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SUNDAY MASSES
Saturday 21st February - 4.15pm Confessions, 5pm Mass
Sunday 22nd February - 9.15am Family Mass, 11.15am (this Family Mass celebration will include the use of incense), 5pm Youth Mass
WEEK OF 24th February
Monday 24th February - 12 noon Requiem Mass for Roger David Pipkin RIP
Tuesday 25th February - 11am Mass, 7.30pm Rosary Group
Wednesday 26th February - Church Closed
Thursday 27th February - 11am Mass
Friday 28th February - 11am Mass
SUNDAY MASSES*
Saturday 1st March - 4.15pm Confession, 5pm Mass
Sunday 2nd March - 9.15am Family Mass, 11.15am (this Family Mass celebration will include the use of incense), 5pm Youth Mass
Fr Simon's Reflections for week of 24th February - 1st March
The Feast of St Polycarp, 23rd February 2025
After the Reformation, local Catholics worshipped at a chapel in Frensham Place. In 1890, needing a larger
space Fr. Gerin purchased a disused Fire Station and converted the upstairs into the Church of St Polycarp and the downstairs into a school. As numbers swelled again and Fr. Etienne Robo built our current Church, his French heritage, in part, gave us the dedication of St Joan of Arc (we can say more about this in May when we celebrate the 95th anniversary of the Church). As our Catholic Primary School has retained the dedication to St Polycarp, we can celebrate this Feast as a Solemnity, but we will keep the Sunday Readings.
Antiphons for the Feast of St Polycarp:
Entrance: This holy man fought to the death for the law of his God and did not fear the words of the godless, for he was built on solid rock. Glory be to the Father... Communion: Whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it in eternity.
St Polycarp was a disciple of St John, allowing him to learn the gospel directly from the Evangelist. Living in the 2nd generation of the Church, Bishop Polycarp was faced with the challenge of how to faithfully hand on the gospel now the eyewitnesses had died. How do you celebrate the Eucharist that Jesus instituted without a detailed instruction manual? All he could do, was to live like Jesus and allow the authenticity of his life to prove his preaching. Polycarp did not seek Martyrdom, but knew that as a Christian leader, it would find him in time. He was 86 when he died, and those who had been ordered to arrest him, struggled to understand why this holy and generous man was such a threat, but sadly they did not stand up for what was right, and took him to the arena. The Proconsul offered him a way out, but Polycarp refused to recant his Christian faith: "If you imagine that I will swear by Caesar, you do not know who I am. Let me tell you plainly, I am a Christian." Because of Polycarp's lack of fear, the proconsul told him he would be burned alive, but Polycarp knew this hour's fire was better than Hell fire.
Fr. Simon.
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