Fr Xavier has been Bishop’s Secretary, a Parish Priest and School Manager, and returns in November to be Cathedral Administrator in his home diocese.

Fr Xavier’s day off is Tuesday (from Monday afternoon, to give opportunity on his first time in England to visit friends and places of interest). Please feel free to invite him to coffe, lunch, tea or supper on other days (with 48 hours notice, please!). He is ‘On Call’ to the Hospital during Thursdays and Fridays.

Our Lady’s Birthday is this Wednesday 8th.

St Peter Claver (Thursday 9th / 1581 – 1654) was born in Spain, became a Jesuit in 1601, orgained in (what is now) Columbia, South America, and worked for 40 years among the black slaves, baptising and caring for over 300,000 of them. He is patron of the Catholic missions.

Cardinal John Henry Newman

Cardinal John Henry Newman will be Beatified by Pope Benedict in Birmingham on Sunday 19th September during the Papal Mass at Crofton Park.

This convert from Anglicanism was declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II. Beatification is the next stage before someone becomes a Canonized Saint. His annual Feast Day will be 9th October – the day on which he was Received into the Catholic Church by Blessed Dominic Barberi, at Littlemore, Oxford, in 1845.

Our Bookshop (and the back of church) has plenty of literature about Newman, from biographies, prayers by him, and guides to his writings and devotion.

Great crowds accompanied Jesus on His way, and He turned and spoke to them… ‘Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’.

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, comes among us in person. In 1982 Pope John Paul II paid a Pastoral Visit to this island. Pope Benedict pays the first ever Papal STATE visit. He comes as Successor of St Peter, and will have a message for both the State and for the Church in our land. His words will be significant. Like Jesus, in whose Name he speaks, he will challenge us to live the Gospel, to stand up for and proclaim the truths of the Catholic Faith. Are we ready to be challenged?

St Apollinaris (Tuesday 20th) was Bishop of Ravenna in the late 2nd century and was martyred there. Devotion to him was widespread by the 7th century.

St Laurence of Brindisi (Wednesday 21st), a Capuchin Friar whose deep knowledge of the bible (and of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, French and German) made him a popular preacher not only to Catholics but to Protestants and Jews. He was also an able administrator and diplomat for the Church.

St Mary Magdalene (Thursday 22nd) ministered to Jesus in Galilee, was present at His Crucifixion, she was among the group of women who discovered His empty tomb, and it was to her that the Risen Lord first appeared.

St Bridget of Sweden (Friday 23rd / 1303 – 91) was married to a nobleman and had eight children. Her saintly husband died on pilgrimage to Compostela. Six years later St Bridget went to Rome and remained for the rest of her life, caring for the poor and sick. She had many mystical visions.

St Sharbel Makhluf (Saturday 24th / 1828 – 98) was born in the Lebanon and became a hermit who considered himself the servant of anyone who came to visit him.

“For too long a time there has been a mistaken insistence on the supposed incompatibility between secular work and the interior life. Nevertheless, it is there in the midst of daily work and by means of it, not in spite of it, that God wants to call most Christians to lives of holiness. We are to sanctify the world and sanctify ourselves with a life of prayer that gives divine meaning to earthly tasks.

“Jesus does not pass sweeping judgement upon Martha or Mary. He responds to Martha’s question with profundity by pointing to what is most important in life, that being the presence of Christ in the house. How often might not the Lord make the same reproach to us?  Nothing can justify forgetting Jesus in our daily work, not even the most important concerns. We cannot put Him, who is the Lord of all things, aside for the sake of the things of the Lord. We certainly cannot minimize the importance of prayer with the excuse that we are too busy with activity.

“All worldly occupations, when engaged in with the right intention, allow us the opportunity to put into practice charity, mortification, a spirit of service to others, joy and optimism, understanding and an apostolate of friendship and confidence. We sanctify ourselves through our work. This is what really matters – to find Jesus in the midst of our daily concerns, not to forget about the Lord of all things… Otherwise we will end up doing what is, in fact, His work for ourselves, thereby neglecting the Master.

From In Conversation with God, by Francis Fernandez

Deacon John (Ordained to the Permanent Diaconate on 10th June 2006) had been ill since February 2008, incapacitated for much of this year, and in a coma in Kingston Hospital for the past fortnight where he was well cared for, and with his Wife, Maureen, constantly at his side.  Maureen thanks the many Parishioners of St Joseph’s for their very practical and prayerful support – providing a rota of meals, shopping, dog-walking Juno, and visiting them at home and in hospital.

UPDATED!  19th July… Funeral Arrangements:

Thursday 29th July: 7.30pm, Reception of the Body and Requiem Mass
(Eucharistic Adoration will finish at 7pm on this Thursday only)
Friday 30th July:
- 7am, Requiem Mass (ad orientem)
- 10am, Funeral Mass and Commendation  (Bishop Paul Hendricks)
- 11.40am, Committal at Kingston Crematorium

Refreshments in St Joseph’s Pastoral Centre from 11.15am.

‘It’s been a testing time’, is a common expression, often used when life has been a bit tough, but not so bad, really.

One saint, for whom the above expression would not have been an exaggeration, was our own diocese’s St Mildred of Thanet (Tuesday 13th / obit ca 725). The name, Mildred, means
‘peaceful counsel’, a name she lived up to.

The daughter of the local Kentish king, she was sent to a French convent for studies, where the impious abbess foresaw the personal benefits of marrying the young Mildred to a local prince. Mildred would have none of this, desiring instead to offer herself to God as a nun.

Anger overwhelmed the abbess who tried burning Mildred alive in an oven, only to find after three hours, that not one hair of her head was singed. There followed beatings and assaults, but still Mildred remained resolute, that her vocation lay in the cloister.

She escaped, eventually returning to Kent and landed at Ebbsfleet, where she left, embedded in a rock, the mark of her saintly foot. (St Augustine had previously landed here in 597, when he brought his mission to the Anglo-Saxons, at the bidding of Pope St Gregory the Great.)

She joined the community at Minster-in-Thanet, where she eventually became Mother Abbess. Greatly loved and revered as a living saint, she led by example, even during her final years when she endured a painful and lingering death, which she gladly united with Christ’s suffering and Passion.

A ‘Mother Theresa’-figure of her time, her fame and popularity within Kent eclipsed even that of St Augustine’s cult at Canterbury.

She is often depicted holding a church, which is both a salient reminder of her love and support for the 8th Century Church, but also an encouragement for us, to discern our vocations as saints, fearless in our pursuit of holiness and the desire to do God’s will as obedient servants of the Church.

Minster Abbey was re-founded in 1937 as a house of Benedictine nuns. www.minsterabbeynuns.org