Bereavement Support Group
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" - Matthew 5:4
Our Bereavement Support Group provides Church services and home visits or phone calls to support our parishioners who have had a bereavement.
Our Church Services
Celebration of the Lives of Loved Ones
This Mass is held on a Saturday morning around Pentecost time and is an opportunity to reflect on the lives of loved ones and celebrate their lives with the laying of a flower in their memory. We provide refreshments afterwards and the chance to chat with others.
Memorial Sunday Mass of Remembrance
This Mass is held on a Sunday afternoon in November and is aimed at those parishioners who have lost a loved one in the past year. We invite you to light a candle in their name and share seasonal refreshments with us afterwards. We also light a large candle for each of our three Mass centres to commemorate all those we have lost.
Coffee Mornings
As well as our more formal services, we also hold occasional coffee mornings after Saturday morning Mass, as announced in the bulletin.
Home visits or phone calls
We can also visit you at home, for a supportive chat. We are guided by Fr Colm on the need for these visits, or you can request a visit by contacting the Parish Secretary.
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Resources for the bereaved and those suffering grief or loss provided by the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle can be found here
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A quote from Kathryn Mannix from her book With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial “Bereaved people, even those who have witnessed the apparently peaceful death of a loved one, often need to tell their story repeatedly, and that is an important part of transferring the experience they endured into a memory, instead of reliving it like a parallel reality every time they think about it.”