A Very Busy Week . . .

This week has definitely been one of the busiest weeks we've had so far - but it has also been very good and very interesting.  This week's theme was 'Evangelisation and Apologetics'.  We started the week off with a well illustrated lecture on Faith and Reason by Fr Hugh MacKenzie, editor of the Faith magazine.  Other excellent lecturers included Fr Paul Keane, Fr Richard Aladics, Fr Sam Medley (SOLT), Msgr Keith Barltrop and Fr Marcus Holden.  What an amazing bunch of lecturers we are blessed with here, we truly are spoilt!

Tuesday night saw the opening session of the 'You Believe'  programme, a monthly celebration of faith, catechesis, praise and worship led by SPEC and Westminster Youth Ministry.  This month's catechesis on faith and belief in the world was given by Archbishop Vincent Nichols.  You can watch a video of the Archbishops catechesis here. 

Altar set up for the Mass

On Thursday morning Fr James Bradley spoke to us about the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, explaining to us a bit about what the Ordinariate is and some of the differences between their liturgy and ours.  Friday afternoon was a big afternoon for those who are part of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, with Mass being celebrated for the first time here at St Patrick's according to their own liturgy.  We had the great pleasure of being able to attend the Mass and to also meet some of those who are part of the Ordinariate.  Here are a few photos from the Mass.



 

Friday night was also our first night of Street Evangelisation in Soho.  At first we were a little worried about going out and how we would approach people to talk to them but once we were out there it was fine.  We got speaking to quite a few people and had a really good night. 

This week was so busy that we even had a lecture on Saturday morning, not that we minded, considering it was Dr Gerard O'Shea.  Dr O'Shea is a Senior Lecturer at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, Australia.  He spoke to us about the different stages of human development and how these stages are also present within religion and how we can relate it to evangelisation.

So that has been our busy busy week.  This week will have less lectures but we will also be starting our first assignment on the Catechism.  Our first module is on Prayer, if you have a few spare prayers they'd be greatly received.