Hope event, Indian harvest, roses blessing, coffee time

Latest news of interest to the East Anglia Catholic community includes a hope-filled youth event, a blessing of roses, an Indian harvest festival and a Macmillan coffee morning.

The parish of The Sacred Heart and St Oswald, Peterborough enjoyed an event organised by the Indian community as part of Onam harvest festivities on September 15, at St Oswald’s church (pictured above), reports Iris Montecalvo.

Onam is an annual harvest and cultural festival celebrated in Kerala, South India. At St Oswald’s church the Onam event started by creating beautiful rangolis made using flower petals arranged in intricate patterns.

Dressed in traditional white saris, the dancers performed around a lamp and a rangoli. The parishioners shared payasam, a dish of vermicelli, milk, raisins and cardamom.

Young people (Year 7+), especially those preparing for Confirmation, Catechists and Youth Leaders, are invited to HOPE! – a special event organised by the Diocesan Ignite Team to prepare to celebrate for World Youth Sunday later in November. It includes live music, inspiring talks, passionate prayer and good food!  It will be held at St John’s Cathedral Narthex from  2pm – 8pm (to include joining the parish vigil Mass) on Saturday November 9. Entry: £5 on the door. www.rcdea.org.uk/youth

St Pancras parish followed the Dominican custom of blessing roses and distributing them to parishioners at the end of Mass on October 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, reports Fr Joseph Welch.

“As a beautiful vase full of white, red, and yellow roses – representing the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries of the rosary – was blessed, parishioners gave thanks to Our Lady for all the many blessings she has showered upon them through the rosary. During the sermon at Mass it was explained that the blessing of roses constitutes, like so many other rites and ceremonies in the Church, a sacramental.

“By blessing the objects of devotion, in this case roses, the objects are separated from the profane world and are dedicated to God and set apart for a holy purpose. Unlike the Seven Sacraments themselves, which always bestow sanctifying grace, sacramentals – which can refer to prayers, blessings, but also to the items blessed, such as water, statues, rosaries, scapulars, and so forth – are employed to ask God to pour forth special graces, specified in the prayer of blessing, on those who make use of the sacramentals.

“Today’s blessing asked Almighty God to bless the sick in those houses to which the roses were then taken, and that all ‘powers of evil may flee in fear and terror’ from all those homes to which a blessed rose was then taken. Following the Blessing of Roses, the congregation retired to the Lady chapel to recite the daily rosary and sing the Salve Regina in honour of the feast, and the parish priest took blessed roses to each of the sick and housebound parishioners to whom he took Holy Communion later that day.”

St John’s Cathedral parishioners hosted their Annual MacMillan Coffee Morning, pictured below, on Friday October 4, so a big thanks to all who help make the morning enjoyable and successful – raising £772 for this very worthy cause reports Cecilia McKenna. 

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