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CATHOLIC CHURCH IN OXFORD (NORTH) DEANERY

Burford: SS John Fisher and Thomas More

Carterton: St Joseph

Eynsham: St Peter

Kidlington: St Thomas More; Woodstock: St Hugh of Lincoln

Oxford : Corpus Christi

Oxford: Our Lady Help of Christians

Oxford: St Aloysius

Oxford: St Anthony of Padua

Oxford: Blessed Dominic Barberi

Oxford: Sacred Heart, Blackbird Leys

Oxford: St Edmund of Abingdon and St Frideswide (Greyfriars)

Oxford: SS Gregory and Augustine

Witney: Our Lady & St Hugh

Oxford: Hospital Chaplaincy

Oxford University Catholic Chaplaincy

Oxford : Campion Hall (Jesuits)

Oxford: St Benet’s Hall (Benedictines)

Oxford: Priory of the Holy Spirit (Blackfriars) (Dominicans)

Oxford: Plater College

Oxford Brookes University Chaplaincy

Oxford: Travelling Mission to the Travelling People

Oxford: Polish Chaplain

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IN OXFORD AREA

Hinksey Catholic Parish

Abingdon: St Edmunds

The Society of the Work

Churches Together in Oxfordshire OXCHURCH-INFO

SAINT JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA AND OPUS DEI

Families through Adoption.

DEANERY DIARY

PASTORAL LETTER : + VINCENT NICHOLS ARCHBISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM

Oxford's Youth for Lourdes

Listen (via the net) about the Catholic Church...

Parish Visitation in Oxford (North) Deanery

Corpus Chriti Procession 2003

PASTORAL LETTER: + VINCENT NICHOLS ARCHBISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM

Prayer for the Family

Listening 2004 My Family My Church

Redemptionis Sacramentum

JOHN PAUL II - 38th WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY

Cherishing Life

CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION 2004

MANE NOBISCUM DOMINE

First Holy Communion...a word from Archbishop Vincent Nichols

Filipino Community of Oxford

Pope Benedict XVI

Birmingham Catholic Youth Service

Child Protection issues

DEUS CARITAS EST (Benedict XVI)[Christian Love]

DA VINCI CODE

Archbishop of Birmingham: Hospital Chaplaincy

FEEDBACK

Legion of Mary, Praesidium of Our Lady of the Rosary

Catholic Nurses

Fertlity Care - the Healthy Choice

Treatment for Infertility and Miscarriage

Guild of St Stephen

Women Living Simply

SANDS Awareness

Foyer de Charite of Tressaint

WORLD DAY OF PEACE 2008

Useful resources and contacts

The Raphael Pilgrimage to Lourdes

Message Board

Guestbook

Mail Form

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Welcome to Oxford Brookes Chaplaincy

Our Chaplaincy is situated at 62 London Road, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7PD. This is a house halfway between the Gipsy Lane Campus and the Headington shops with a small Chapel inside the house open most days for private prayer

Tel: (01865) 750463 Mobile 07719 646790

SUNDAY MASS is at 6.00pm except in July and August

HOLY HOUR before this Mass from 5.00pm with BENEDICTION at 5.45pm during Term and sometimes during Vacations
ANYONE is welcome to come to Mass or use the Chapel. You do not have to be a Catholic. Just come and see what a Mass is like.

Our Chaplain is Father Martin Flatman

CHAPLAINCY STAFF

Father Martin Flatman: meflatman@brookes.ac.uk Father Martin lives at St Peter’s, Eynsham just outside Oxford to the West but is always available on 01865 750463 Mobile: 07719 646790

Sister Veronica Ann verann@globalnet.co.uk 01865 742032 Mobile 07949 995702
Sister Clare cbmchale46@yahoo.co.uk
01865 764293
The Sisters live at 2 Harberton Mead at the far end of Pullens Lane. Contact them direct for a private talk.

Our Chapel of St Cecilia

Our tiny Chapel is inside the house but we manage to squeeze lots of people in for Sunday Mass at 6pm.
Some have to sit in the kitchen or on the stairs!
The Blessed Sacrament is exposed for an hour before Sunday Mass for Silent Prayer and Adoration concluding with Benediction at 5.45pm
Our Priest is available to hear Confessions from 5.15pm

Meeting room

We use this and another room for food and drink and a chance to meet one another after Sunday Mass.
We sometimes have Faith Seminars after this or watch a Film
The students organise other events. All Brookes Catholics are members of the Catholic Society.
Our President for 2007-8 is Jason Tyler. Mobile: 07983635389

Cross in the Meeting Room

This reminds us that everything we do is for Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour who through the power of the Holy Spirit draws us to God the Father.

