We are now into the season of Advent, the four weeks of waiting and of preparation for the momentous event that we celebrate on the 25th December, the birth of Our Saviour..
During Advent the church encourages us to take
a long hard look at ourselves to see whether we are in a fit state to welcome
the Christ Child into our hearts.
We mark the passing of the four weeks in church with an Advent Wreath; its five candles lit one by one as each week passes with the last one in the centre being lit on Christmas Day.
As I write this the national lockdown is due to end on 2nd December; let us pray that this is allowed to happen so that we can come together in person for Holy Mass on the remaining three Advent Sundays and on Christmas Day.
We will hold our Christmas Mass at 10.00am (an hour earlier than usual) on Christmas Day itself. This year there will be no service on Christmas Eve. How we will miss the Carols and being able to wish friends a Happy Christmas with a hug, but the priority must be to keep safe!
I wish you all a very happy and holy Christmas
and a healthy and joyous New Year.
As the year winds down through autumn into winter this is a month of fog, dark nights and bonfires. It is also however the month in which we commemorate the Saints and the Faithful Departed. Many people have been declared Saints by the church and have their own particular feast-day but on 1st November we remember all those other ordinary folk who have no particular claim to fame yet who have been safely welcomed into the bliss of heaven.
We usually
celebrate All Souls Day on the 2nd but as it is not possible to open
the church on two consecutive days, we will be reading a list of the names of all
our dear departed immediately after the Mass on Sunday 1st.
On Sunday 8th, Remembrance Day, we shall come together to commemorate all those who have given their lives in so many conflicts; “sacrificing their today for our tomorrow”. We should also remember on this day all those in the NHS and Care Communities who have lost their lives in the fight against Covid 19. We will be holding a Requiem Mass at 10.55.
We are celebrating
the feast-day of our Patroness, Saint Hilda at the Sunday Mass on 15th.
The church’s
year is drawing to a close with the New Year starting on the 29th
with the First Sunday of Advent
As the year winds down through autumn into winter this is a month of fog, dark nights and bonfires. It is also however the month in which we commemorate the Saints and the Faithful Departed. Many people have been declared Saints by the church and have their own particular feast-day but on 1st November we remember all those other ordinary folk who have no particular claim to fame yet who have been safely welcomed into the bliss of heaven.
We usually
celebrate All Souls Day on the 2nd but as it is not possible to open
the church on two consecutive days, we will be reading a list of the names of all
our dear departed immediately after the Mass on Sunday 1st.
On Sunday 8th, Remembrance Day, we shall come together to commemorate all those who have given their lives in so many conflicts; “sacrificing their today for our tomorrow”. We should also remember on this day all those in the NHS and Care Communities who have lost their lives in the fight against Covid 19. We will be holding a Requiem Mass at 10.55.
We are celebrating
the feast-day of our Patroness, Saint Hilda at the Sunday Mass on 15th.
The church’s
year is drawing to a close with the New Year starting on the 29th
with the First Sunday of Advent
Keep safe and
keep well.
God Bless.
We are now into the “Month of the Rosary”; the Rosary is a series of prayers in which we reflect on the main events in the lives of Our Saviour and His Blessed Mother. There are fifteen Mysteries or events for us to contemplate as we focus our minds by reciting an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be for each one. We use a set of Rosary Beads to help us along. It is a wonderful way to meditate.
October is a special month for St Hilda’s – on St
Luke’s Feast Day, 18th Oct 1904 Bishop Knox came to Heaton Park to
bless the new church and dedicate it to the Glory of God and to St Hilda. Since
that time our little church has been continuously a centre for the worshipping
community around Whittaker Lane, through two World Wars and now a global
Pandemic.
Now that we are out of the Lock Down what a delight it
is to be able to celebrate the Holy Mass and receive the Sacrament in person.
Let us pray that it won’t be too long before we can once again come together on
the Sunday in a High Mass with hymns and incense, a return to the daily midweek
masses and welcoming the children back in to share the life of St Hilda’s.
My thoughts and prayers are with you all in this most
difficult of times; stay well and keep safe!
God Bless.
September
September is the month when so much starts afresh. For me, in September 1950, I came out of the RAF following my National Service; in September 1963 I was ordained a Deacon and went to serve as a Curate at St Michael and All Angels in Wythenshawe.
