News for 24th April

News for 24th April

Divine Mercy

Finding peace through mercy.

In the 1930’s a Polish nun called Sr. Faustina (now St. Faustina) experienced a series of visions of Jesus. Amongst her visions Jesus asked her to paint this very special image – an image of the Divine Mercy of God flowing from his Sacred Heart. 

Her visions were centred around Jesus bringing her to a place where she could see the mercy of God at work in the world around her. 

She wrote of her pain at her neighbours being badly treated, about their sufferings and how it physically hurt her. She prayed that their sufferings would fall on her, that she may in some way lessen their suffering in order to help them find a path to grace and peace. 

It is far from easy to love with a love so deep that it causes you physical pain when you see that person hurting. 

Some of us are lucky enough to have experienced a tiny portion of this love – the love we have for our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers – our husbands and wives. 

But what St. Faustina showed us is that Jesus wants us to love everyone with that much love. 

It is that love which must inspire us to try harder. To try harder to defend the weak, to feed the poor, to cloth the naked, to visit the prisoner, to lift up the wretched and say, ‘I love you!’ and to really mean it. 

St. Faustina gave us a gift,  a gift to see the power and depth of Jesus love for all of us. What do we do with that gift?

Fr. Matthew

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Other news

I can’t begin to thank everyone enough for such a wonderful Holy Week and Triduum. But I want to especially thank Susan, John, Mary and Shirley who worked so hard on Maundy Thursday to clean the church and for the flowers on the altar of repose (that we’re still enjoying this week).

Remember we are still in Eastertide and continue to celebrate the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection. This is a special time when He is still with us and we have much to learn. A time to focus on scripture on prayer as we head for Pentecost. 

We’re looking to run a summer club for children for a week in the Summer Holidays. We hope this will be the precursor for a Sunday School that will launch in September. We have two great volunteers already, but we’ll need more – even if you can only offer a day. Please speak to Fr. Matthew.

There will be a parish open day on the 12th July for Priests applying for our new Mission Priest job. If you’d like to meet them or help with showing them around the parish please be in touch.