Michael Lawrence EGAN RIP

During the last few days,one of our much beloved parishioner passed away to the Father’s House + Michael Lawrence EGAN RIP – as His Family stated:

‘Fabulous father, awesome Granddad and fiercely loyal friend. Headteacher, governor, rambler, gardener, rugby player, traveller. He was one of the good guys. We are heartbroken’ We will miss him so much – and because he has attended last years St Swithun’s church and Sunday Mass at 8.30am, we would like to offer this Holy Mass, this weekend for the repose of His soul.

The details about the funeral will be published soon. May He rest in peace.

The funeral service will be held at Our Lady of Lourdes, Eastney on Friday January 19th 2018 at 11.00am, followed by committal at Portchester Crematorium at 12.15pm

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DAILY MEDITATION:Good News ReflectionWednesday of the 28th Week of Ordinary TimeMemorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and MartyrOctober 17, 2018Today’s Prayer:Forgive me, Lord, because I'm more concerned about appearances than about giving Your love to my neighbors. Amen.Today's Readings:Galatians 5:18-25Psalm 1:1-4, 6 (with John 8:12)Luke 11:42-46How to give warnings and preach woesWhen we see someone sinning, how should we handle it? Saint Paul, in today's first reading, gives "warning" to his listeners in the church at Galatia. Jesus, in the Gospel reading, warns the Pharisees of their sins with exclamations of "Woe!" Do we dare to be as bold? When we do, won't we chase people away?The key to doing this right is at the end of the first reading: "If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit." This means that we only give our warnings under the direction of and in the Spirit of Christ: with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.But did the Galatians realize that Paul loved them and was being patient with them? Probably, since they were all community members who already knew he was as caring as he was loud. And Paul, who is a prototype for all leaders in the hierarchy of the Church, did not speak with an attitude of superiority; he admitted publicly his own struggles with sin.Did the Pharisees realize that Jesus loved them and was being patient with them? Ho-ho. Definitely not!It didn't matter what the Galatians thought of Paul. The only thing that mattered was what God thought of Paul. Nor did it matter what the Pharisees thought of Jesus. Even though Jesus never sinned, and even though Jesus was in fact superior to the Pharisees, he did not scold them with an attitude of superiority. Teaching all of us by his example, he spoke the facts clearly, simply, and directly, with no motive other than to invite them to true holiness.Nor does it matter what others think of us when we speak the truth. The only thing that matters is what God thinks of us. Does he see anything in us that is not guided by the Holy Spirit? Does he see us rejecting or neglecting love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control? Yes, he does, because none of us have perfected our sainthood yet.We must not hold back from speaking up with the warnings and woes that the Spirit inspires within us, but first we need to examine our motives and our consciences. There is a way to invite others into greater holiness without being a hypocrite: Like Paul, be honest and let the person you're speaking to know that you, too, struggle with sin. From the humility of admitting your own vulnerabilities grows your compassion for the sinners you want to help. From that compassion flows God's love and patience and all the other fruits of the Spirit.We have a limited understanding of the reasons why the people around us choose to sin. Therefore, we cannot make a true judgment against them. From this non-condemning position, we can invite them to trade up to a better life. Our invitation is based on what we've learned from our own shortcomings. It doesn't matter if they still reject us anyway. What matters is that God appreciates us for trying to convey the truth with passion for Christ and compassion for the person we're trying to help.#dailymeditations www.stswithuns.org.uk/event/dr-17102018 ... See MoreSee Less

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DAILY MEDITATION:Good News ReflectionTuesday of the 28th Week of Ordinary TimeOctober 16, 2018Today’s Prayer:May Your Holy Spirit open my spiritual eyes to see what is really important for my life and the life of my neighbors. Amen.Today's Readings:Galatians 5:1-6Psalm 119:41,43-45,47-48Luke 11:37-41True obedienceTrue obedience to the laws of God is true faith -- not because obedience wins us God's approval and gets us into heaven, but because faith is the presence of Christ within us and he is the fulfillment of the Law.Today's first reading reminds us that faith expresses itself through love. Since God is love and every law of his is based on love, obedience without love is legalism, i.e., lawfulness without faith. And this, St. Paul says, is an attempt to justify ourselves; it's a fall from grace. Why? Because it separates us from Christ who already justified us through his death on the cross.In the Gospel reading, Jesus defines the core problem of legalistic obedience: It fails to change us on the inside. The Pharisee's attitude was quite condescending toward Jesus, which reveals that his obedience to the rules and regulations of religious life had not moved his heart with love. He was more concerned about rituals than about people.Moral laws, Church rules, and ritual norms are good and necessary. They are all based on the Law of Love. Their purpose is to bring us into a stronger, closer relationship with the Author of Love and with the whole Church that embodies this Love. Disobedience is either rebellion against love or ignorance of the loving reasons for obedience, and someone somewhere somehow gets hurt.However, when we love obedience more than we love people, the law itself becomes our god. To imitate Christ, we must care enough about others to put aside legalism whenever it interferes with their salvation or their basic needs. The Church calls for this in Canon Law!Please note: Moral laws are unchangeable, because it's always unloving to disobey them. But rules and norms and policies do change as the problems that they address change. If we're afraid that changes and adaptations are disobedience, we have to examine them through the lens of moral law, and if the change is based on love and we still don't approve, we are only understanding them legalistically, not faithfully.Legalism makes us desperate. Try as we might, we cannot earn our way into heaven through obedience, because we will never be perfect enough. In trying to make ourselves right with God, we become more rigid, we distrust changes in the Church, and we're unable to see where and how the Church does allow for adaptations.Faith means obeying even before we understand why we should obey, always asking the Holy Spirit to give us understanding. To fulfill the law faithfully, we must keep our eyes on Jesus, for he showed us by his example how to be truly obedient.#dailymeditations www.stswithuns.org.uk/event/dr-16102018 ... See MoreSee Less

