A Week of Community...

Wow!  What a week we've had!  The theme for the past week has been Community Living and it has been an amazing experience.  At the beginning of the week we had lectures about what community life is and how we can all contribute to the life of the community with our different gifts, talents, strengths and weaknesses.  We had the great pleasure of meeting and learning about some different communities; we met Paula, from the Cenacolo community, a community for those who suffer from addictions.  They have a prayer group here in the Parish on a Monday evening.  On Thursday we spent the day with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs) in Canning Town, where we helped with their soup kitchen and experienced a little of what a typical day is like for them.  Friday was a long yet great day for the boys who headed out to Ealing Abbey early in the morning to spend the whole day with the Benedictines there.  But I think I can safely say the weekend was our highlight!  NightFever was happening here at St Patrick’s on Saturday and it was the first time we have been out evangelising as a community.  Let’s hope all our nights are as fun and exciting as our first.  Sunday meant wrapping up warm and finding our walking boots as we all headed off on the John Paul II Walking Pilgrimage along the Thames from Westminster Cathedral to Hampton Wick.  It was a long tiring day but it was so good, definitely going to make it an annual event!  You can read more about our adventures this week in the next few days as we update more posts.

Tomorrow (1st November) is a very important day, not only is it All Saints Day but for us here at SPES it is our Commitment Mass.  Please join us if you can; the Mass is at 6pm with a bit of social time afterwards.

A day retreat at Ealing Abbey

For our community outing day on Saturday, we went on a day retreat to Ealing Abbey. The day was based on a series of talks given by the director of Maryvale, Fr Paul Watson. He spoke about the Trinity and also Faith in an age of disbelief. During the day, we had time for silent personal prayer and benediction at the end of the day.

Ealing Abbey are having two more Lenten talks before Easter, by Fr Tim Finigan, and also Jennifer Smith & Alina Lubinska - check out Fr Tim's blog for more details: http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2008/01/lenten-talks-at-ealing-abbey.html

An evening at Ealing...

We've just got back from St Benedict's Ealing Abbey where we were invited to speak to the Confirmation candidates. They have a large group of teenagers preparing to receive the sacrament of Confirmation. We were able to put into practice some of what we have learned from Marianne Cuthbertson, who comes to St Patrick's to teach us about Catechesis. Marianne is in charge of Cathechetics at the Parish at Ealing.

Bishop Alan Hopes was also with us and he gave a talk to the young people on the role of a Bishop in the Church. He talked about the Bishop as Apostle, Shepherd and Teacher of the faith.

Then it was our turn to stand up and talk! I spoke a bit about our life at St Patrick's and our efforts to bring Christ to Soho, while the others talked about the role that their faith has played in their life. It seems to be good for teenagers to hear from other young people who have recently gone through similar kinds of struggles to their own. We all brought slightly different slants and focused on different things which hopefully kept things interesting.

It all seemed to go well!