Llandudno -
Our Lady Star of
the Sea
Parish Priest: Fr Antony Jones STL - Telephone: 01492 860546 [Email]
Sunday, March 18th, 2007 - Lent 4 (C)
Parish Priest: Fr Antony Jones STL - Telephone: 01492 860546 [Email]
Sunday, March 18th, 2007 - Lent 4 (C)
Dear
Parishioner,
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These are the three main building blocks of Lent. I don’t know about your prayer and I don’t know about your fasting, but your almsgiving is second to none. Add what you gave to Sr Jean last Sunday to what you gave to Feed My Lambs and the grand total is £645. And that is on top of £779 offertory. Pretty fantastic.
*****
And thanks for responding so well to the Finance Committee’s promotion last week of the Gift Aid Scheme. There were eighteen forms returned last Sunday, which will increase our tax returns considerably. Several others forgot to bring their forms back, but have every intention of doing so; and quite a number picked up forms last Sunday to return them in due course. So, all in all, a really good response.
The Gift-Aid scheme, of course, it is an ongoing thing, and you can join it at any time. And if you pay tax, please do join; it is money for old rope; it costs you nothing and benefits the Church enormously.
Now that we have the names of these parishioners who are willing to join the gift-aid scheme, we will be issuing the new envelopes next Sunday, so please look out for them.
*****
You may remember two weeks ago I included in the Newsletter an extract from a letter of Mozart to his father, expressing the composer’s attitude to death. By surprising coincidence, I came upon a very similar, and equally interesting, letter this week from another famous artist, the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. I read it in an article about the artist by Gwenda Richards, published in the Welsh magazine Cristion (which I would strongly recommend to Welsh speakers). She was commenting on Van Gogh’s famous painting The Starry Night. Here is my translation of the letter for your interest:
****
I shall be away on retreat for most of next week. Mgr Fealey and Fr Toole will be supplying the Masses. Would the Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, who normally have the third week of the month off, please cover for me and explain my absence to the housebound people concerned. And maybe you could spare a prayer for me that my retreat will be inspiring. Then you can look forward to even longer sermons.
****
Last Saturday, immediately after the 530pm Mass, I made my way to Nant BH. Don’t ask me what the BH stands for because I don’t know. All I do know is that it is a fantastic place. High up in the mountains between Llanrwst and Betws y Coed, it is reached by a long winding lane through the forest, a lane whose gradient must at times be one in three – not a road to tackle if your car is not quite up to scratch, and better by daylight than the darkness that faced me. At the top of the hill, with the temperature gauge veering towards the red, you come upon Nant BH: a little chapel in the middle of nowhere on one side of the road and on the other a complex of low buildings. The shrieks of children’s’ voices greeted my ears as I pulled in. Nant BH, the outward-bound centre for this part of Wales. Year 5 was there with Mrs Dingsdale and two other members of Staff. They had been there for twenty four hours already and had engaged in all sorts of activities, under professional supervision – canoeing, rock climbing, night walking in the forest. Despite all that had gone on, they managed to calm themselves down for our celebration of Mass. We reflected on God’s wonderful world.
God bless you,
Fr Anthony Jones
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These are the three main building blocks of Lent. I don’t know about your prayer and I don’t know about your fasting, but your almsgiving is second to none. Add what you gave to Sr Jean last Sunday to what you gave to Feed My Lambs and the grand total is £645. And that is on top of £779 offertory. Pretty fantastic.
*****
And thanks for responding so well to the Finance Committee’s promotion last week of the Gift Aid Scheme. There were eighteen forms returned last Sunday, which will increase our tax returns considerably. Several others forgot to bring their forms back, but have every intention of doing so; and quite a number picked up forms last Sunday to return them in due course. So, all in all, a really good response.
The Gift-Aid scheme, of course, it is an ongoing thing, and you can join it at any time. And if you pay tax, please do join; it is money for old rope; it costs you nothing and benefits the Church enormously.
Now that we have the names of these parishioners who are willing to join the gift-aid scheme, we will be issuing the new envelopes next Sunday, so please look out for them.
*****
You may remember two weeks ago I included in the Newsletter an extract from a letter of Mozart to his father, expressing the composer’s attitude to death. By surprising coincidence, I came upon a very similar, and equally interesting, letter this week from another famous artist, the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. I read it in an article about the artist by Gwenda Richards, published in the Welsh magazine Cristion (which I would strongly recommend to Welsh speakers). She was commenting on Van Gogh’s famous painting The Starry Night. Here is my translation of the letter for your interest:
This
raises the eternal question: is the whole of life visible to us or, in
reality, are we only experiencing one dimension of it? For my
part, I am not at all sure. Looking at the stars causes me to
dream, in the same way as I dream about the towns and villages
represented by dots on a map. Why, I ask myself, should shining
dots in the sky be less accessible to us than black dots on a map of
France? If I must take the train to reach Tarascon or Rouen, so I
must take death to reach the stars. What is certainly true in
this way of thinking is that you cannot reach the stars while you are
alive, no more than you can catch a train when you are dead. It
does not appear unreasonable to me to suppose that cholera, consumption
and cancer are heavenly means of transport, in exactly the same way as
steam ships, buses and the railways are means of transport here on
earth. To get there on foot is to die quietly of old age!
(Letter to his brother Theo 1889)
****
I shall be away on retreat for most of next week. Mgr Fealey and Fr Toole will be supplying the Masses. Would the Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, who normally have the third week of the month off, please cover for me and explain my absence to the housebound people concerned. And maybe you could spare a prayer for me that my retreat will be inspiring. Then you can look forward to even longer sermons.
****
Last Saturday, immediately after the 530pm Mass, I made my way to Nant BH. Don’t ask me what the BH stands for because I don’t know. All I do know is that it is a fantastic place. High up in the mountains between Llanrwst and Betws y Coed, it is reached by a long winding lane through the forest, a lane whose gradient must at times be one in three – not a road to tackle if your car is not quite up to scratch, and better by daylight than the darkness that faced me. At the top of the hill, with the temperature gauge veering towards the red, you come upon Nant BH: a little chapel in the middle of nowhere on one side of the road and on the other a complex of low buildings. The shrieks of children’s’ voices greeted my ears as I pulled in. Nant BH, the outward-bound centre for this part of Wales. Year 5 was there with Mrs Dingsdale and two other members of Staff. They had been there for twenty four hours already and had engaged in all sorts of activities, under professional supervision – canoeing, rock climbing, night walking in the forest. Despite all that had gone on, they managed to calm themselves down for our celebration of Mass. We reflected on God’s wonderful world.
God bless you,
Fr Anthony Jones