Newsletter and Homily

OUR CHAPEL of St Cecilia is in the house and is open every day for silent prayer. Just open the front door and walk in.
SUNDAY MASS is at 6.00pm except July and August

HOLY HOUR is from about 5.00pm every Sunday with Benediction at 5.45pm. Holy Hour is a time of silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Just join in as you arrive

LEARN THE MUSIC. Join in with those who practise in the Back room from 5pm. Just go through when you arrive.

MASS on THURSDAYS at 12.15pm during term in the Students Union Chaplaincy Room followed by Croissants etc.

TAIZE PRAYER on THURSDAYS at 7.30pm during term at the Sisters House, 2 Harberton Mead

THE HOMILY. Email Fr. Martin : meflatman@brookes.ac.uk if you want it sent direct to you. It appears at the end of this Newsletter.

HELP NEEDED for FRESHERS FAIR next September. Please tell Fr. Martin OR our new President. Free Brookes Catholics T-shirts for those who help. Others can buy one for £8 - A Bargain!

ELECTION Veronika Kubasova is our new President and Janka Stehlikova is her Deputy. Thanks to Jason Tyler, Bronwen Hedley and John McCauley for all their work this academic year.

WOULD you like to join your fellow Catholic students for social events. Contact us for more details

BROOKES CATHOLICS have a Group on FACEBOOK. Do join and link up with all of us.


HOMILY for Pentecost


All of us have those moments when we are either too happy or too sad to be able to express our thoughts or our feelings in words. And when we pray, this experience ought to be even more common. How can we use ordinary words to say anything to God, let alone to share our deepest thoughts, or receive some of his glory? So it is hardly surprising that the disciples of Jesus, along with Our Lady, found themselves overflowing with a joy beyond words, when God sent his Holy Spirit upon them in a very special way to empower them to share the message of Jesus with the world.

The Pentecost event is deliberately presented to us by the writer (Acts 2:1-11) as a reversal of the old story of the Tower of Babel. In that story we hear of people being so proud of themselves that they began to claim the power of God, symbolically presented as the building of a tower to heaven. The result of such folly was their inability to understand one another, as they began to speak in different languages. The disciples of Jesus find that as God comes to them in their humility, their ecstatic expression of God’s presence and love can be understood by people of every nation and language. It is in their humility and faith that they are filled with God.

Thus we are given a vision of a world where it is as we humans co-operate with one another in humility and love that we find a power from God (his Holy Spirit) that is beyond words.

We are seeing this today aren’t we, as the tragedy of Burma unfolds, especially if we contrast it with the Tsunami a few years ago. On that occasion the whole world worked together to help their fellow men and women, but now a sadly suspicious clique in Burma literally prevent their people from receiving the help they so desperately need. The Tsunami event showed how the power of God can work when we co-operate in love and service with one another, whilst in Burma suspicion and selfishness are already leading to more and more people dying without help. It is a situation where once again, as we pray, we are speechless, but know nonetheless that God hears our prayers even when words fail. And we know this because St Paul tells us that “when we do not know how to pray, the Spirit prays within us with groans too deep for words.” (Romans 8)

But we also learn today that the Holy Spirit comes to people in a variety of different ways. At Pentecost the Spirit came in a way that made the disciples feel that tongues of flame were descending upon them. But notice from the Gospel (John 20:19-23) that the Holy Spirit had already been given to them in a much quieter way. Jesus simply and quietly breathes on them, and the Holy Spirit comes. Breath is a fascinating thing isn’t it. Most of the time we breathe regularly without even noticing the stuff that is keeping us alive. But there are times of course when we really feel ourselves breathing as our body demands more breath to suit the fact that we are running or swimming or something like that. In the same two ways, God is within us. Within us quietly and steadily, in a way we hardly notice, but also within us in a more obvious way when the need is there.

