THANK YOU EVERYONE especially Mary and Frances and the Children’s’ Liturgy team for such a wonderful Harvest celebration last weekend. Lots of preparation led to lots of smiles and fun AND £100 collected to help CAFOD help those who are in great need.
Sue

CATHOLIC YOUTH MINISTRY INTERNSHIPS
Castlerigg Manor (The Lancaster Diocese Retreat Centre) is looking for young Catholics aged 18-25 to join their Youth Ministry Internship Programme. The scheme gives participants wide ranging experience, skills, training, and qualifications as well as the opportunity to work with a fantastic team based in the English Lake District. For more information contact director@castleriggmanor.co.uk

SUNDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 11AM MASS, (Burley)

In children’s liturgy and as part of the season of creation we thought about what we can do to look after the world. We agreed that the world was in all our hands and we all needed to spread the word about caring for and looking after the world. The children wrote on each of the fingers of the hands 5 different ways they would help to look after the world. We then shared these with the parish. The children’s ideas included: make a composter, stop chopping trees down, use less water, shower less and  plant more trees.

Father’s Day

On Father’s Day we had a children’s liturgy where we spoke about discipleship and what we could do beyond listening to the work of God at church. We talked again about Pope Francis’ message about caring for the world and how we were trying to live that out in our lives  through our Live Simply message. We visited the herb garden created in the church gardens and talked about the herbs, their smells and what they could be used for . The herb garden has been created for parishioners to use as and when they want with many herbs provided by parishioners. We then created herb posies for the children to give to their dads and also one for Fr Michael.

Frances, Cath & Mary

Parish Family Feast Day

The Parish Family Feast Day on June 22nd was made even more special when 3 students from St Mary’s school Menston came to serve at Mass.  Thank you so much.  Following Mass we all enjoyed coffee and cakes in the church hall.

A VERY BIG THANK YOU, St Mary’s Lourdes Group Cake Sale
St Mary’s Lourdes group are so very grateful to you all for making us so welcome and for your overwhelming generosity.
Your donations amounted to £607.48. Please pray for us as we will pray for you all whilst we are in Lourdes.
Please place your prayer intentions in the box at the back of church.
If you wish your prayer to be posted privately, then please place it in an envelope marked as a private intention. The final date for intentions to be handed in will be Sunday 02 July. They will then be collected and taken out with us to Lourdes on 06 July.
Once again, thank you all so very much.

FIRST HOLY COMMUNION CHILDREN
Congratulations to all our very special young members of the Parish Family namely, Allie, Ani, Hannah, Henry, Jack E, Jack S, Krissy, Marianne, Nell, Nyla, Rosa, Rosie and Seamus who have received their First Communion.
Many, many thanks to Nicola our Parish Catechist for guiding the children and parents throughout their preparation for the sacrament.

BAMBISANANI FUNDRAISING QUIZ NIGHT – THANK YOU (from Rebecca)

I wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who attended my fundraising quiz in the Parish Hall on Friday night in support of the Bambisanani Partnership. With your help I have been able to reach my fundraising target of £2,000. In the summer I will be volunteering my skills to work with orphaned children in a deprived rural community in KwaZulu Natal province. The partnership uses sport to teach leadership, literacy, numeracy and art as well as training PE teachers and sports coaches and teaching athletics.
Thank you all so much for your support again.
Rebecca Shaw, Yr. 13 student, St Mary’s School.

 

FIRST SACRAMENTS
On Sunday 5th March at both the 9:00am & 11:00am Masses, we presented to the Parish family our children who are preparing to receive their First Holy Communion. We ask you please to pray for the children, their families and their catechist, Nicola. First Holy Communion will be celebrated on Sunday 21st May ‘23.
The children and parent sessions are on Sunday mornings at 10:00am.
Nicola.

CONGRATULATIONS to our young children who celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation and made their First Confession; Ariana, Bea, Freya, Harry, Jack, Jack Joshua, Krissy, Oliver, Sophia.
A BIG THANK YOU to our parents and catechists who prepared the children, the laughter and the 100% attendance!!
Thank you to the Parish Family for their prayers.

Christmas crib
Many thanks to our parish children who decorated our crib.  The crib was made from a pallet and old fence panels.

Advent 2022

Fruit Trees
Our parish children helped to plant the two fruit trees (an apple and a Victoria plum) last Sunday.  It was a great event, we look forward to picking the fruit in the next few years.
The Live Simply and the Gardening Team

During the children’s liturgy we discussed  Pope Francis’ letter where he talked about God’s love for the world which is our home and how we are, as Christians, need to look after it.  We also talked about the work we have done in church to try and follow the Pope’s messages  by creating our Tree of Life project where we have tried to respond to Francis’ messages by Living more simply, caring for others around us and looking after the environment
To live out the messages of living simply, live sustainably and live in solidarity with others in the world we created the “Live Simply Advent Calendar”. We thought this Advent instead of asking for more things which use up resources we would try and do other more sustainable things. The children came up with some great ideas like, use last year’s Christmas cards to make decorations , walk or carshare rather than drive, switch off lights when you are not in a room and make a Christmas present for someone rather than buying one. We have displayed this in church with all the ideas so please take a look and see what changes you could make.

We also gave our children’s liturgy advent wreath a makeover, replacing all the plastic on it with foliage collected from road side areas.

CHILDREN’S LITURGY
For the children of the Parish Family, it would be good to double this number of gatherings BUT we need Leaders to work together to achieve this.
We always work in twos and if we could manage just 4 teams of two it would mean once every 4 weeks.
You could almost choose your dates and themes.
Please if you are over 16 and would consider leading a session with another just let Fr Michael or Mary Preston [preston.mary@googlemail.com ] or me know. PLEASE consider it. Sue

WORLD YOUTH DAY 2023
Aged 16-30? You’re invited to join the Diocese of Leeds Youth Service in Lisbon, Portugal from 31st July – 7th August 2023 for World Youth Day, a week-long youth festival with Pope Francis and young people from across the world! Cost: £1200, which includes accommodation, travel, WYD package and more! Email youth@dioceseofleeds.org.uk to apply!