OUR LADY Of LOURDes & sT. JOsePH’s, KeIGHLeY Parish Priest: Fr Dennis Cassidy, St Joseph’s Presbytery, Queens Road, Keighley BD21 1AT (01535) 681861

pp.ourladystjoseph@dioceseofleeds.org.uk www.ourlady-stjoseph.org.uk

Diocese of Leeds Registered Charity Number 249404

Sunday 19th

April 2020

Date & Place Time Mass Intention Feast

Saturday 18th

6pm People of the Parish Vigil, Second Sunday of Easter

Sunday 19th

10am Sr Elizabeth (Sick) Second Sunday of Easter

Monday 20th

9am Pat Gilmartin (A) Weekday of Easter

Tuesday 21st 9am Nel & Alf Bates (A) Weekday of Easter

Wednesday 22nd

9am Maureen Harford (B. Day Rem.) Wednesday of the Easter Octave

Thursday 23rd

9am Doreen Clayton (LD) St George, Patron of England

Friday 24th

9am Mary Scanlon (LD) Weekday of Easter

Saturday 25th

9am

6pm

Gerard Isbecque (LD)

People of the Parish St Mark the Evangelist

Vigil, Third Sunday of Easter

Saturday Confessions: On request

Mass Offerings received: Denise Kerry (LD); Pat Berry (LD); Terry Read (LD); Doreen Clayton (LD);

Nel & Alf Bates (A); Pat Gilmartin (A); Maureen Harford (B.Day Rem.); Ann Melvin (Mother’s Day Rem.);

Sr Elizabeth (Sick).

Please Pray for the Sick: Peter Connor, Bernard Tarpy, Lorna Lynch, Stephen Hanson, Maureen Conor, Frank Kofler,

Abby Carter, Sarah Howell, Catrina Farnell, Bill Forde, Sheila Scott, Luke Yates, Maureen Simpson, Mary Connolly

Kathryn Inman (Allen), Maria Andrews, Josie Butler, Betty Emmett, Ann Loiacono, Kathleen Lunney-Walsh,

Matthew Goulden, Amy Knowles, Rita Watson, Chris Brady, and Eva Swidrak.

Video Mass from the Presbytery: Since this situation is going to continue for at least another three weeks, we also

intend to continue video Masses. If you would like to participate by recording readings etc. from home, please let Fr

Dennis know and he will send you the details of how to do this.

For those who haven’t watched it yet, Fr Dennis’s Easter Mass from last week is available on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/I54jNSSef4I

Just like last week, you will receive a separate email when this week’s video link is available. You can also

subscribe to the Parish YouTube channel to be notified when new videos are available. You can do this from the

video link above, and click on the red ‘SUBSCRIBE’ button.

Rest in Peace: We pray for the repose of the souls of Eileen Kates, Josie Trant (Fr Dennis’ aunt); Thomas Lawlor,

Julianna O’Donnell and Patrick Berry who have died recently. May they rest in peace and rise in glory. We offer our

deep sympathy and prayers to their families and friends.

Mass Offerings: Mass Intentions can be emailed to Father Dennis, and the offering can be made via online banking

with the reference ‘Mass Offering’. Alternatively, you can write a letter and include a cheque (payable to Diocese of

Leeds - Our Lady of Lourdes) and either post it or pop it through Fr Dennis's letter box.

Telephone Conversations: Many people are now using the telephone much more to keep in touch. Fr Dennis was

speaking to Mgr Paul Fisher earlier in the week, who you will know because he has celebrated Mass in the Parish

while Fr Dennis was away. He told him he needed some keys cutting so he went to Timpson’s but was surprised to

find it was shut because he thought they were key workers!! On the way home he challenged a man who was

kicking in a back door to which the man responded, “It’s OK mate I’m a professional burglar but because of all this

I am working from home.”!! I think Fr Mike Walsh has got competition...

CAFOD Boxes: Please keep your CAFOD Lenten boxes until Mass resumes in church. By then they will no doubt

be overflowing and we can send a big donation to help CAFOD in its work. Thank you for your generosity.

Offertory Collections: Our primary concern remains that of the health and wellbeing of all our parishioners.

However, we are aware that parish income has obviously reduced significantly since public Masses have been

suspended. The past weeks have seen offertory income drop by at least 80%.

We would like to thank all parishioners who have already responded to this appeal by starting to give by standing

order, or by sending cheques, or posting through Fr Dennis’s letter box. We also thank those who were already

doing this. Due to the ongoing situation for the foreseeable future, your Parish is in need of your support. If you

are able to, please consider making your offertory by online banking or setting up a standing order, details of which

are available on request.

There is now a big ‘DONATE’ button on the top of the Parish website, and you may also contribute £5 to the Parish

Offertory by texting CHURCH OLSJ to 70500

Cheques (payable to Diocese of Leeds - Our Lady of Lourdes) with details enclosed, including envelope numbers,

may also be posted c/o Fr Cassidy at the Presbytery, St Joseph’s RC Church, Queens Road, BD21 1AT.

Thank you for your continued support.

Live-streamed Mass from Leeds Cathedral: Regular streams currently include 11am Sunday Mass, 10:30am Daily Mass and 12 noon Regina Caeli followed by the Rosary (Regina Caeli replaces the Angelus in Eastertide).

This Sunday, the 2nd Sunday of Easter, is also Divine Mercy Sunday. At 3pm there will be live-streamed (in the context of Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament) the Divine Mercy devotions, including the Chaplet and Litany of Divine Mercy.

Please check the latest details on the YouTube channel via www.leedscathedrallive.org.uk Lots of links, Mass times and intentions, and other information are also on the Diocesan home page www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk/ and also the Cathedral’s own page www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk/cathedral

Links to any Orders of Service etc. are shown by clicking “Show More” on the YouTube video pages, which greatly assists joining in with the responses and hymns.

