Kevin Jones

Holy Week Schedule

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Palm Sunday 29th March
8.30am Low Mass
10.30am Sung Mass & Procession
4.30pm Solemn Vespers & Benediction

Maundy Thursday 2nd April
8.30am Tenebrae
7pm Sung Mass & Procession
Adoration until Midnight

Good Friday 3rd April
8.30am Tenebrae
2pm Stations of the Cross
3pm Mass of the Presanctified

Holy Saturday 4th April
8.30am Tenebrae
6pm Easter Vigil Mass

Easter Sunday 5th April
8.30am Low Mass
10.30am Sung Mass
4.30pm Solemn Vespers & Benediction

 

Holy Week is an extraordinary time for the entire community, filled with many graces. Pray for the catechumens throughout the world who will be received into Holy Mother Church. At Ss. Peter & Paul and St. Philomena, we look forward to the baptism of Curtis Ronan on the evening of Holy Saturday. Congratulations, Curtis!

Note carefully the extra confession times available this week. Holy Mother Church requires every practising Catholic to make a confession at least once per year and to receive Holy Communion during Eastertide.

Thursday 2 – 6 pm
Friday 12– 2 pm
Saturday 3 – 5 pm

We have our usual adoration time at 5.30pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Holy Thursday, following the evening Mass, there will be adoration at the altar of repose until Midnight. The special office of Tenebrae will be sung in our church on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8.30am. Tenebrae consists of the singing of psalms and the reading of prophecies and sermons from the Church Fathers which instruct us in the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. Latin-English booklets are provided.

Two seminarians will be joining us this week, enabling us to have the rare privilege of Solemn ceremonies with deacon and sub-deacon throughout the Triduum. Deo gratias!

Lenten Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Shrewsbury

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Lenten Pastoral Letter

A Church Ready for Converts

My dear brothers and sisters,

As Lent begins, we see a growing number of men and women, many of them young adults, who are seeking faith and baptism. This stream of new converts is evident across our Diocese and country and indeed across the western world. It is all the more remarkable because this new generation of converts have been drawn to the Church by no special initiative on our part, rather by the constancy of faith, the reverence of worship and the authentic witness they have found. They may be statistically small in number compared with the overall decline of Christianity in our land, yet their search for Christ and His Church represents a moment of grace.

As Shrewsbury Diocese began its mission some 175 years ago, Saint John Henry Newman spoke of “a Church ready for converts.” Seeing so many today, often coming from no religious background to find the faith of the Church, I recalled these words of Cardinal Newman. We must now be ready to support new converts who are seeking Christ and His Church amid all the confusions of our time.

At the beginning of Lent, the Scriptures remind us of the deceptions which have marked humanity’s struggle from the very dawn of history and of Christ’s victory over Satan in the wilderness (i). It is with Christ that we are to renounce the evil one who seeks to pervert all that is good and true (ii). It should not surprise us that, through the shadows of our time, many are coming in search of Christ, the truth of His teaching and all the means of grace He has entrusted to His Church in the Sacraments, and supremely in His Eucharist.

The journey of these new converts brings us back to the original purpose of Lent as the time when adults prepared for Baptism. The Church quickly recognised this time was needed by all the baptised as part of their continuing conversion.

It is for this reason, that we now keep these 40 Lenten days devoted to greater prayer, self-denial and generosity as we each prepare to renew at Easter the promises of our Baptism, confess our sins and receive the Holy Eucharist with ever renewed faith and love. It is by striving to live our own conversion that we can best support a new generation of converts. For Lent calls us to recognise that every member of the Church must always be a convert.

On my visits to parishes, I often remind you of the many thousands of souls in every place who depend so much on your prayer and faithfulness. Today, with a prayer card distributed at Mass, I invite you to pray for all those in your lives and for the many adults who are seeking the faith and the new life of Baptism. May we truly be a Church of converts, that is always “ready for converts.”

United in this prayer, and as a convert with you,

+ Mark
Bishop of Shrewsbury

Ash Wednesday

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Ash Wednesday: Lent begins this year on Wednesday, 18th February. Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting and abstinence. The blessing and imposition of ashes will be at 6.30pm, followed by the Mass.

40 Hours Devotion – Quarant’Ore

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The Forty Hours Devotion (Quarant’Ore) is one of the most beautiful and contemplative traditions in Catholic spirituality. It is a devotion that speaks deeply to anyone who values reverence, safeguarding of the sacred, and the quiet strengthening of a community’s spiritual life. The Forty Hours Devotion is a period of continuous Eucharistic adoration lasting (as the name suggests) around forty hours. During this time, the Blessed Sacrament is exposed on the altar, and the faithful keep watch in prayer, silence, and reflection.

It is a communal act of love and reparation, but also a profoundly personal encounter with Christ present in the Eucharist.

Why “Forty Hours”?

The number forty carries deep biblical symbolism:

  • 40 hours traditionally recalls the time Jesus lay in the tomb.
  • 40 days of the Flood
  • 40 years in the desert
  • 40 days of Jesus’ fasting before His public ministry

In Scripture, forty is a number of testing, purification, and preparation — and the devotion mirrors that rhythm.

On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (15th – 17th February), Adoration will be from 4pm to 6pm each day.