please give generously to help the Manna Centre and to encourage our young people in their generosity.

"Be proud of your faith" - Family and Youth Day

There will be a Family and Youth Day at Our Lady of the Rosary Church, Blackfen, on Saturday 21st March.

In the morning, we have our usual programme: Low Mass, (usus antiquior) at 10.30am, followed by Confession, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction at midday.

After Benediction, there will be an address by Margaret Mizen, mother of Jimmy Mizen who was killed in May 2008. Barry and Margaret, Jimmy's parents, showed a tremendous example of faith and peace-filled courage when speaking to the media after the tragic death of their son and it is a great privilege to have Margaret come to speak to us.

(See this video on Hopeinfo.co.uk - "At the funeral I urged all the young people 'Be proud of your faith'"; "The only thing that's going to come out of this is a peaceful response.")

A light lunch will be provided in the Hall and in the afternoon, there will be various talks and activities for children and young people as well as a talk on parenting by Greg Clovis. We will finish with prayers at 3.30pm followed by tea, juice and biscuits.

Our usual Saturday schedule continues with confessions at 5pm and a Mass in English at 6pm.

Altar Servers' Mass

Friday 26 December is the feast of St Stephen, the patron of our Altar Servers. All servers are asked to come if possible to the 10am Mass on that day. Those servers who have been serving regularly and have not yet received their St Stephen’s medal are invited to participate in the enrolment ceremony which will be held at the Mass.

Crib Service

This afternoon we had our Christmas Children's Crib Service. Children are invited to come dressed as an angel, a shepherd or a king and the children's liturgy team organise them in a simple service of readings and carols with a tableau of the Nativity.

Each year, the team try to find out about a baby who is to be born shortly before the service who can play the part of baby Jesus. This year it was Joshua. It was a very special day for him since he was also baptised this morning.

Michael Hobson's diary

Michael is one of our young parishioners and is hoping to compete in the Olympic Games in 2012. The BBC London website carries his diary which has recently been updated, telling, among other things, of his work with young people with intellectual disabilities. See: Michael Hobson's Diary.

Traditional Children’s Mass

Last year at Lourdes, one of our Masses was a traditional (Latin) Low Mass with hymns, especially geared for children. Parents have requested a similar Mass occasionally in the parish. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Monday 8 December, at 4.30pm, Fr Charles Briggs will come to say Mass and Fr Finigan will help the children to participate prayerfully at the Mass. All are welcome, including children of all ages.

Report from the Papal World Youth Day

Sarah Gulliford came to the parish a while back to appeal for some sponsor money to enable her and friends to travel to Australia for the World Youth Day. Sarah has sent us back this great report on what was a wonderful occasion. If all you saw about it was on British TV, you need to read this to understand what really went on there in terms of helping the faith of our young people. Many thanks to Sarah - and do consider going to Madrid for the next WYD!

World Youth Day 2008 trip to Australia
by Sarah Gulliford

After two years of planning and a huge amount of fundraising, on Saturday the 12th of July Emily and myself finally set off to Sydney in a group of 24 to represent the Sion community at World Youth Day. World Youth Day is an event thought up by Pope John Paul II and occurs every three years when young catholics from around the world come together to celebrate their faith and are joined by the pope in the last two days to round off the experience. The theme for this year was ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.’ (Acts 1:8) The event is growing each year, and despite Australia’s isolation from other parts of the world, 500,000 pilgrims travelled to Sydney for the chance to meet together.

After a two long flights and a six hour stop at Hong Kong airport, we arrived in Sydney at 11 o’clock in the morning on Monday the 14th of July local time - 2am our time. Each group was assigned a parish within Sydney, which would be our base for the week and where we would receive three catechetical teachings from different bishops, all based around the theme for the week. Our parish was Our Lady of Good Counsel in northern Sydney, so we travelled there from the airport and had a barbeque as we chatted to people from other groups who were joined to the same parish as us. Many of these people were staying at the parish in the church hall, but due to us being a small group, we were lucky enough to be staying with families in the local area. Emily and myself stayed with a lovely family with two young children who called us ‘the pilgrims’ and loved doing impressions of our accents!

