A great fortnight in Lucca, baking heat every day after a couple of rainy days at the start. Good to be back again on Friday evening. I can only take this break because we have a super team here who look after everything so efficiently: Denise Jones keeps an eye on the office and opens up and locks up each day; Fr Neill looks after the weekday Masses and the evening ones at the Weekend; and Fr Colin and Fr Alphonsus kindly covered the Sunday Morning Masses. Thanks, everyone!

The rhythm of every Parish is the rhythm of life, and while I was away, four requests for Baptisms, three couples wanting to marry and sadly three Funerals to arrange. Roger Williams went Home to the Lord on the day I left, after a short spell of ill health. He and Anne were our 10.45 Welcomers before they’d even been invented. We salute the years of faithful service they gave this Parish. Roger is being taken back to his childhood Colwyn Bay for his Funeral Service on Friday. Laura Chadwick is Joyce and Bernard Gantley’s daughter, and she’s been heroically battling cancer for some years now. You will have seen her name on our Sick List, and I know keeping her and all those names in your thoughts and prayers. Sadly, Laura lost that battle at the very early age of 41, wife to Chris and mother to two young children. Please keep them all in your prayers. Laura’s Funeral is to be here on Thursday 19th September at 10.30. And thirdly we salute Annette Meadows, Katie Salisbury’s mother, a resident in Grosvenor Manor Care Home who also reached journey’s end while I was away. Funeral arrangements yet to be finalised. 

Well done, thou good and faithful servants!

The Spiritans are looking for an Office Administrator with a background in finance and accounting to work in their Office in Hoole. Mondays to Thursdays 9.00 am to 5.00 pm.  Please send your application to: Provincial Bursar, 60 Hoole Road. Chester. CH2 3NL, 

Email provincialbursar@spiritans.co.uk

Preparations are already well underway with our great Musicians and Choir, and with our fantastic Altar Servers. Now we need lots of volunteers for our Youth Mass on that day…

6.00 pm, and we need as many of our youngsters as possible to take part. Please sign up on the lists at the back of church: welcomers, servers, readers, artists, Offertory Procession, musicians & singers… 

For a fortnight from Monday 9th onwards our church will be open weekday afternoons to welcome everyone to Chester’s Heritage Open Days. As part of this annual event, on Sunday 8th at 2.00 pm, Aleta Doran will be giving another talk on Trena Cox, our extraordinary Stained Glass Artist, whose work you can see in our Porch. 

Every Monday, 1.10 pm, in the University Chapel. 

Would any members of the Parish Council or other interested Parishioners who would like to help me compile this report come to an open meeting Monday 9th September 7.00 pm in the house? Everyone welcome, as we write together this “Portrait of our Parish” in September 2024, to send to our Bishop.  

Members are warmly invited to a ‘Day of Reflection’ Saturday 14th September, Shrewsbury Cathedral. Led by Fr Sean Henry,  the theme will be, “Martha and Mary: The Hospitality we give to Christ”.  9.15-3.30 . Lunch can be purchased on site or bring your own. Cost by anonymous donation. Please book early.

secretary@teamshrewsbury.co.uk or text 07931574348.

Saturday 31st August and Sunday 1st September in aid of Chester Mental Health charity, ‘Platform for Life’. Bottoms Lane Art Garden (Queens Park), 

12.00 – 5.00 pm. Refreshments available. 

Have you been affected by cancer? On 15th September at 3.00 pm, there will be an Ecumenical Service named “Pause for Hope” at St Columba’s Church. The service is for anyone who has been affected in any way by cancer. You are most welcome to come for yourself or just to give support to the event. Please invite anyone you know who may benefit from this.

Some of you have been turning up on Wednesdays mornings during our August break, which shows how popular they are! Starting again this week, 10.00 am. 

Apologies this has been misbehaving recently: some of you find it’s fine, others don’t. So our sound engineer is coming very soon for a complete overhaul of the whole loop system. And then I go away and the whole system packs up! Not worth going, is it? Please be patient, everyone, as we find the gremlin and knock him (her?) firmly on the head. 

Thanks to Tinalat Booking Agency, all tickets now gone!

Starting first Sunday in Advent. Watch this space!

Sixteen names, and list now closed. We’ll publish all sixteen names next week, just in case anyone did apply before the deadline, and we’ve missed them off. 

Some of you have been receiving fake emails, purporting to come from me, but from very strange email addresses, asking to borrow a few millions. If it’s not from “Werburgh 465”, then it’s not from me. But if any of you do happen to have any spare millions…

The only Cistercian House in England, a branch of the Benedictine family who wear distinctive white habits. There’s no truth in the rumour Geoff is planning to join, he only takes the pictures…