A big welcome back to Edna and Deanna who have teamed up to Co-ordinate SPES this year. We are full of enthusiasm, very eager and excited to begin our journey of SPES together. Even though we are not taking on any new students this year the life of SPES is very much a live and active.

We were off to a very quick start with the visit of the Holy Father last week. We were blessed and privileged to attend the vigil in Hyde Park and the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman. It was a time full of many blessings and graces! We continue to pray and hope for many hearts to be open and receptive to all that was bestowed upon us all during these days.

With our day focused around prayer we are in the middle of getting our Evangelisation team organized. We want to go out not to only proclaim the Good News to others, but to share the love of Christ with them, to be compassionate and caring in not only our words, but in our actions too. It is important to be a light to those who are in darkness especially in this culture of death.

The 40 Days for Life Campaign has started this week as well. This campaign is a peaceful and prayerful vigil taking place from the 22^nd of September to the 31^st of October. It is a time to be united together through pray and fasting for an end to abortion, a time also for conversion and healing, to support life and those in need. Please go to www.40daysforlife.com/London and get involved. God will reward you because Our Lord is never out done in generosity!

This Thursday we started a nine day Novena to St. Therese of Lisieux. To conclude our Novena, but to also celebrate a brand new year of SPES we will be having a Welcome Mass on 1^st of October 2010, the Feast of St. Therese. Mass will begin at 7 pm in the Chapel of St. Patrick’s Presbytery. You are all warmly invited to join us, support us, and celebrate with us on this special day. Hope to see you there! God bless you and may Our Lady keep you! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to keep you in ours!

Seeing the Pope this Friday

We are excited to welcome the Holy Father to the Diocese of Westminster, only a mile or so from St Patrick's. Groups from St Patrick's will be attending the Youth Vigil at Hyde Park on Saturday, and the Beatification of Cardinal Newman on Sunday near Birmingham. As well as these important events in the life of the Church, the Holy Father will also be addressing British society as part of his State Visit, the first by a pontiff. He will be speaking on Friday evening in Westminster Hall (at Parliament Square) in a speech which is sure to be closely followed. He will be travelling by Popemobile, from Lambeth Palace, 5pm-5:15pm. We would love to show him our support and affection by lining the route. We will meet at 4pm outside the Red Lion pub on Whitehall (near the Cenotaph and Ministry of Defence). This is a short walk from the route itself, and will give us the chance to meet without too many crowds, and then to find a good spot from which to see the Holy Father. If you cannot find us, you can contact Vincent on his mobile on the day. A map here will show you the expected route, and our meeting point. Please bring signs, banners, guitars et cetera and your enthusiasm to show Pope Benedict how welcomed he is in London and Britain. Do invite friends to come and join us. Above all, please keep the visit in your prayers, that it may be a time of grace and conversion for the English Church, and all British society.

SPES@21st Youth Festival, Medjugorje

Blog from Teresa Vaughan-Spruce (SPES 2007/08) Last week, Edna and I travelled to the 21st Youth Festival held in Medjugorje. There were around 40 000 young people from all over the world there, and Edna and I were lucky enough to be apart of it, representing SPES. It was a truly blessed pilgrimage with lots of powerful testimonies, talks, for example on Theology of the Body, and prayer. The people living in Medjugorje were so welcoming and hospitable. One night, we had a candlelit procession with 40 000 of us, through the tiny streets of Medjugorje. The people living there stood outside their houses holding candles, and gave us drinks of water as we passed. Their driveways were lit up with candles and small shrines to Our Lady that had been made especially for the procession. It really was an unforgettable experience. Edna and I stayed with a lovely young family just outside of the centre; Maria and Dalibor, and their daughters Gabriela, Lana, and Matea who is only four days old! Maria gave birth while we were staying with them, and Dalibor took us both to see Maria and Matea in hospital; Matea was so tiny, beautiful and perfect! It was really special to visit both of them. On our first day in Medugorje, we met up with Aisiling (who graduated from the school this July) who was with a group from Craig Lodge in Scotland, led by Fr Augustine of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Together we climbed up Apparition Hill, praying the different mysteries of the Rosary. When we reached the top of the rocky hill we had time to sit and pray in front of the statue of Our Lady. The place was completely silent, and filled with such a great atmosphere of prayerful peace and calm. I think we could have sat up there for hours! Edna and I had a truly blessed pilgrimage in Medjugorje. We prayed a lot for the past students, and especially for the future of SPES, and future students.

Summer prayer schedule

This is the Presbytery Chapel, arranged in what was the dining room of the parish house. It is open 7am-7pm, Monday-Friday. There is adoration 7am-8am for the intentions of the School of Evangelisation, Morning Prayer at 8am, Mass 12:45, and Evening Prayer at 5:45. Saturday evening Mass is here at 6pm, and Sunday evening at 5pm. Sunday 11am Mass is around the corner at the Chapel of the House of St Barnabas in Mannette Street. Edna and I have been praying the Rosary for the School at 11:45am, but that will stop when we depart for the summer. Furthermore, the chapel is the venue for SOS Prayerline from 7pm-11pm every night, including weekends. Hopefully, you can tell that although the church is closed, we are still very much 'open for prayer'. A lot of that prayer is specifically for the School's work of formation and evangelisation of young people. Please keep all these things in your own prayers.