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DAILY MEDITATION:Good News ReflectionMonday of the 28th Week of Ordinary TimeMemorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the ChurchOctober 15, 2018Today’s Prayer:Your resurrection, Lord, is the only sign I need to know that my whole life is in the hands of my Father. Amen.Today's Readings:Galatians 4:22-24,26-27,31--5:1Psalm 113:1b-7Luke 11:29-32What sign you are looking for?What kind of sign do you need God to provide so that you can feel assured that your prayers are being answered?Reflecting on today's first reading, let's remember why Abraham had two sons. God had promised him one son, born by his wife, Sarah. But Sarah laughed at that idea, because the signs of her aged body told her that she was long past fertility. Then as time went by without a miraculous pregnancy, both Sarah and Abraham took this as a sign that God wanted the baby to be born through human means, i.e., through a surrogate mother, Sarah's handmaid, Hagar.This decision caused rivalry and animosity between Abraham's two sets of descendants. Four thousand years later, the Middle East is still suffering the repercussions of this decision. (Hagar bore Ishmael, who married an Egyptian woman, according to the Bible. According to the Arabs, he also married a daughter of Sheik Mudad, who bore Adnan, the ancestor of Mohammed, the founder of Islam.) Muslims and Jews have been fighting each other throughout history. What if Abraham and Sarah had continued to wait for God to fulfill his promise, instead of taking matters into their own hands?In the Gospel reading, Jesus says, "This is an evil age. It seeks a sign." Why are signs evil? Because we invent our own signs. We seek signs that are not from God.What help from God are you still awaiting? What resolution to a problem, what new job, what reconciled relationship? Jesus says that he is the sign that we are given. And he is enough! He is the one who is "greater than Jonah".The sign of Jonah was his emergence from the belly of the giant fish after three days. Jonah's mission after getting spewed onto the beach (and presumably after cleaning himself up a bit) was to call the Ninevites to repentance. Jesus emerged from the belly of the earth at the end of his three-day ordeal. His resurrection calls the whole world to repentance.Here is the sign we are given, and it's the only sign that really matters: Since God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, of course he will also give us the new life that we need. Of course he will provide the right resolution to our problems, the job that's right for us, or the reconciled relationships. We fail to notice this sign, however, because God's timing is not usually the same as our preferred timing. While we wait, we take hope from any sign that pops up in our view. We make ourselves miserable and frustrated by trusting in what we see instead of keeping our eyes on Jesus.The storms in our lives could be as huge as a hurricane, but if we look for Jesus instead of signs that the storm is abating, we find him in the eye of the storm. The moment we pull away from him, we hit the hurricane's eye wall and it blows us off our feet. Keep your eyes on Jesus!And while you're waiting for relief from the storm, take a break as often as you need to. Go on a vacation or retreat, attend an uplifting prayer service, talk to friends who are filled with the Holy Spirit's upbeat inspiration, go to daily Mass and let that place be an oasis for you.#dailymeditations www.stswithuns.org.uk/event/dr-15102018 ... See MoreSee Less

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THE HOLY EUCHARIST TODAY:AT 8.30AM in St Swithun's churchAT 10.15AM in St Swithun's church (Family Mass)AT 1.00PM in St Swithun's church (Mass in Polish)(an the rest day and whole night a duty in QA Hospital)below we can see the photos from last Sunday's Family Mass - homily for the children and spontaneous renewing the Sacramental Marriage vows by Rosemary & Brian ... See MoreSee Less

3 days ago

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Michael Lawrence EGAN RIP

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