FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY
(YEAR C)
WEEK: JANUARY 5TH - 11TH 2025
“Then shall you see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult…”
YOUR CHARITABLE PRAYERS are requested for our parishioners and friends, especially those whose names appear below.
SICK: John Green, Joan Killeen, Eileen Killeen, Christine Clarke, Tony Kenny, Luke Burke, Dominic Boardman, Connie Marrone, Alexander Loughlin, Mary Malone, Surya Duval, Margaret Lawless, Peter Barlow, Nynna Carpio, Terry Cummins, Elizabeth Flanagan, Margaret Williamson, Margaret Emsis
LATELY DEAD: Joseph McParland, Jim Bowker, Teresa McGarrigle, Anghel Alina, Win Powell, Jane Lord, Michael O’Rourke
ANNIVERSARIES: Richard Teefy, Pauline Jordan, Patricia Locke, Peter McDermott, Joe Beswick, Margaret Grudzien, Judith Dwyer, Margaret Hywell, Teresa Donovan, Brendan Sheehy, John McDermott, Peter Crossan, Dave Fanning
LAST WEEK'S COLLECTION: £906.77
Standing Order: £674.00 a month
CHURCH BOXES / DONATIONS
Caritas (Homeless) £20.00
Many thanks for your kind generosity.
Our Bank: Barclays Bank - Account Name: TSDT, Our Lady and St. Patrick’s, Oldham; Sort Code 20 55 34; Account Number 90652504; Reference: Contr.
THIS SUNDAY'S MISSALETTE & HYMNS Feast of the Epiphany - Missalette
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NOTICES:
All Masses will continue to be live streamed. A link is provided on the Parish website: www.smwsp.org.uk or via the Twitter App (@PhilipSumner13).
FIRST COMMUNION PROGRAMME FOR 2024-25
The next session will be on next Saturday,
11th January at 10.00am.
OCTAVE OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY (18TH – 25TH JANUARY) |
LENTEN STATION MASSES FOR 2025
The Lenten Station Masses for 2025 will begin on 11th March at St. Jospeh’s, Mossley. Then, on 18th March, we will be in St. Herbert’s, Chadderton. On 25th March, we will be at Ss. Aidan and Oswald’s, Royton. On the 1st April, we will be at St. Anne’s in Ashton. Then, finally, on 8th April, we will be at St Edward’s, Lees. All these Masses will be at 7.00pm.
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY (HMD) takes place each year on 27th January. Holocaust Memorial Day is a day that we put aside to come together to remember, to learn about the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and the genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur, in the hope that there may be one day in the future with no genocide. |
CONFIRMATION PROGRAMME FOR 2025
Fr. Callum, who organises this programme, has informed us that it is being carried out this year in both Newman College and St. Damian’s High School. The programme will begin on Monday 17th February at 3.30pm-5pm (Newman College) or on Tuesday 18th February at 3.30-5pm (St. Damian’s). If there are young people who don’t go to either of these schools who want to be on the programme, it is planned to do a further series of meetings. There will be seven sessions in all, the last one being a reconciliation service. The confirmations will take place at 7pm on 4th June at St. Mary’s Failsworth, or a 7pm. 5th June at St. Edward’s, Lees. The Bishop will carry out the confirmations in both churches. Young people of Year 8 age group and older can register. Forms for registering will be available after Christmas.
SPECIAL DAYS THIS WEEK |
THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS
The Feast of the Epiphany, as we celebrate it today, focuses on the arrival of the Magi, but it wasn’t always the case. Initially, this day celebrated several different events through which God manifested himself to humanity, including the baptism of the Lord and the marriage feast of Cana. The word, ‘epiphany’ means a ‘revelation’ and is often associated with a ‘light bulb moment’, when we see ourselves perhaps stumbling around in the darkness, and then, as if someone has suddenly turned the light on, we see or understand something we didn’t before. It can be a very ordinary event that gives us such a ‘light bulb moment’. For Archimedes, it was simply having a bath and realising the scientific principle that the volume of water displaced is equal to the volume of the body submerged.
So, what’s the aspect of God that Matthew is trying to enable us to glimpse today? He uses all sorts of symbolism in the telling of this story that requires a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. Helpfully, two of these pieces of Scripture being referred to are used as the first reading and the responsorial psalm today. Isaiah had spoken of gentiles, with kings among them, bringing gold and incense before the God of Israel. Now, Matthew does not make any mention of kings; he only speaks of ‘Magi’ (astronomers and astrologers); it’s tradition and culture that has developed the notion of three kings, no doubt helped by today’s psalm, which refers to kings and mentions just three of them. There’s one from Tarshish (in Spain), another from Sheba (in Yemen) and a third from Seba (in Ethiopia). Again, as I often point out, these pieces of Scripture were written hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, but Matthew is clearly suggesting their fulfilment in the events surrounding Jesus’ birth. It's important to make a link too with another biblical story, that of the Queen of Sheba coming to visit King Solomon, the son of King David, to see his wisdom in practice. Matthew is suggesting, in his telling of the visit of the Magi, that, in Jesus, we have a much greater and truer ‘Son of David’. In fact, later in his Gospel, he will make direct reference to this (Mtt 12:42).
This feast invites us to recognise God guiding us and speaking to us through the ordinary things in life. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a woman of African descent, called Harriet Tubman, escaped from slavery in Maryland (USA) and travelled north to freedom in Canada. Then she returned several times to help other enslaved people to escape to freedom. On different occasions, she avoided capture by listening to her dreams, and, like the Magi in the Gospel today, taking different routes. She had a real sense of God guiding her, both by her dreams and by the interventions of different people, and by following the North star.