I heard a bit on the radio the other day reporting that someone had done some research that showed that marriages were more likely to fail once the children come along. They pointed out to us that getting up to feed or care for a child in the middle of the night put a strain on people!! Well! Once again I felt like shouting at the radio “Please don’t bore us with the obvious.” It is, of course, only too true that it is when things are hard that we need the power of God’s love to help and support us, and for many people caring for a child is their first realisation that love is not just a nice feeling but can be very hard indeed, An act of will NOT a feeling! A time when we need God’s Spirit within us to help us discover within ourselves resources of love that we never knew existed until that moment.

The other thing that God’s spirit should bring to us is a greater realisation of what God is calling us to do and to be in the Church and in the world. The idea that all Christians are meant to be more or less the same in order to serve God is another piece of nonsense. When someone wants people to be all the same, I always think that what they’re really saying is that everyone should be like they are. This has often been a problem in the life of the Church! Our 2nd reading. (1 Cor 12:3-7.12-13) shows clearly that there was someone in the church in Corinth who was already making this mistake so Paul emphasises that there are a variety of gifts.

Some of the greatest saints in the Church’s history from St Paul onwards have been people who were prepared to break the conventional mould, the way of living that was expected of them. and thus brought the whole Church back to a closer understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in many ways to reveal God’s love and power. Think of St Anthony of Egypt going out in the desert to be the first monk, or St Francis of Assisi rejecting the proper pious world of his parents and becoming a wandering preacher and beggar for Jesus, or Mother Teresa of Calcutta moving away from the ordinary life of a nun and creating a new community to care for the poor and the dying in the gutters of Calcutta.

The Spirit works in us in a multitude of ways beyond words, and the excitement of being a Christian is that it is always an adventure. We never arrive. So whatever is next for each one of us, let us be watchful and waiting as those disciples were, and then, whatever we do, provided it is good, God will be with us.

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CATHOLIC CHURCH IN OXFORD (NORTH) DEANERY |Burford: SS John Fisher and Thomas More |Carterton: St Joseph |Eynsham: St Peter |Kidlington: St Thomas More; Woodstock: St Hugh of Lincoln |Oxford : Corpus Christi |Oxford: Our Lady Help of Christians |Oxford: St Aloysius |Oxford: St Anthony of Padua |Oxford: Blessed Dominic Barberi |Oxford: Sacred Heart, Blackbird Leys |Oxford: St Edmund of Abingdon and St Frideswide (Greyfriars) |Oxford: SS Gregory and Augustine |Witney: Our Lady & St Hugh |Oxford: Hospital Chaplaincy |Oxford University Catholic Chaplaincy |Oxford : Campion Hall (Jesuits) |Oxford: St Benet’s Hall (Benedictines) |Oxford: Priory of the Holy Spirit (Blackfriars) (Dominicans) |Oxford: Plater College |Oxford Brookes University Chaplaincy |Oxford: Travelling Mission to the Travelling People |Oxford: Polish Chaplain |CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IN OXFORD AREA |Hinksey Catholic Parish |Abingdon: St Edmunds |The Society of the Work |Churches Together in Oxfordshire OXCHURCH-INFO |SAINT JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA AND OPUS DEI |Families through Adoption. |DEANERY DIARY |PASTORAL LETTER : + VINCENT NICHOLS ARCHBISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM |Oxford's Youth for Lourdes |Listen (via the net) about the Catholic Church... |Parish Visitation in Oxford (North) Deanery |Corpus Chriti Procession 2003 |PASTORAL LETTER: + VINCENT NICHOLS ARCHBISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM |Prayer for the Family |Listening 2004 My Family My Church |Redemptionis Sacramentum |JOHN PAUL II - 38th WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY |Cherishing Life |CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION 2004 |MANE NOBISCUM DOMINE |First Holy Communion...a word from Archbishop Vincent Nichols |Filipino Community of Oxford |Pope Benedict XVI |Birmingham Catholic Youth Service |Child Protection issues |DEUS CARITAS EST (Benedict XVI)[Christian Love] |DA VINCI CODE |Archbishop of Birmingham: Hospital Chaplaincy |FEEDBACK |Legion of Mary, Praesidium of Our Lady of the Rosary |Catholic Nurses |Fertlity Care - the Healthy Choice |Treatment for Infertility and Miscarriage |Guild of St Stephen |Women Living Simply |SANDS Awareness |Foyer de Charite of Tressaint |WORLD DAY OF PEACE 2008 |Useful resources and contacts |The Raphael Pilgrimage to Lourdes |Message Board |Guestbook |Mail Form