Where is the church?

If you have visited Soho Square recently, you cannot have failed to notice the scaffolding surrounding St Patrick's church. The church itself is closed to the public; there is a chapel open in the presbytery next door for our parish liturgical life and individual prayer. Many visitors ask "why is the church closed?" or "is it a big building project?" For both of these questions ... judge for yourself from the photo above. It's taken from the sanctuary area, towards the choir gallery at the back of the nave. Underneath the entire nave has been excavated to increase our basement space for parish gatherings, work with the homeless, and the Evangelisation School. SPES will contine to occupy the area underneath the church sanctuary, but with much-improved facilities.

Martyrs of China

Today we celebrated the memoria of Saint Augustine Zhao Rong and companions; martyrs in China . Relations between the Church and the government of the People's Republic of China are slowly but surely improving. We have had three SPES students from China ; please keep them in your prayers.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop of Hong Kong, visiting SPES in 2006

InVocation weekend

Benediction following a Eucharistic procession around the seminary.

I've just got back from a great weekend at InVocation, the national vocational discernment weekend at St Mary's College, Oscott. There were hundreds of young people and religious there (as well as three Archbishops) responding to God's call. The Lord calls us all to holiness, and each to a particular vocation in the Church; the conference encouraged us to seek and follow both callings. There was plenty of prayer time, including adoration through the night, and talks and workshops on different subjects. It was good to meet up with so many friends of SPES, and keep them up to date on everything happening here. Also, I was pleased to talk about SPES to many new people. There was, quite rightly, a lot of emphasis at InVocation on seminary formation and the religious life. As I said to someone at the conference, one of the aims of SPES is to provide a similar formation in the Christian life, to young adults who may have a lay vocation, or are still discerning their vocations.
You can see more photos from the event here. See if you can find the one of my back...

Left: SPES graduate Henry, serving as thurifer for the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle

InVocation 2010

The SPES house is fast emptying post-Graduation. Deanna has just flown home for the summer, to spend time with her family and renew her visa. She will be returning here to coordinate the SPES programme from September. Shi Rui will go home this week to China; we will be sad to see her go, but will keep in touch by prayer and email. We will miss her a lot.

Vincent is going to InVocation 2010, a vocations conference at Oscott College, Birmingham - one of four seminaries in England - expected to attract hundreds of young Catholics discerning their callings from God. Please keep this event in your prayers. We are hoping to meet young people who may be interested in SPES as part of their discernment process, when we open to new students from October 2011.

SPES 2010-2011

Thank you for your support for Saint Patrick’s Evangelisation School this year, particularly as we have been ‘homeless’ since April as the long-awaited restoration works have begun in our church and basement, forcing us to rely more than ever on the Lord’s providence and guidance.

We have just finished our eighth year of the School, with five young women graduating on 15^th June at a Mass celebrated by Bishop Alan Hopes, in Notre Dame de France Church, Leicester Square. It was a wonderful occasion to celebrate the hard work and progress of our students with so many of our friends. Aisling, Christina, Deanna, Lissette and Shi Rui have had an excellent year, journeying with the Lord to strengthen their faith, spreading the Good News, and discerning their vocations.

Our building work has forced us to take stock of our situation, as since April we have been ‘making do’ with a variety of temporary and inadequate facilities as the School has been evicted from its classroom, chapel, offices and dining room. While the students have coped magnificently, it seems that it would not be possible to give the same experience to our students next year as we have always endeavoured to provide in the past. Therefore it is with a heavy heart that we have decided not to run the School as a full-time programme for new students in 2010-2011.

I fully intend, however, that the work that we have been doing – evangelisation, forming young Catholics, being a praying presence in the heart of London – continue here until our refurbishment is complete. It is very important to me that we keep alive the ‘Spirit of SPES’ that the Holy Spirit has created here over the past eight years. I hope that you will take this chance to continue to support the work of SPES as we call upon your gifts. Edna dos Santos (’08) and Deanna Joy (’10) will coordinate all these activities and continue the SPES community life, so please keep in touch with them through the year.

The restored church and new parish centre are on course to be reopened by Archbishop Vincent Nichols on 31^st May 2011. Exact details will follow, but I do hope that you can put this date in your diaries now.

God willing, the School should open the doors of its new purpose-built facilities to the next cohort of students in October 2011. Therefore our recruitment process will continue.

I hope that you will continue to support SPES, particularly with your prayers in this time of transition. We keep you in our prayers.

Yours in Christ,

Father Alexander

Graduation 2010

The Graduation Mass 2010 was a wonderful occasion, with so many friends from the year. Congratulations to Christina, Deanna, Shi Rui, Lissette ande Aisling, on this exciting moment in their ongoing journey with the Lord.