Parish Newsletter

Good Friday Evening: Prayer Vigil for Ukraine

Do please join us for as little or as much of this Vigil as you can, to be with the people of Ukraine.

• 7.00 pm: Opening Prayer, Hymn and Readings
• 7.15 pm: Time of Silent Prayer
• 7.30 pm: Stations of the Cross for Ukraine
• 8.00 pm: Holy Music from Ukraine
• 8.10 pm: Meditation on Peace in our World
• 8.30 pm: Silent Prayer
• 8.45: Rosary – the Sorrowful Mysteries
• 9.00 pm: Final Prayer and Close of Vigil

Holy Week and Easter Wolunteer Rota: Gaps!!

Just a handful of gaps on the Rota for the coming week: do please check today and see if you can full any of them. Many thanks, everyone!

Palms for Palm Sunday

Please just take one or two Palms on your way into Mass: there will be plenty of spares at the end!

Diocesan Chrism Mass: Wednesday of Holy Week

13th April at St Michael and All Angels, Birkenhead. We’ve organised a minibus to go from here, leaving outside Church at 6.00 pm, and returning at 9.15 pm. Eighteen places, Please sign up at back of church. It’s filling up fast!

CAFOD Lenten Fast Day Envelopes: Final Chance!

Please return on the Collection Plate. Thank you.

Ellesmere Port Music Society Spring Concert

Saturday 23rd April, 7.30 pm at St Thomas’s Church Ellesmere Port. Vivaldi Gloria and ‘We Celebrate the Light’, a piece commissioned by EPMS during lockdown. Full details on flyers at the back of church and poster in the porch. We’d love to see you there!
If you want to ask anything further about the concert, several members of the choir are Werbies!

Parish Renewal – Autumn 2022

Coming out of Covid and on the back of our excellent Synod Consultation, what do we all want the “Werbies New Normal” to look like?

Repository

Lots of lovely Easter goods now in.

CAFOD Ukraine Appeal

news@email.cafod.org.uk
Please use the website address above if you’d like to help the humanitarian relief effort.

Christian Aid Lenten Lunches: 12 noon - 1.30 pm

Many thanks to everyone who supported this year.

Holy Week and Easter Service Times Leaflets

Please distribute far and wide.

Learning about the Passover

A fascinating talk from Rabbi Warren Elf at the Cathedral on Tuesday, on how and why the Seder Meal is such a central part of Jewish life and worship. He was entirely comfortable with the idea of non-Jewish communities also celebrating this festival: o, how many would be interested in a St Werburgh’s Seder Meal this time next year? Next year in Jerusalem? (the meal’s concluding prayer).

Holy Week Confessions

• Tuesday 12th April: 7.00 pm – 10.00 pm
• Wednesday 13th April: 10.00 am – 12.00 noon

 

The Synod: Bishop Mark’s Response

Two Documents issued by Bishop Mark this week: a detailed Report on the Diocesan response to the Synod Consultations, with a lot of interesting and important statistics; and then a shorter Personal Response from the Bishop to all that he has read. Both Documents are on our website, in the “Synod of Bishops: October 2023” box on the home page. The Report is eight pages, so I do not propose to print this off. If any individual cannot access it and has no-one to print it off for them, let me know: but I’d rather do my bit to save the planet! The Bishop’s Response is a shorter two-page Document, and copies of that are available at the back of church today. So much work has gone into this Consultation Phase at all levels, do please take the time to read both our own Submission – copies still available (yellow paper) at the back of church, and the two Diocesan Documents.

In case you missed Cardinal Grech’s inspiring words last week – he’s the Maltese Cardinal in charge of the whole Synod Consultation process – here they are:

“There are problems, issues, within the Church about which we choose to remain silent rather than speaking,” he said. “The clearest example which comes to everyone’s mind is the sexual abuse crisis that the Church went through and is still going through. Unfortunately, this is not the only instance of a problem in the Church about which we choose to remain silent. What about the general silence concerning the deep divisions within the Catholic Church? … This Synod is not a process of revolution. The Pope does not want to change the Church into something that it is not. This is not a wiping out of tradition. This is not a process of democratisation. Rather, the Synodal Process is a time for speech. A time to let the voice of the Church speak and bring forward the issues, the problems that inhabit our Church.”

Retreat House, Chester: Thursday 31st March

Many thanks to Clare and Retreat House Chester for organising and leading this Lenten Retreat Day on Thursday. Great to be able to use our Day Chapel once again as the main area, and then to spread out over the whole Church and House for individual quiet times. Judging by what you left, a jolly good Shared Table Lunch as well! A very successful venture, fully booked: so, let’s do it again soon. Anyone else want to lead and organise, individual or organisations?

Zoom Stations of the Cross: Friday Evenings in Lent

Another very successful series, drawing on Stations from all over the world. Many thanks to Fr Neill, Denise, Clare, Lyn and Syd for leading, and for everyone, far and near, who joined us.

Photo of the Week: A Recent Baptism

Lovely picture of Okodi’s second child’s Baptism, her older sister looking on inquisitively in the middle! Great to have all our Baptisms up and running again after the various lockdowns. If you wish your child to be Baptised, or know of anyone who does, please point them in FP’s direction in order to make an appointment. They are the church of tomorrow.