The following day started with a trip to St Mary’s Cathedral, which had the relics of Blessed Pier Giorgio, who is known as the man who lived life in the imitation of Christ. His story is hugely inspiring, particularly to young people, and I would recommend others to look it up. There was then an opening mass at Barangaroo, which marked the beginning of the week. There were over 100,000 people at the mass and the sight of all these people gathered together was extraordinary. While we were waiting for the mass to start, groups from all over the world began to talk to each other, and a craze of swapping mementos with those from different countries ensued, which continued for the rest of the week. Cardinal Pell then started the mass, which included a parade of flags from every nation represented at the event, and a great deal of aboriginal dancing throughout which showed how proud Australia is of its cultural roots which I found rather touching. We also heard the world youth day song for the first time and the mass setting especially composed for the event which we knew off by heart by the end of the week. Following the mass, there was a concert with many performers and a firework display to finish. The atmosphere was already an amazing one the walk home, with groups from all over the world singing in different languages as they walked the streets of Sydney to return to where they were staying while waving flags and banners. The people of the city, particularly the police force, were shocked by the joyful but peaceful way the pilgrims conducted themselves throughout the week. How often do groups of youths meet together without some sort of trouble occurring? The theme of being a witness was already having an effect on those not involved in the week.

On the Wednesday we started with our first catechesis from Bishop Brian Finnigan of the Brisbane diocese. Due to our tiredness one would think it would be hard to concentrate, but in actual fact we barely seemed to suffer from any sort of jet lag, and I found the talk to be very insightful. Following his teaching, we had a period of question and answering where we grilled Bishop Finnigan on the teaching of the church, which really opened up everyone’s minds to question certain aspects of our faith and understand why they were in place. In the afternoon, the organisers had put together around 5 events that we could choose to talk part in. Emily and I decided to go to see an American chamber choir at the Sydney Opera House – the tickets were free! – and we got a ferry into Circular Quay to reach the event. This took us past both the Opera house and Harbour Bridge and was a very picturesque way to enter the city, although extremely windy! The concert was incredible; the acoustics unlike anything I have ever heard and the choir entertained us with both religious and secular songs. That evening we then went to see a young English Christian singer called Tim Hughes, whose music our whole group had listened too and often used in worship, and who was playing to promote the youth alpha course. Although the venue a fair distance on the other side of the city, the evening was brilliant, with a huge concert hall of people praising together and our whole group felt extremely blessed to have attended.

Thursday opened with another catechesis, this time for an American Bishop Joe who worked with the US Armed Forces. This teaching I found extremely interesting and his funny anecdotes and answers to our questions really stirred up the group and taught us a huge amount. After mass and lunch at the parish, we travelled into Sydney to watch the Pope’s arrival. As we were waiting, a huge game started in which around 200 people were running around in a circle together. It was strange to think that so many of these people taking part couldn’t communicate to one another but had been joined together by their faith. Once his Holiness arrived he made a very poignant speech, and many of the people I spoke to after said they found his points of how we could be a witness extremely inspiring. He then travelled around in his so-called ‘Popemobile’ and we got a quick glimpse of him as he drove past. Afterwards we decided to go to another concert, in the centre of Sydney by Catholic Canadian singer and his band, Matt Maher. This evening was one of the most spiritual nights of the week, and personally my life, as the venue was huge and filled to the brim with people worshiping. Halfway through the Eucharist was bought out and for so many people to be taking part in adoration as the band continued to play bought a completely different dimension to the evening which left me awestruck, and God’s presence could be so clearly felt in that concert hall.

The following day we had the morning off, which many of us spent sleeping due to being so exhausted. We then travelled back to Barangaroo for an extremely moving stations of the cross. The reverence of the crowd made it all far more emotive, and many of those passing by in the street above found themselves unable to stop watching. We stayed at the same place for a ‘Receive the Power’ concert that night in which people such as John Pridmore, Father Stan Fortuna, Matt Maher and people from Hillsong church took part in, and this was, again, a very spiritual night.

Saturday morning was an extremely early start where we met at the church at 6 am to start our pilgrimage to Randwick race course for the vigil and final mass with the Pope. Our group of 24 split into three and started the pilgrimage separately. It was a 3 hour walk from out start point and as we were walking we said the rosary together and prayed for friends, family and other intentions. All of you definitely had some prayer offered up for you that day! We also spoke about how we’d found the week and how our experience had been so far. Eventually, my group arrived at Randwick first and began to set up our area, as everyone was to sleep out under the stars after the vigil that evening. Soon enough, we had our own ‘Sion Camp’, and the Pope arrived in his helicopter. He then drove around the track in his ‘Popemobile’ and stopped straight in front of me to kiss a baby. He seemed slightly taken aback by the shouts of ‘BENEDICTO!’ from the crowd! The vigil then began, and was a great sight to behold. 500,000 people holding candles against the darkness of the night sky was incredible. Once the vigil had finished, we played a few games of cards and chatted, and then attempted to sleep despite the noise of people singing and playing drums into the wee hours.