This was
very appropriate as September is the month of the angels. What do we know about
angels? They are there, in heaven,
around the throne of God giving him constant praise but they also have a
role in the lives of all those on earth. We each of us have a Guardian Angel
for support and comfort in times of trouble. The angels act as messengers from
God, like Gabriel at the Annunciation. In the Old Testament Jacob, in his
dream, sees a constant procession of angels going up and down the ladder
leading from earth to heaven.
As we come
out of the Lock-down we are all having to make fresh starts in so many ways.
Let us pray that the children all over the country and in particular in our own
school make a safe and successful start to their new term.
As Autumn
reminds us that Winter is not far off and we see around us the early signs of
nature dying away, let us resist any air of gloom and think of the fresh starts
that we are all having to make.
God Bless
We are now in August, the month that we always associate with holidays. I wish everybody well for whatever type of break you have planned, whether staying at home, going away somewhere in this country or even flying off to an exotic location. We all need a break.
This month we celebrate a number of the major feast days in the church’s calendar. On Sunday 16th we hold the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. This feast is very important in the Travelers’ community; in normal times they would be gathering in their hundreds, coming from all over the country to Our Lady’s shrine at Walsingham but sadly are unable to do so this year due to the virus.
On the 4th
we remember St John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, who is the patron saint of
priests and four days later St Dominic, the founder of the preaching order of
the Dominicans and who introduced the use of praying the Rosary.
On the 6th
we remember the Transfiguration when Jesus was revealed in all His glory to a
group of his faithful apostles.
Let us pray for one another in this most difficult of times that after this holiday period we are able to pick up again the threads of everyday life physically and spiritually refreshed.
How wonderful it is to be back in Mother Church after so many weeks of ‘lockdown’ with all the uncertainties, concerns and fears that have come into our lives in recent months. I think we take the church for granted until it is no longer available to us and so I hope we will return with thanksgiving in our hearts and give honour to Almighty God. Sadly we will not be able to have our usual ‘diet’ of incense, music and the theatre of the Mass but it is right to start slowly until we are certain that all is well.
Please keep in your prayers all who are separated from loved ones by this terrible virus. Pray particularly for those in hospital or in the community who are suffering the effects of COVID-19, giving thanks for the NHS, Care Home staff, GPs and many more who are doing a marvellous job and coping in very difficult circumstances.
I have missed seeing you all and I look forward to being with you again and praising God in the place we love best.
With every blessing
Fr Croft
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Here we are once again into the season of Lent. Forty Days of waiting, of preparation. The Forty Days come to a glorious climax with the celebration of Easter – the Feast that expresses the real meaning of our belief as Christians.
We hear stories so often that there is a
tendency to switch off, to forget exactly what it is that we are commemorating. At the end of Lent, Good Friday, in the solemn
ritual at 2pm we will remember how Jesus was put to death by being nailed to a
cross. Yet two days later on Easter Sunday we remember how he rose triumphant
over death. He had suffered the torment of the Passion and such an horrific
death to atone for the sin of all mankind yet by overcoming death, through his
Resurrection we know that the pathway to heaven is clear and open to all those
who choose to follow it.
In Lent we are
getting ourselves ready to join all churches throughout the world in the
Paschal celebrations. We need at this time to take a hard look at ourselves;
no-one is spiritually perfect. How can we improve? There is a tradition that we
improve by giving something up during Lent. That is one way but another way is
to do something extra. We are so well off, we have much more than we need. How
can we share our good fortune with somebody else who is in need of help?
As part of your Lenten preparation why not join
us in the service of Stations of the Cross on Sundays at 6pm (not March 22nd). Please take home a Lent collection box to
donate money for charity.
God bless.
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February
Spring is upon us! The days are getting longer. When I was in Oldham at St James the ladies always commented that from the second Sunday in February you could eat your Tea without lighting the Gas.
On 2nd
Feb we celebrate the Presentation of the baby Jesus in the Temple; the Jewish
custom was to bring a new baby to be presented in the Temple forty days after
the birth. On the same day we celebrate
the Feast of Candlemas – light is being restored in the world; darkness has
been overcome. Candles are blessed and
taken home; in the past they would have been the only evening light in the
house.
In the Temple
Mary and Joseph meet Simeon, a very old man who had been promised by the Lord
that he would see the Messiah before he died. He holds the child and recites
the beautiful words of the Nunc Dimittis – we repeat his words each month at
our service of Compline.
We are almost
in Lent – Ash Wednesday is on the 26th Feb. Let us make a resolution that this will be a
time of prayer and preparation; it doesn’t have to be a time of “giving up” but
should be a time for doing something extra as we prepare ourselves for the
momentous events of Holy Week and Easter.
