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NEWSLETTER -
EASTER 4 B - 3 MAY 2009
Dear Parishioner,
On Friday, Sr Jennifer returned home to Seren y Mor in
Caroline Street, now a property of three flats. Sister bought
this house herself and paid every penny of the mortgage out of her
teacher’s salary. She used it to accommodate people in need, to give
holidays to children in care, and, in latter years, to provide safe
holidays and periods of respite for overworked nuns. Then, two
years ago, she gave away the whole property to the Diocese, to the
delight of the Bishop, who decided to convert it into flats for retired
priests, with Sr Jennifer continuing to live on the ground-floor.
It has taken over eighteen months to transform the old building into
the beautiful property it is now. This has involved a huge amount
of work and oversight.
The Bishop asked that John Dennison and I should oversee all the work
that had to be carried out. But, happily, John relieved me of 99%
of the work and undertook virtually all of it himself, leaving me free
to get on with my priestly duties. I am so grateful to him for
this, for I remember how burdensome was the responsibility which I
shouldered myself in renovating Stella Maris.
As well as running Stella Maris with Sarah, his wife, and conducting
with her the Marriage Care Service for the Deanery, John has spent huge
amounts of time on overseeing the work carried out at Seren y
Mor. He has been such a god-send that it is hard to imagine how
we would have managed without him. In fact, Sr Jennifer swears
that he was head-hunted by no less a person that the Holy Spirit!
It happened like this: before Mass one Sunday morning some years
ago, I asked Sr Jennifer to tell Dafydd Williams that the
Catechumenate was restarting, for he had expressed his desire to join
it. Sr Jennifer, going into church in search of Dafydd, whom she
didn’t know then , gave the message by mistake to a rather surprised
John, who was sitting there with Sarah. Obedient to Sr Jennifer,
or to the Holy Spirit?, he turned up for the Catechumenate; and, as
they say, the rest is history.
I would like to pay tribute to the patient endurance of Sean and Hilda
McSorley and Mike and Marie Townsend who live in the other semi
attaching to Seren y Mor . They have had to endure eighteen
months of relentless inconvenience, which work on this scale usually
causes They will certainly share our joy that it is all finally
finished and I offer them our sincere apologies.
The International Mass will be celebrated on Pentecost Sunday, 31 May,
when I invite representatives from all the different nationalities
which make up our parish family to take part in the Mass. If you
are a member of the Parish and have recently joined us from abroad,
please come to a meeting at Stella Maris at 7:30pm on Tuesday 19
May. And we will take it from there.
I shall be away on holiday for the insides of the next two weeks,
coming back for the week-ends. There will be no newsletters, but
below is the timetable for May.
God bless you, Fr Antony Jones
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