On the Sunday, we woke up early after very little sleep and waited for the mass to start. The music began and the mass, although long, was very touching. One moment that has stayed with me is when the Eucharist was bought out for a short period of adoration, and Pope Benedict XVI knelt down in front of the host and was helped up at the end. For such a holy man to be so humble really struck a chord with me. His speech at the end of the mass was also extremely deep and thought provoking. We sang the World Youth Day song for the last time together, and then made the journey back to our host’s homes.

In the following week we travelled to Melbourne to work in St Francis of Assisi parish and it’s adjoining school, where we tried to give back through service what we had received the week before. This was extremely tiring, but very rewarding and spiritual in a different way to the previous week, and allowed us to really be witnesses of our faith following the theme of World Youth Day.
All in all, World Youth Day 2008 was an amazing experience that Emily and I will remember for the rest of our lives. The time we spent there was extremely moving and there is no way we would have made it there without the support of everyone in our diocese, so thank you enormous amounts!

We’re both going to World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid...who’s joining us?!

Girls' Choir 9am Mass

At the 9am Mass on Sunday, a Girls’ Choir sings hymns and other pieces from various cultural traditions. The Girls’ Choir practices before and after 9am Mass on Sunday. Girls of any age are welcome.

Cross Section Youth Group

Cross Section, Our Lady of the Rosary Youth Group will recommence in the Autumn on Friday 19th September 2008. We start at 6.15pm and finish at 7.45pm in the large Hall. All young people in years 7,8,9,and 10 are most welcome to attend.
For any enquires or further information please email Trefor Bevan

Olympic hopeful from our parish

With Great Britain doing so well in the Olympics, it is good to know that one of our own parishioners may be on the way to gold in four years' time.

On the 2012 features section of the BBC website, you can see Michael Hobson's Diary. A parishioner of Our Lady of the Rosary, Michael is a long distance runner for Bexley Athletics club and hopes to represent Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Cross Section Bowling evening

Recently, the "Cross Section" youth group went to Bexleyheath for an evening of bowling. Julie sent me some photos to share with you:

Cross Section pancake evening

Here are a couple of photos from the Cross Section Youth Group's pancake evening. Sorry for the delay in posting these.

Informal tributes for Amy - Church open Thursday

A message especially for young friends of Amy Curran:

I wanted to make an opportunity for any of Amy's friends to come and express tributes in your own way at the Church if you want to. Next Thursday evening (17 January) we will have:

1. Our service of Rosary and Benediction as usual at 8pm. We will remember Amy, her family and all of you in our prayers during that service. That will finish about 8.45pm.

2. Afterwards, the Church will be open until 10pm for any of you to come along, light a candle, play music (CD player will be there) or read a poem or a prayer - or just sit quietly in the Church. Whatever you want.

You are welcome to come along to 1. or 2. or both just as you wish. This opportunity is, of course, in addition to the Funeral Mass on Tuesday 22nd - to which you are all welcome as well.

Amy Curran RIP

It is with very great sadness that I ask your kind prayers for the repose of Amy’s soul; and for her mother Linda, her father Tom and her brother Nick in their loss. Amy was killed in a tragic road accident on the morning of New Year’s Day.

Please also remember in your prayers Amy’s friends, Georgina Fox and Joe Wallis who were also killed, as well as Matthew Faith and Chloe Dunne who were injured in the accident.

Amy, Georgina, and Chloe were in Year 11 at St Thomas More school and their friends there and elsewhere also need our prayers and support. Amy’s funeral will be held here at Our Lady of the Rosary, and I will post the details here as soon as the funeral has been arranged.

Holy Hour for children

This Friday afternoon at 5pm, we have a Holy Hour for children. This will involve adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary, singing of popular hymns to the Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady, and Benediction.

This is part of a worldwide initiative, promoted by "Children of the Eucharist." The Holy Father, Pope Benedict, has granted the Apostolic Blessing to all who participate.