Bro John: there will be an opportunity for all to thank, and bid farewell, to Bro John this Sunday after the 9.00am Mass.

Do join us for a cup of tea/coffee in the John Boste Room at St Godric’s. We will follow same at St Joseph’s the following weekend in the Jubilee Room after the 10.30am Mass at St Joseph’s. Those in charge of the usual teas and coffees in both churches, please take note.

Also, we will have a retiring collection for a charity, or charities, of Bro John’s preference after all Masses, the weekend of the 12/13th September.

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The parish pilgrimage to Holy Island takes place this Saturday. It seems appropriate that Dan Snow followed the footsteps of St. Columba last Tuesday on BBC 4.

Those travelling on Saturday to Holy Island might find it particularly worth revisiting. You can access it on BBC iPlayer.

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Welcome back to school staff and pupils.

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Just received the sad news of the death of Jane Wilcockson’s husband, Robin, after a brave fight against cancer. Our deepest sympathies and prayers are with you, Jane and family.

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Some reflections by Wendell Berry, American poet and author, who died this week aged 92:

I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love.

I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement.

HOW TO BE A POET:

Sit down. Be quiet.

Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly.

Live a three-dimensional life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come out of the silence

THE ONLY SUFFICIENT ANSWER:

The only sufficient answer is to give up the animosity and try forgiveness, to try to love our enemies and to talk to them and (if we pray) to pray for them. If we can't do any of that, then we must begin again by trying to imagine our enemies' children who, like our children, are in mortal danger because of enmity that they did not cause.