Author: Margaret

Holy Week
Masses and
Services
Parish of
St Bernard of Clairvaux
2026
2009

Prayer of St Bernard of Clairvaux and Reflection
Lord, you have passed over into new life, and you now invite us to pass over also. In these past days we have grieved at your suffering and mourned at your death. We have given ourselves over to repentance and prayer, to abstinence and gravity. Now at Easter you tell us that we have died to sin. Yet, if this is true, how can we remain on Earth? How can we pass over to your risen life, while we are still in this world? Will we not be just as meddlesome, just as lazy, just as selfish as before? Will we not still be bad-tempered and stubborn, enmeshed in all the vices of the past? We pray that as we pass over with you, our faces will never look back. Instead, let us, like you, make Heaven on Earth. Amen
The Palm Sunday Procession
I want you to see in this procession, dearest brethren, an image of the glory of our heavenly fatherland, and in the Passion the way that leads to it. For the trials of this present time are the way to life, the way to glory, the way to the holy city, the way to the kingdom of God according to the witness of the thief who said from his cross “Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The thief beheld Christ on his way to his kingdom and begged to be remembered by him when he arrived there. He also came there as a result of his prayer; and by how short a journey you may gather from the fact that he was deemed worthy to be with the Lord in Paradise on that very day.
Thus the glory of the procession renders the pains of the Passion easy to endure, because nothing appears difficult to the soul that loves.
Our Need of Christ
Without doubt the whole human race labours under a three-fold misery, which painfully oppresses everyone who lives in this region of the shadow of death, subject to the infirmities of the flesh and the assaults of temptation. For we are easily led astray; we soon weary of labour; we quickly yield to violence. We are deceived when we try to discern between good and evil; we faint and give up as often as we undertake a good work; if we try to resist evil, we are promptly cast down and overcome.
Very necessary therefore is the coming of the Savior. Very necessary is the presence of Christ for us so surrounded by dangers. God grant that he may not only come to us, but that he may also dwell in us by faith to enlighten our blindness. That he may remain with us by grace to assist our utter powerlessness and stand by us with his power to protect and defend our fragility. If he remains with us surely we can do all things in him who strengthens us. If he is for us who can be against us?
Sister, brother, let your heart burst with jubilation on this night, this holy night! Together let us sing of Jesus’ resurrection: “Sing to him, everything sing to him: rivers and plains, deserts and mountains … Sing to the Lord of life, risen from the tomb, more brilliant than a thousand suns. All peoples beset by evil and plagued by injustice, all peoples displaced and devastated: on this holy night cast aside your songs of sadness and despair. The Man of Sorrows is no longer in prison: he has opened a breach in the wall; he is hastening to meet you. In the darkness, let an unexpected shout of joy resound: He is alive; he is risen! And you, my brothers and sisters, small and great ... you who are weary of life, who feel unworthy to sing… let a new flame be kindled in your heart, let new vitality be heard in your voice. It is the Pasch of the Lord, brothers and sisters; it is the feast of the living” (J-Y. QUELLEC, Dieu face nord, Ottignies, 1998, 85-86).
him by the generic name “God”. And “in a loud voice” he asks the question “why?”, the most excruciating “why?”: “Why did you too abandon me?”. These words are in fact those of a Psalm (cf. 22:2); they tell us that Jesus also brought the experience of extreme desolation to his prayer. But the fact remains that he himself experienced that desolation: he experienced the utmost abandonment, which the Gospels testify to by quoting his very words.
Why did all this take place? Once again, it was done for our sake, to serve us. So that when we have our back to the wall, when we find ourselves at a dead end, with no light and no way of escape, when it seems that God himself is not responding, we should remember that we are not alone. Jesus experienced total abandonment in a situation he had never before experienced in order to be one with us in everything. He did it for me, for you, for all of us; he did it to say to us: “Do not be afraid, you are not alone. I experienced all your desolation in order to be ever close to you”. That is the extent to which Jesus served us: he descended into the abyss of our most bitter sufferings, culminating in betrayal and abandonment. Today, in the tragedy of a pandemic, in the face of the many false securities that have now crumbled, in the face of so many hopes betrayed, in the sense of abandonment that weighs upon our hearts, Jesus says to each one of us: “Courage, open your heart to my love. You will feel the consolation of God who sustains you”.
Brothers and sisters, today God continues to fill our minds and hearts with amazement. Let us be filled with that amazement as we gaze upon the crucified Lord. May we too say: “You are truly the Son of God. You are my God”.
Pope Francis Palm Sunday 2021
Masses and Services for 2021
at St George and St Martin’s Christmastide
Solemnity of Mary Mother of God
Friday 1st January
10.30 am
Second Sunday of Christmas
Sunday 3rd January
9.30 am
Monday 4th and 5th January Mass offered privately
Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
Wednesday 6th January 9.30 am
Times of Masses and Services at
Our Lady and St Benedict’s
Second Sunday of Christmas
Saturday 2nd January
5.00 pm
Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
Wednesday 6th January Midday
Thursday 7th January Mass offered privately
Friday 8th January 10.00 am
Saturday

