Thought from Fr. Colm - 23rd November 2025

We celebrate our annual Memorial Sunday Mass of Remembrance this Sunday afternoon at 3.00pm in St. Joseph’s.

Families who have been bereaved during the past year will be lighting candles for their loved ones.  It is an opportunity to be amongst other parishioners who also suffered bereavement during the year.

Fr. Colm will light three larger candles – one for St. Joseph’s, one for St. Godric’s and one for St. Bede’s Chapel – which will be lit at every Mass until Christmas.  These represent deceased members of the wider parish and our families and friends,

All are welcome, and please do join us in the Jubilee Room afterwards for seasonal refreshments.

Next Saturday morning (29^th), we have our Parish Community Christmas Fayre from 10.30am-12.30pm.  Once again we have been overwhelmed at the generosity of parishioners who very kindly responded to our requests for items over the past few weeks.

Please do join us and see the amazing stalls manned by various external and parish groups, not forgetting Santa’s Grotto!

Thought from Fr. Colm - 16th November 2025

The  Lumière is upon us again. Let’s hope it continues for years to come.  St. Godric’s will be open between 5pm and 8pm.

  The Christmas Fayre is coming up. Volunteers always needed.

  Thank you to those who have generously offered their services in response to the Bishop’s recent appeal for school governors.

Can I ask for volunteers to be Eucharistic Ministers. Succession is so important for the future of our parish.

“Just as a person who is always asserting that he is too good-natured is the very one from whom to expect, on some occasion, the coldest and most unconcerned cruelty, so when any group sees itself as the bearer of civilization this very belief will betray it into behaving barbarously at the first opportunity.”  

Simone Weil

Thought from Fr. Colm - 9th November 2025

The poem below has been written by one of our parishioners – James Gilman – and has been used in services at Durham Cathedral and elsewhere. It has also been accepted by the British Army and the Royal Navy for use in military bases around the world and has been added to the Royal British Legion's list for possible use in future National Remembrance Services. A wonderful achievement.

THE POPPIES PRAYER

The poppies fall.

Their crimson tears

Like shrapnel, piercing every heart

Of those who mourn the dying blood

Enshrouding friend and foe alike

On Flanders Field.

So scour our conscience

With your flood

Till we ensure that never more

Shall nations let Death’s bloody dance

Seduce the souls of friend and foe.

Like Flanders Field