Don’t forget also that on the following pages of this document there is a Reflection by Fr Dennis, plus our parish Bidding Prayers, and the Mass readings. In this way, we can still join together as a parish, in spiritual communion.

Holy Mass on Demand: The holy Mass is being broadcast in English every half an hour from different churches in

the world online at https://mass-online.org/ There are also some links to Mass in other languages in the comments

where people have asked where they can find this information.

Catholic Care Community Response Service: To support those in our Catholic communities who are sick, self-

isolating, have been adversely financially impacted, or are finding it difficult to cope, a team of Catholic Care

workers will be available to support parishioners and families in a number of ways. Please see this link for more

details: http://www.ourlady-stjoseph.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cath-Care-Comm-Help.pdf

Parish Bulletin: If you are not currently on the list but would like to receive this newsletter by email, it is now easy

to sign up yourself via the Parish website. The signup form is on the front page.

Our Parish Online: Much more parish information is on our website, and Facebook page (see “Useful Links” tab).

Second Sunday of Easter, Year A, Sunday 19th April 2020

Over the past few days I have heard many clerics linking the first Easter

to the situation we find ourselves in at the present moment. We, like those first

Apostles, find our movements curtailed, not being able to live our usual way of

life. Social distancing means that we cannot see, touch or hug those that we love

if they live outside our household. We need to acknowledge that these are

indeed tough times!

The Gospel reading today begins, “In the evening of that same day, the

first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples

were, for fear of the Jews.” They were a frightened group of men who were

huddled together in the upper room. Their recent experience was debilitating.

They were hiding away because of their devastation at the loss of Jesus, which

caused them great fear and anxiety. Over a period of three years they had come

to know Jesus. They witnessed His goodness, His teaching and His call for a

more sincere following of the Jewish faith. Moreover, He had revealed God as a

loving Father who He refers to as “Abba”, just as a young child would call their

father “Daddy”.

John’s Gospel presents to us the image of St Thomas as a wounded man

who refused to believe the others when they told him that they had “seen the

Lord”. This whole incident has led us to refer to Thomas as “Doubting

Thomas”. Yet this, as with any of us, is not the whole picture of who Thomas

was, because like the rest of us, if we judge him using only one incident of his

life, then we get a distorted version of who he in fact was.

One of the themes that all the Gospels share is the growing opposition to

Jesus and his teaching by the religious authorities of the time. John’s Gospel

explicitly states that when the sisters, Martha and Mary, ask Jesus to come and

visit their sick brother Lazarus in Bethany, which was only two miles away from

Jerusalem which was the seat of the religious authority and thus the centre of

opposition to Jesus, His disciples say to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is not long since the

Jews wanted to stone you; are you going back again?”

One can almost hear their incredulity and indeed their fear. How could

Jesus possibly set His face to Jerusalem and face the threat of the wrath of the

religious authorities? Jesus, despite their opposition, is determined not only to

visit Lazarus but to face head on the opposition to His Saving Mission despite

any fear He may have. John tells us that this same Thomas that we call Doubting

Thomas says to the others, “Let us go too and die with Him”. We see clearly the

tremendous loyalty and love that Thomas had for the Lord. His experience of the

Passion and Death of Jesus left him deeply wounded so much so that he refused

to believe the words of his brothers the disciples. We are told that Jesus appears

again and Thomas is with them. Jesus invites him touch his wounds, and

through that encounter with the Risen Lord, Thomas is healed through the risen

wounds of Christ

After the Resurrection the disciples began to tell the story of Jesus, and in their

joy they experienced Jesus risen from the dead, not as a ghost or some distant

memory, but as a living vibrant person who, in this new risen state was able to

transform their lives giving them courage to go out as His witness to a world

that needed to hear His message of good news. The fear that had been so

debilitating to them was transformed so much so that, they not only faced their

fear head on, but they met to worship in a group at the Temple every day and

met in their homes for the breaking of bread. People around them, we are told in

the Acts of the Apostles, began to notice them, “they shared their food gladly

and generously; they praised God and were looked up to by everyone. Day by

day the Lord added to their community those destined to be saved.”

Those who first came to know Jesus were from the society that had

rejected Jesus and ultimately who had tried to destroy Him through the scandal

of the cross. Rather than condemn the people for this act, they invited them to

believe in Jesus and to know that, even from great sorrow, God can create a

good that has the ability to transform people’s lives. We are all privileged to

share in the faith that has been handed down to us right from the time of Christ;

our duty is to live our lives according to the truth that was displayed in the life

and teaching of Jesus. It is by living in this way that God’s love comes to

perfection in us; “you did not see him, yet you love him; and still without seeing

him, you are already filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described,

because you believe; and you are sure of the end to which your faith looks

forward, that is, the salvation of your souls.”

God Bless

Dennis Cassidy

Let us bring the needs of our wounded world before God.

We pray for the leaders and ministers in the Church: that Christ’s Church may

be built up in holiness and love.

Lord, hear us

We pray for those who govern and wield power in the world: that they may have

integrity and wisdom.

Lord, hear us.

We pray that all who are baptised may grow in a lively and joyful faith.

Lord, hear us.

We pray that all who are suffering from the wounds of the world, especially at

this time, may feel the healing touch of God upon them.

Lord, hear us.

We pray for those who are bereaved and those who have died, especially Eileen

Kates, Josie Trant, Thomas Lawlor, Julianna O’Donnell and Patrick Berry. We

entrust their loving families to the Lord and pray that all those who have died

may rest in peace and rise in glory.

We ask Our Lady of Lourdes to join her prayers with ours. Hail Mary…

Heavenly Father, we ask you to hear us and grant all that fulfils your will in us,

through Christ our risen Lord.

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