Welcome
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) . . . . . even to Truro. . . .
Mission Year 2010
To renew ourselves and encourage each other in our faith,
enabling us to reach out to the wider community.
| Thursday | 28 Oct |
7.00 for 7.30pm |
Dinner with Ann Widdecombe at The Falmouth Hotel in the Trelawney Restaurant for a 3 course dinner. £35 per person - on sale early September. |
For the Mission Prayer see Parish Intercessions
Mission Blog: Sunday 14 February
The final Mass of the Mission!
Fr Ged, being from Manchester gave us a choice: in our faith, to be like a meandering river, eventually reaching the sea the long way round, or to be like the Manchester Ship Canal, a near straight line from Manchester to the sea- built by people of vision and resolve?
Are our roots close to the water of life, thrusting down into the stream, like the tree in today’s reading from the prophet Jeremiah (17:5-8)? Or are we like dry scrub in the wastelands, trusting in ourselves alone, the way that leads to doom?
The words of the Psalm (No 1)Response sung by Andy echo this choice:
“Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord” .
And reinfored by the Gospel from Luke 6, the words of Jesus:
“How happy are you who are poor. Alas for you who are rich”.
Hard choices?
The Lord wants us to be positive, to choose life. Jesus wants us tofollow Him and the footprints now leading down from the altar of our Church and out into Truro. The wonderful mime by Monica and Beki for the children showed us that the only way we can take the message of Jesus out to Truro is using our hands, our legs, our feet ...
So come “Follow Me”.
Thank you Fr Ged and Sion Mission!
PS you can catch a brief interview with Fr Ged on the BBC Radio Cornwall Faith Programme at about 7.20am -you can hear it on the BBC Radio Cornwall website i-player anytime for the rest of this week!
Mission Blog: Friday 12 February
Our reading from Jeremiah 1:4-10 was acted out by Monica and Beki using a twisting yellow streamer to represent the action of the Lord. A time of sharing followed when parishioners told us how they had experienced the Holy Spirit in the Mission-e.g.-going out with the visiting team-having confidence- a last minute visit to a parishioners husband-early mass-adoration-a talk about Our Lady’s role-lectio divina prayer experience….etc
The Gospel proclamation was the sending out of the disciples at the end of Mathew 28:16-20.
Fr Ged elaborated on our theme “How am I to do this?”. For us it is impossible, but not for the Lord….! We were reminded of Mary’s puzzlement: “How can this come about?”. God’s answer was that the Holy Spirit will come upon you. God’s answer to all situations is the Holy Spirit-but He comes under the Father’s control, not ours. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self control. (Galatians 5:22). Whilst the Holy Spirit first came down on the first Pentecost, today we can still tune in to the ripples of that explosion of God’s power! Just as Jesus at the age of 30 was empowered by the Spirit to ministry so the same Spirit prompted the Church then and now to reach out to proclaim the Gospel.
We were led to pray our Mission prayer-
For a new vision of your glory and a new experience of your power - to bring our faith to life.
For a new faithfulness to your Word-to a new commitment to reading Scripture.
For a new consecration to your service- a new availability to others in our family, parish, and community.
To have time for all these new things we have to lay down some things to make space.
Then we were invited to pray for a particular anointing of the Holy Spirit on a situation or person, and we could go up for individual prayer for that intention.
Finally we were commissioned by Fr Gilmour for our new personal Mission.
If you missed it, you can pray the prayer now:
Are we willing to live as God’s people and to love one another as brothers and sisters in the parish community?
I am with the help of God
Are we willing to become responsible for the spread of the Gospel
in this neighbourhood?
I am with the help of God
Are we willing to share our faith whenever we have the opportunity?
I am with the help of God
Jesus said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations:
baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.
And know that I am with you always: yes, to the end of time.” Matt 28:18-20
Mission Blog: Thursday 11 February
We began with some parishioners acting out the call of Samuel, as we started to explore the theme “What does God ask of me?” We considered the gifts that the Lord has given us, our lives and talents. We were reminded “that life is not a rehearsal” and asked the difficult question “when you die how do you want to have lived?”
This led us on to the tricky question: “How can I find out who I am?”
The answer are the twin towers of Prayer and Community, leading us to rediscover ourselves as children of God and that we are called to "Shine with the Light of Life".
The Gospel reading, the widow’s mite (Luke 21:1-4) showed us the way.
Fr Ged set the scene with the story of the little fish swimming around searching and asking everyone to know where the vast and mysterious ocean that he had heard about really was? ......A wise old fish eventually told him he was in it!
In fact, the Lord’s will is very close to us. For the Lord does have a plan and purpose for our lives.He speaks to us in several key ways:
Scripture and the Tradition of the Church eg for moral principles
Through our bodies- it is no good wanting to be a professional basket ball player if I have too short a body!
Through our circumstances and responsibilities- if I am caring for several children I cannot leave them and rush away and be a missionary somewhere…!
We should also listen to the wise advice that other people give us
We need to be able to “read the signs of the times” and bring Common Sense to our interpretation. We should remember that somethings change, others do not, and we need be able to tell the difference....
So how do we respond to God’s call?
By prayer (personal, communal, the Mass)
community (our associations with others)
service (as we discern opportunities to serve)
evangelisation (as we share with others our relationship with Jesus).
In all this we remember that it is the greatest desire of our Father God to speak to us each moment of the day. Each new day is a new opportunity for the Lord.
And so we sung and mimed the song that proclaims "Jesus as the centre of our lives".
We prayed the prayer of Cardinal Newman:
“God has created me to do Him some definite service.
He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.
I have my Mission….."
At the end of the service we were given the opportunity to pray for someone else using an unseen scripture text card. I took this one for my son (he doesn’t know it yet)!
