The Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) 14/15 October 2017
Fr Frank writes:
My Dear Friends,
This weekend marks the end of the week of prayer for prisoners. I put the Day of Prayer back one week, as to have had it last Sunday would have clashed with our efforts towards CAFOD.
I can do no better this weekend than to quote some words from Andy Keen-Downs the CEO of the Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT):
Over the last year, I’m sure you will have seen stories about the state of our prison system. What you may not have seen or heard about is the work of PACT staff and volunteers, of prison chaplains, and of hard-working decent prison staff. The prison system is in crisis. Our job, as the Catholic prison charity, is to offer what support we can to those who are most in need. Please support our vital work this Prisoners’ Sunday.
We will be taking a longer than usual break this week in order to have some rest and to visit Anne’s mother in Coventry. My thanks to Fr Bill who will be celebrating Masses in Dovercourt, and to our Ministers who will be providing services of the Word and Holy Communion in Frinton.
May our good and gracious God bless you all.
Frank ofs
Sunday Smile:
A long time ago, a parson thought it polite to wait for the country squire before beginning the service in his village church.
One Sunday, he forgot and began with the opening scripture: ‘when the wicked man…’ ‘Stop’ shouted a voice from the back. ‘He hasn’t arrived yet.’
Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) 8th October
Fr Frank writes
My Dear Friends,
This Sunday, as with the last two, we hear of Jesus likening the Kingdom to a vineyard: a place of order, beauty and warmth – a place which produces something wonderful – ‘wine to cheer the heart of man’. The Chief Priests and Elders are criticised for being unfaithful – just like their ancestors who persecuted the prophets, they will be responsible for condemning the Messiah to death. It is a parable in which Jesus foretells his crucifixion. The vineyard (representing the good earth) is handed over to new tenants. We are those tenants. We are the ones called to be faithful to Our Lord both by word and (more importantly) by the way we live.
On Tuesday this week we have our Parishes day out in Cambridge. The coach leaves Frinton at 9.00am and Dovercourt at 9.30am. Mass will be at Our Lady and the English Martyrs at noon. There will then be plenty of opportunity to find somewhere for lunch before we conclude the day with Evensong in the chapel of King’s College (we meet up by the college’s main entrance at 4.45pm). We will arrive back late, so it would be wise to bring food and drink for the return journey (and don’t forget your pills!)
On Wednesday I have put the Frinton Mass down for 9.00am owing to a 10.30am Funeral Service, and on Thursday I attend an FCCC meeting at Homelands Church at 9.00am and so have put the Frinton Mass back to 11.00am (followed by Adoration). I apologise for any inconvenience these changes may cause you.
May the God of good things bless you all
Frank ofs
Sunday Smile:
Two nuns were driving through the countryside when they ran out of fuel. They walked to a nearby farmhouse for help and the kindly farmer said that they could siphon some of the fuel from his tractor. However, they could not find anything in which to carry the fuel, until the farmer produced a battered old chamber pot. The nuns filled the pot with fuel, walked back to the car and began pouring it in. A passing motorist, hardly believing what he saw, stopped and shouted, ‘I admire your faith, sisters’.
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) 30 September/1 October 2017
Fr Frank writes:
My Dear Friends,
October is the month of the Holy Rosary. To mark the special character of this month each weekday Mass in both parishes, except on those occasions when Mass is followed by Adoration, will end with a recitation of one decade of the rosary (another exception – on Thursday at OLQH the tradition of reciting five decades will continue). At Sunday Masses we will mark ‘the month’ by concluding with a hymn to Our Blessed Lady.
On Wednesday we celebrate the Memorial of St Francis of Assisi. As a Franciscan Secular, this is a special day for me, as it is for the parish of Frinton and Walton. When the church at Walton-on-the-Naze closed 12 years ago its dedication to St Francis of Assisi was added to the title of the church at Frinton-on-Sea. We rejoice on the 4th October, therefore: rejoice that the dedication to St Francis lives on, and we pray not only for the church at Frinton but for all those who faithfully served the former parish of Walton.
On Friday this week we hold our Harvest Fast Day. The object of this is to deepen our awareness of the needs of the many poor in this world by eating less, and, prompted by this, offering our prayers and donating the money we save to CAFOD. There will be retiring collections at the end of all next weekend’s Masses for the work of CAFOD. I am grateful to our CAFOD parish representatives, Tony Lee at Frinton & Walton and Carolyn Dobner at Harwich & Dovercourt, who will be speaking at our Masses this weekend.
May God our loving Father bless you, and may Our Lady and St Francis of Assisi pray for you.
