We are pleased to announce that we can now accept cashless donations for the Parish by debit and credit cards from all the major card schemes, using the handsets at the back of Church.
On the handset screen are a number of amounts you can choose, but if these do not suit you, you can choose a different amount to donate.
You can donate contactlessly, or you can insert your card into the keypad where you can authorise your donation using your card’s PIN.
You will be asked to register for Gift-Aid, and you would only have to do this the first time you donate. NB. You will need register even if you are already registered as a Gift-Aider with the parish.
If you want to give your donation to the Parish Collection as cash, there are baskets at the back of Church. If you would like to give regularly by standing order, please contact the Parish Office. Many thanks on behalf of the parish.
FIRST HOLY COMMUNION 2020 – There is now a possibility that the First Holy Communion Masses will take place during August. A second Confession will also be arranged. Details to follow via an email to the parents once everything has been confirmed, so please do keep an eye out for these emails in the next week or so.
CONFIRMATION 2020– The 2 remaining sessions for the Confirmandi will be held via Zoom on Tuesday 1st September and Thursday 3rd September, both at 8pm. The Zoom code will be emailed to the parents nearer the time. Again, please make sure you check your emails for this info.
RCIA 2020 – The remaining sessions have been taking place for those on the current programme. Please look out for emails from Deacon John -Simon for any updates regarding this and the next course.
BAPTISMS – These are planned to re-start in September. We will get up to date with the Baptisms already booked with us, but please wait to hear from us when the office re-opens around the middle of September, please God.
** As churches are closing from Thursday 5th November, there will be no booking for Masses, as these will only be live-streamed and no one can attend Mass physically.
Click on St Joseph’s picture, or see below
Welcome back to Mass at St Joseph’s. For info and the link to book a Mass please see below. When capacity is reached, we regret that we will not be able to accept more people, due to the government and diocesan guidelines regarding social distancing. God Bless and see you in church!
STOP PRESS!! WE ARE STILL EXTREMELY SHORT OF VOLUNTEERS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE DAILY 10 AM MASSES. PLEASE PLEASE IF YOU COULD OFFER TO HELP AT ONE MASS A WEEK, THE PARISH WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL. OTHERWISE THE CHURCH MAY NOT BE ABLE TO OPEN !
As you may have seen online or in the latest bulletin, from Saturday 4th July Fr Uche is hoping to restart Masses at all normal times of the week, except for 7am on weekdays, and probably one of the Sunday morning Masses, to allow time for cleaning. Hopefully, families and couples will come as well as individuals, who would have been able to come to private prayer. This means that more people will be in the church, especially on Saturday evenings and on Sundays.
There will still be distancing and strict precautions, which will be made clear beforehand as well as an advance booking system.
However there is a great need for enough stewards to welcome, guide and usher parishioners in these circumstances, as well as to sanitise the areas where people will be sitting.
We are very blessed that so many parishioners volunteered for doing this for reopening for private prayer.
We now need 3 times that number to volunteer for the Masses!
If you have already given your name and your preferred Mass, very many thanks.
If not, please consider offering to do this, so that as many people as possible may return to the joys of being physically present at Mass and to receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion.
Masses will be shorter than usual, so the time a volunteer would need to be at the church is approximately one hour, possibly slightly more at weekends.
Please do not volunteer if you are under 16 or over 70, unwell, shielding someone at home or have underlying health issues yourself.
If you are not in these categories, please reply all, with your name and your preferred Mass to help at. We very much hope that you will not be needed for more than one Mass but please let us know which one / ones you could help at.
These would be:
10am on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
6pm Mass on Saturday.
9.30am (or)* 11.30am, 5.30pm on Sundays.
*we will start with just one Sunday morning Mass, and the decision will be made depending on the number of stewards available.
As the government guidelines have now changed, allowing for services in church to take place, instead of opening for private prayer on Wednesday 1st July as previously planned, we will be open for Mass from Saturday 4th July, starting with the 10am Mass. The times of Masses will be as in normal time, apart from the weekday 7am Mass, which is suspended until further notice. Mass will be kept simple, and there can be no singing. Fr Uche or someone else may give you some instructions during Mass re Holy Communion etc – please follow them.
As numbers will be limited, for social distancing reasons, there will be a booking system, details to follow. Watch out for announcements on our live-streams, website and facebook page – there may also be last minute changes, depending on availability of stewards / cleaners. For your safety, and that of others, please see attached guidelines below.
Our events have always been for the whole family – and the online conference is no different. Hear from inspiring speakers, take time to prayerfully retreat, get creative, join with live worship and celebrate Mass together.
All the content over the weekend will be hosted on our CELEBRATE Facebook page so make sure you ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ us to not miss anything.
Not a Facebook user? Not a problem! You don’t need to have an account to access our page. You can join the conference by following this link: https://www.facebook.com/Celebratecommunity/
If you have friends, family or members of your parish who might like to take part then why not invite them along and send them the details – all are welcome!
Join St Joseph’s Holy Hour, live on Friday 3rd July 2020 from 8-9pm, with contributions from the young people of the parish. Click on the link below for more. https://youtu.be/QRUi5xctYoc