I will share -it might be for you too?
“Ask and it will be given you” Luke 11:9
Mission Blog: Wednesday 10 February
We sang:
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison
Lord Have Mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.
Our God is always saying Welcome! I forgive you! Come back to me!
We had a powerful rendition of the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)
- using readings and parishioners as mime actors
(J-your West End contract is on its way!)
Fr Nino told us who Jesus is- the Jesus who comes to me- I who am a child of God.
The Lord’s affection for me never wavers.
Fr Nino gave us a graphic illustration of our relationship with God:
Fr Nino was me, and Luis was God. Luis held out his hand to Fr Nino.
God held out his hand to me…and I grasped it.
But my small (venial) sins caused me to pull away from God, to put a strain on my relationship with Him-Nino pulled against Luis, but Luis had a strong grip!
God too has a warm strong grip. Then I fell into serious sin (mortal) and my link to God was broken-Nino let go of Luis’s hand!
Venial sin puts a strain on my relationship with God, that strain can increase, until it breaks!
That’s why frequent confession (sacrament of reconciliation) prevents that bond being broken. Fr Nino suggested monthly was not too frequent.
God is always holding out his hand to us, always giving us a new invitation to his mercy.
A time of personal confession followed, plus an opportunity to seek the Lord’s special help through the prayer ministry of Monica and Barbara.
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison
Lord Have Mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.
Andy and Beki sang songs as we prayed and received the Lord’s forgiveness
“Amazing grace. How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
Was blind, but now I see.”
Forgive us Lord, and we will follow
Mission Blog: Tuesday 9 February
Tonight’s theme was “Who is the one who is with us?”.
We began at the beginning of John’s Gospel, and Monica was the voice of the Lord “In the beginning” and bringing the light into the world-a lighted candle brought from the side of the tabernacle and placed on the darkened altar from which the Mission Candle was lit. For Jesus is the “Light of the world” (c.f. John 12 v 35,36,46).
The team had noticed the slate floor slab in the church, bearing the Latin inscription: “Fons Mariae matris pastoris et agni - The well of Mary, mother of the Shepherd and Lamb. It covers a source of spring water discovered during the building of the Church. Lamb and Shepherd were two of the themes developed by Fr Nino who preached. He began with a classic Pope John Paul II story about questions from a class of six year olds prior to a visit of the pontiff to Australia. Little Billy asked: “Does the Pope go to the toilet”- the teacher was perplexed, but asked for divine guidance and replied “Yes, but not as often as you do”. Nino was illustrating that in becoming man Jesus was fully human and fully God! “He was like us, in everything but sin” Hebrews 4.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. A powerful reading from the fourth suffering servant song of Isaiah (52:13-53:11)shows Jesus as the Lamb of God who is sacrificed to take away our sins.This Mission was encapsulated by a beautiful song by Jaci Velasquez:
"For God So Loved the World”,
mimed by Monica and Beki with a backing group of “willing” parishioners.
Jesus comes to us wanting relationship. Like our church well, Jesus is waiting to be discovered. He offers us the living water “welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).
And the answer to our question:
“Who is the one who is with us?” is:
" Jesus, who is our Light, Livng Water, Lamb of God and Good Shepherd”.
Tonight we had a little glimpse into heaven-thank you Sion Mission Team!
Come follow and rejoice
Mission Blog: Monday 8 February
A fair crowd tonight, including a good turn out from the music group.
There was an acted reading from Mark 10:17-21 – the story of the rich young man.
We are each unique, called by God, but we need the courage to step out. We were encouraged to do this-and follow the example of Susan Boyle, from the X Factor, with a short video from her debut performance. If she could do it…?
What’s stopping us..?
The Lord can use our weakness and incompetence.
Look at the example of John Vianney, the Cure d’Ars, the only Diocesan Priest to be canonised, who had great difficulty even getting into seminary, and even more difficulties with his study… But the Lord used his weakness to showforth His power. If we are doing something we are good at, we are less dependent on the Lord.
If we are doing something which we are fearful about, then we will become a more spiritual person by our calling on the Lord to help us.
Then we were split into two groups, the musicians stayed in the church, and the others went into the hall to learn how to use sign language for the Gospel. Monica described the power of sign language: when watched by people who can hear it has the benefit of two senses, sound and sight to proclaim the Word. She mentioned an encounter in a women’s prison where a room full of women of anger and hate was transformed by a gospel song signed by the team to a harvest of peace and joy!
You will see the results Tuesday night-do come.
Come follow, love and watch!
Mission Blog: Sunday 7 February
Today at Sunday mass we welcomed the Mission Team from Sion:
Fr Ged (from Sion, Salford, their leader)
Fr Nino (from Auuusssstralia, with the Italian hands)
Andy (from Sion, Salford, the guitar player)
Monica (from Salford, the mime artist)
Beki (from Sion HQ Brentwood, with the lovely voice)
In the afternoon we had the opening Mission Service of Praise and Celebration.
Fr Ged challenged us- what is our church experience?
Is it like going to the cinema, we visit a building, sit with other people and “watch” the mass?
Then go home and get on with our lives…?
Or are we a community, a family of God coming together to worship, grow in holiness and then reach out to our neighbour with the Gospel?
Holiness he defined as getting to know Jesus Christ.
We shared our thoughts for the parish and the week.
We sang hymns, waved banners, pondered about for God,
and prayed for our Mission.
Come follow, love and enjoy!
Parish Prayer
Father, pour out Your Spirit
upon Your people of Truro
and grant us a new vision of Your glory,
a new experience of Your power,
a new faithfulness to Your Word,
and a new consecration to Your service,
that Your love may grow among us,
and Your kingdom come,
through Christ Our Lord.
Amen