Times of Masses and Services
All Masses and Services are in St George and St Martin’s unless otherwise stated.
Holy Thursday 2nd April
Mass of the Lord’s Supper 7.00 pm
(Watching at the Altar of Repose until 10.00 pm)
Good Friday 3rd April
Solemn Liturgy of the Lord’s
Passion 3.00 pm
Stations of the Cross with
Veneration of the Cross 7.30 pm
(at Our Lady’s and St Benedict’s)
Holy Saturday 4th April
Office of Readings and
Morning Prayer 10.00 am
Easter Vigil 7.15 pm Underwood Family
Bob and Robert Skelding, Barbara Flanagan
Easter Sunday 5th April
9.30 am People of the Parish
(Especially the Sick and Housebound)
11.00 am John and Margaret Corbishley/ Silna Paul Manjaly
(at Our Lady and St Benedict’s)
Christmas Eve Thursday 24th December
Vigil Mass: 5.00 pm
Rose and Jack Humphreys
Mass of Midnight at 9.00 pm
Cross, Stott, Slater,
Mannion, Pope Families
Christmas Day Mass Friday 25th December
Morning Mass at 9.00 am
Winifred Brenda and Walter Cliff and William Miller
St Stephen’s Day Mass
Saturday 26th December
10.00 am Ajala Family Intentions
Feast of the Holy Family
Sunday 27th December
9.30 am
Feast of the Holy Innocents
Monday 28th December 10.00 am
Reg and Madge Casey
Easter Monday: 22nd April 10.00 am
Holy Trinity Newcastle.
Easter Tuesday: 23rd April
7.00 pm Des and
Desmond MacNamara

Easter Monday 6thApril 10.00 am at Sacred Heart, Tunstall (Easter Monday Mass with
Bishop Timothy Menezes)
Easter Wednesday 8th April 9.45 am (at OLSB)
John and Mary Meehan
Easter Thursday 9th April 9.45 am
Luby Family (Int)
Easter Friday 10thApril
9.45 am (at OLSB) Fr Thomas Cockburn
Easter Saturday 11th April
10.00 am Ferns Family
Second Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday Saturday 11th April
5.00pm Kate, Des and Desmond MacNamara
(at OLSB)
Second Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday 12th April 9.30 am Cyril and Maud Mayland
I wish you and all your families a very happy and blessed Easter Fr Adrian
Fr Adrian
Times of Masses and Services at
Our Lady and St Benedict’s
Christmas Eve Thursday 24th December
7.15 pm Margaret Corbishley
Feast of St Thomas Becket Bishop and Martyr
Tuesday 29th December 10.00 am Fr Brendan Donlon
Sixth Day within the octave of Christmas
Wednesday 30th December 10.00 am
Meehan and Ferns Family
Seventh Day within the Octave of Christmas
Thursday 31st December Private Funeral Mass
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Masses and Services for 2021
Solemnity of Mary Mother of God
Divine Mercy Sunday
27th April
(at Our Lady and St Benedict’s)
5.00 pm Anthony Bloor
Second Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday 28th April
9.30 am Antonio Angotti
5.00 pm Rosa and
Salvatore Galante
I wish you and all your families a very happy and blessed Easter.
Fr Adrian

I want you to see in this procession, dearest brethren, an image of the glory of our heavenly fatherland, and in the Passion the way that leads to it. For the trials of this present time are the way to life, the way to glory, the way to the holy city, the way to the kingdom of God according to the witness of the thief who said from his cross “Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Thus the glory of the procession renders the pains of the Passion easy to endure, because nothing appears difficult to the soul that loves.