We're Back (again!)

Well it’s been a while and we do apologise for going missing. March was an extremely busy month for us here at SPES; we had two assignment weeks, a week of visiting communities, our Patronal Feast celebrations for St Patrick’s Day (Weekend), and then we were into Holy Week and Easter. It has been non stop around here but definitely good. After Easter we had a week off to relax and recharge ourselves before coming back to prepare for our Scarborough Mission, which is this coming week (13th - 21st April).  Over the next couple of blog posts we will try to bring you up to speed on what we have done and what we are doing next.

Another Busy Week of Study and Outreach

This week we have been working on our third assignment, which has been focused on the second two parts of our Creed; God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Our lectures were based on the Catechism and the coursebook from Maryvale. We looked at different parts of the Life of Jesus and how the Holy Spirit was present in them. In particular we have studied the Incarnation, Jesus’ public life, His Passion and Death as well as the Resurrection, Ascension and Second Coming. We also looked at how the Church is described as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. There was a lot of stuff to take in this week but it has all been so interesting. Let’s hope our assignments explain it all well enough. There’s been a few late nights this week, hopefully all worth it.

As well as our studies this week we have been busy with our outreaches. Monday night we had Catholicism, which was about Mary, Mother of God. It was a very interesting evening and Mary always causes questions with those of other faiths so it is good to learn more about what we believe about Mary and how to explain it to others. Thursday night two of us were helping with Open House, which is always a great evening and the food looked amazing! The other two of us were on SOS Prayerline for Thursday evening.  Each of us love doing SOS Prayerline, it is awesome to see the faith that so many people have that they call in to ask for prayer or to thank the Lord for prayers that have been answered.   Last night we were down at Notre Dame de France for LumiNations.  It was absolutely freezing but that didn't stop us setting up the music on the steps and get out the evangelising materials.  It was a great night and many people stopped to have a look at what we were doing and to listen to the music.  Inside we have Adoration going on and people praying for those of us who were outside. Tonight we shall be out on the streets again for NightFever, here at St Patrick's.  We start with Mass at 6pm followed by Adoration and our street mission.  We are all very much looking forward to it and if you can join us please do.

Where have we been? What have we been doing?

Well in answer to the blog post title we have been plenty of places and doing plenty of things - except updating our blog!  Oops, sorry about that.  Now we shall fix that and bring you up to speed with all our goings on.  Hopefully over the next week we will get you all updated and back on track. 

Before Christmas we had our Advent Mission, the Open House Christmas Dinner, some community days out and a bit of fun.  We were off for 2 weeks over Christmas, much needed time for rest and relaxation.  We came back after Christmas refreshed and ready to go again - which is good since we haven't stopped since!!

Since Christmas we have had our Parish Christmas dinner, cookathon, our second assignment, and now a retreat.  Busy busy.  In the next few posts we will update about some of these events with some pictures also.

And so the study begins . . .

After our busy week last week you'd think we would have had a bit of a break but no such luck.  Instead we are thrown into our first week of studying the Catechism.  Sounds a little silly but we are starting off with Unit 6 (the last unit!), which is all about Prayer.  So far this week we have been reading through the corresponding section in the Catechism and the Maryvale study book.  It has been very interesting, so often we are being referred to Scripture, writings of the Saints and also to documents of the Church, such as those from Vatican II.

For each of us I think it has been the first time we have actually sat down with the Catechism and properly read it.  We have also had some great instruction and guidance from Fr Francis, Deacon Michael and Wisam - I think we'd be lost without them.  This afternoon's session be our last guided session and then it will be time to knuckle down and get writing.  This year we do not need to write essays as students in previous years had to, instead for each Unit there are a number of shorter tasks that we need to answer.  Not sure which one is better but we shall see how it all goes.  We have stocked up with tea and biscuits for some late night assignment writing!

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.