Embedded Files
Christmas 2024
We wish all our Parishioners and Visitors a blessed Christmas
and a Happy New Year 2025
Mass times are as follows
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December 24th: Christmas Family Mass (with Children's Nativity play) at 5pm
December 24th: Christmas Mass during the night at 9pm
December 25th: Christmas Dawn Mass at 10am
December 25th: Christmas Mass during the day: 12 noon
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December 26th: Feast of St. Stephen - Mass at 11am
December 27th: Feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist - Mass at 10.15am
December 28th: Feast of the Holy Innocents - Mass at 11am
December 28th: Vigil Mass for the Feast of the Holy Family - Mass at 7pm
December 29th: Feast of the Holy Family - Mass at 10am and 12noon
December 30th: 6th Day of Christmas - Mass at 10.15am
December 31st: 7th Day of Christmas - Mass at 10.15am
January 1st: Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God - Mass at 11am
Christmas
by
John Betjeman
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.
The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
"The church looks nice" on Christmas Day.
Provincial Public Houses blaze
And Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says "Merry Christmas to you all."
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say "Come!'"
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
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