Dear Parishioners,
This month is the month of Holy week - the week of our redemption.
Let's make the "Holy" part of it have meaning by using the week as God would have us use it - making present the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord by recalling the past events and applying them in the present circumstances.
Of course there is much to do in preparation for the Easter holiday. Preparation of this sort can be woven in with the preparation for the celebration of our Lord's resurrection.
We can so arrange our commissariat that we have a roast of lamb on Easter day, and so be at one with our Lord who, as a faithful Jew, celebrated the Passover feast with the traditional lamb.
The Hebrews preparing to leave Egypt on their long journey to the promised land of Canaan, ate their final meal of roast lamb while standing in their traveling clothes, ready to set out as soon as the meal was finished. This was, and still is among practicing Jews, commemorated at each Passover feast. But that Passover was but a symbol of the real Passover from death to life when our Lord died on the cross and rose from the tomb.
Another way to combine our Easter holiday with the feast of the risen Christ would be to use the theme of light. Christ is the light of the world. Why not celebrate the Easter holiday with a specially made cake bearing symbols of light and new birth? This is a very appealing way in which to instruct our children in the meaning of Easter. The chocolate eggs we use are also a sign of the new life, for from eggs come chicks.
The changing form of the liturgy makes it possible this year for palms to be used at all the Masses of Palm Sunday. I doubt if we shall have sufficient palms to go round if you all take your palms home with you, so I ask that only one palm be taken to each home after Mass - the balance being left on the trolley at the entrance to the church.
However the chief celebration of Palm Sunday will be at the 11.00. mass which will consist of a procession of servers and the priest from the Lady altar after the celebration of the ceremony of Palms to the high altar.
A second, not so solemn celebration, will be at the evening Mass and at the other Masses a simplified form will be used. Next year, please God, we shall be able to have a procession from St. Anne's hall to the church to celebrate the feast of Palms more realistically and with more meaning.
The three sacred days of Holy Week have been re-named the Paschal Triduum, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Vigil of Easter day - so that we may realize that it is not just a preparation for Easter but is itself the celebration of the Pascal event and that newness of life which flows from the crucified, buried and risen Christ. Rightly speaking there should be but a single Mass in each parish on Maundy Thursday so that all God's people should gather, as the Apostles did in the upper room in Jerusalem, as a single group with our Lord at the head to share a meal together.
But there seems to be a custom in this parish for there to be a morning Mass in the parish church.
So this year, certainly, the custom will be continued but it will have to be reviewed in the light of future legislation and the use made of these Masses by the people.
As Thursday is an ordinary working day if may well be that there are many people who would not be able to assist at Mass and receive Holy Communion on this great day of the Eucharist's birthday if it were not for a morning Mass.
Maundy Thursday and Good Friday call to mind the twofold giving of Christ - to his enemies, to die on the cross for the life of the world; to his disciples in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This is made a present event in our present day world by the Church suffering persecution from enemies from without - oppression by atheistic governments; and from enemies from within (as Peter denied our Lord and Judas sold him for money) - those Catholics who do not practice their faith and those who actively oppose her and her teaching. On Good Friday we do not simply commemorate our Lord's passion and death as a past event the liturgy brings the power and effect of that event into the here and now, into our own lives. It is made present, too, in the passion and death of our Lord's disciples persecuted in today's world. The long pause between the Good Friday afternoon liturgy and the Easter Vigil celebration give time to prepare for the joy and happiness of our Lord's resurrection.
And writing of joy calls to mind the joy some many of you exuded on St. Patrick's night when several hundred crammed into St. Anne's hall for the first big function to be organised by our Social Club. A lot of hard and sustained work has been put in by a number of men - aye, and ladies too - to make St. Anne's hall presentable as a parish club. And they have succeeded.
Congratulation to all concerned and may the club be used by all members of the parish. For my part I look forward to meeting many of you there with your children. The club is open on Friday evenings, Saturday evenings, Sunday after the 1-1 .00. Mass and on Sunday evenings too.
Of course all this labour - much of it freely given - has involved the expenditure of money on materials.
So here is another reason we use the club - help to defray its debt and provide cash for the parish development as a whole. Which brings me to the financial statement I promised you last month of
last year's work.
Financial Statement For Year Ended 31st. Dec. 1969

The highlight of this statement is that the income of £10,050 only shows an excess over recurring expenditure of some £400. Included in the expenditure is a figure of £1825 paid in interest on our loan account. However the parish did undertake originally to repay the loan by annual payments of £5000 to cover both capital and interest. It will also be appreciated that if we should continue to pay interest only we are using almost 20% of the total-income (equal to 4/-in every £1). Obviously, therefore every effort should be made to increase our income substantially
The Union of Catholic Mothers should be more than satisfied with the Spring--and Jumble sale held in St. Anne's hall. It brought in £65. This, surely, is a redord for such a sale. Congratulations to all concerned. As usual the-money is to be used to float the Summer Fete or Garden Party.
I wanted to write about the Youth Club which shows every good sign of getting off the ground. Over 50 members enrolled on the enrollment night. But there's not room this month for more on this subject - it'll have to wait the April issue.
But before I close I want to make an appeal to you to let us priests know when any of you are sick or about to go into hospital Since I have been here it has happened all too frequently that the first knowledge we have had that a parishioner is not well is either that he is back home again or has died. Through not letting us know it has happened that infants have died without being confirmed. Children of any age should be confirmed if they are seriously ill and apart from the bishop and officially appointed hospital chaplain the only person who can give the sacrament is the parish priest. So please let us know in good time if any of you is ill.
God Bless and love you always,
Gerald G. Langley.