Frank ofs
Sunday Smile : A Methodist minister was walking down the street when a very well-dressed man ran up to him and shook him by the hand. ‘Reverend,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forget that brilliant sermon on temperance you preached five years ago. How you told us of the poor working man, spending his wages in the pub with his children dressed in rags, while the publican was driving round in a Jaguar with his family in fur coats and dressed in the height of fashion!’ The minister nodded solemnly. ‘And did my sermon reform your life?’ ‘Oh it did, it did,’ said the man, ‘transformed it beyond recognition! I decided to become a publican.
The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) 23/24 September 2017
Fr Frank writes:
My Dear Friends,
We should always be thankful for God’s goodness to us. As Catholic Christians we always say grace before meals, thanking God for the food we are to eat and for those who prepared it, as well as remembering all those who have too little to eat. This is an everyday practice, but today our minds are more keenly focussed on this need to thank God for our daily food as we celebrate the harvest of land and sea. We thank God for our food, we thank God for all those who work to bring us this food (farmers, fishermen and those who provide transport, finance, insurance etc., together with wholesalers and retailers). We also focus our minds and our prayers on all those people for whom life is a daily struggle to find food and clean water.
As I didn’t make a specific request for Harvest gifts in last week’s Newsletter (mea culpa) could I ask that, if like me it passed you by, to please bring your offerings to church during the week or next weekend. The foodbanks in both parishes would appreciate tinned foodstuffs.
At today’s Mass we also remember our young people and the work of the Brentwood Catholic Youth Service. BCYS has been based on Canvey Island for many years, but from the beginning of next year will be more centrally located at Abbotswick. In order to equip Abbotswick for its new role the Youth Service needs to raise £430,000. There will be a retiring collection at all Masses this weekend.
Last week was wonderful (as always), but especially at Dovercourt as we Confirmed Francetta Twumasi and Received and Confirmed Anabel Cardenas. May God continue to bless them and their families.
May our good and generous God bless you now and always.
Frank ofs
Sunday Smile:
I can still remember the Latin grace that I had to recite at college – but not what it meant. I sympathise with the panic-stricken priest, who faced with ‘Dominus vobiscum’ from his bishop, murmured the reply, ‘Er…….et tu, Brute!’
The Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) 16/17 September 2017
Fr Frank writes:
My Dear Friends,
Today’s Gospel reading makes clear how important it is for members of any Christian community to be forgiving. Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive his brother, then answers his own question by suggesting seven times. The Jewish tradition taught that God forgives three times and punishes on the fourth occasion: it was not believed that we could be more gracious than God! By this light Peter is generous. But Jesus makes it clear that our forgiveness should never run out. We should continue to forgive. In fact, our lives should be marked by forgiveness…..it is the defining quality of Christian life. We are called to love one another.
It is with great joy that we Confirm Francetta Twumasi and Receive and Confirm Anabel Cardenas at the Dovercourt Mass today. May God richly bless them and their families today and always.
My apologies, but there will be no Mass at Frinton on Wednesday, as I shall be attending the Stella Maris Mass at the Cathedral that morning. My thanks, as always, to our wonderful ministers who provide us with services of Liturgy of the Word and Holy Communion.
May the Lord Jesus, King of the Universe, bless you now and always.
Frank ofs
Sunday Smile:
Mother: Son, it’s getting late. You must get up and go to Mass.
Son: But, I don’t want to go.
Mother: Give me two good reasons why you shouldn’t go.
Son: First, I don’t like the people. Second, the people don’t like me.
Mother: I don’t care. It’s getting late, now get up and go.
Son: Give me two good reasons why I should go.
Mother: First, you are 50 years old, and second, you are the priest.
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) 2/3 September 2017
Fr Frank writes:
My Dear Friends,
In today’s second reading St Paul urges the Christians in Rome (and us too) to offer their living bodies as a holy sacrifice. We are told to offer our whole selves over to God. In offering ourselves in this way we are following Jesus’ example of self-giving – something he did on the cross and something he does each day in the Mass. What greater example could we have?
Our calling is not to come here on Sunday and then go on our way, behaving according to the ‘world’s standards’ at home, in our communities and at work. We are called to be completely his. Our values should be his values – even if they conflict with the prevailing norms or standards in society; even if they conflict with corporate values at work; even if they conflict with the law of the land (in this we are following the example of many great martyrs in Rome, in sixteenth century England, and more recent people of stature, such as Nelson Mandella, who were prepared to say such-and-such a law is a bad law: it is contrary to God’s will).
We are all in need of God’s healing at times in our life. There will be Healing Masses in both parishes this coming week – Wednesday at Frinton and Friday at Dovercourt.
May the God who brings healing bless you now and always.
Frank ofs
Sunday Smile:
Church member to minister: ‘You’ll never know what your sermon meant to me. It was like water to a drowning man.’