You are welcome to our Parish Website. We believe that you will get a lot of interesting information which will help you to grow in the faith. Our parish is part of the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham Reg. Charity No. 234216. |
Follow events live by clicking on the link below Mass Time: Sun. 9.30am & 11.30am Link: Live Streaming of Mass |
A day of prayer at St. Mary & St. Benedict on 15th December from 10.00am to 1.00pm. Let us come together to pray before the Lord as we prepare for His Birth. You are all welcome.
Advent and Christmas Program:
Christmas Vigil Mass for children 6:00pm
Christmas Vigil Mass for adults: 8:00pm
Christmas Day Masses 9:30am and 11:30am
December 26th Boxing Day Mass: 10:00am
December 31st Mass : 10.00 - 11.00pm Adoration
11.00pm : Holy Mass
Advent and Christmas Program:
Christmas Vigil Mass for children 6:00pm
Christmas Vigil Mass for adults: 8:00pm
Christmas Day Masses 9:30am and 11:30am
December 26th Boxing Day Mass: 10:00am
December 31st Mass : 10.00 - 11.00pm Adoration
11.00pm : Holy Mass
Writings of the Parish Priest (1) Writings of the Parish priest (2)
Writings of the Parish priest (3) Read, reflect and live inspired (4) Writings of the Parish priest (5) Fr. Jimmy Lutwama AJ Todays Gospel reflection:
«To what can I compare the people of this day?» Today, we should be distraught before the Lord’s sigh: «To what can I compare the people of this day?» (Mt 11:16). Jesus is overwhelmed by our heart, more often than not, nonconforming and ungrateful. We are never fulfilled; we are complaining all the time. We even dare to blame Him for all the things that disturb us. «Yet the outcome will prove Wisdom to be right» (Mt 11:19): it suffices to just look at the Christmas mystery. But what about us? how is our faith? Could it be that our complaints are actually harboring the nonexistence of our reply? A very appropriate query for the time of Advent! God comes to our encounter, but man —especially the present-day man— hides out from Him. Some, as Herod, are really afraid of Him. Others are even harassed by his simple presence: «Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!» (Jn 19:15). Jesus «is the God-who-comes» (Benedict XVI) and we look like "the-man-who-goes away": «He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him» (Jn 1:11). Why do we run away? Because of our lack of meekness. Saint John the Baptist recommended us to "dwindle". And the Church reminds us so, every time the Advent comes. We must, therefore, become as little children to be able to understand and receive the "Little God". He appears in front of us with the humility of his swaddling-clothes: never before a “God-wrapped-in-swaddling clothes” had been preached! We project a ridiculous image before God when we try to conceal ourselves with pretexts and dishonest explanations. Already at the dawn of humanity, Adam blamed Eve; Eve blamed the snake..., after all the centuries gone by, we remain just the same. Jesus-God, however, is coming: in the cold and the poverty of Bethlehem he neither admonished nor rebuked us. On the contrary! He begins to load his small shoulders with the weight of all our faults. Should we, then, be afraid of Him? Will our apologies be truly worth before this "Little-God"? «God’s sign is the Baby: we learn to live with him and to practice with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love» (Benedict XVI). |
Saint John of the Cross
John is a saint because his life was a heroic effort to live up to his name: “of the Cross.” The folly of the cross came to full realization in time. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34b) is the story of John’s life. The Paschal Mystery—through death to life—strongly marks John as reformer, mystic-poet, and theologian-priest. Ordained a Carmelite priest in 1567 at age 25, John met Teresa of Avila and like her, vowed himself to the primitive Rule of the Carmelites. As partner with Teresa and in his own right, John engaged in the work of reform, and came to experience the price of reform: increasing opposition, misunderstanding, persecution, imprisonment. He came to know the cross acutely—to experience the dying of Jesus—as he sat month after month in his dark, damp, narrow cell with only his God. Yet, the paradox! In this dying of imprisonment John came to life, uttering poetry. In the darkness of the dungeon, John’s spirit came into the Light. There are many mystics, many poets; John is unique as mystic-poet, expressing in his prison-cross the ecstasy of mystical union with God in the Spiritual Canticle. But as agony leads to ecstasy, so John had his Ascent to Mt. Carmel, as he named it in his prose masterpiece. As man-Christian-Carmelite, he experienced in himself this purifying ascent; as spiritual director, he sensed it in others; as psychologist-theologian, he described and analyzed it in his prose writings. His prose works are outstanding in underscoring the cost of discipleship, the path of union with God: rigorous discipline, abandonment, purification. Uniquely and strongly John underlines the gospel paradox: The cross leads to resurrection, agony to ecstasy, darkness to light, abandonment to possession, denial to self to union with God. If you want to save your life, you must lose it. John is truly “of the Cross.” He died at 49—a life short, but full. Reflection In his life and writings, John of the Cross has a crucial word for us today. We tend to be rich, soft, comfortable. We shrink even from words like self-denial, mortification, purification, asceticism, discipline. We run from the cross. John’s message—like the gospel—is loud and clear: Don’t—if you really want to live! |