Please collect your sets of Planned Giving envelopes at Mass this weekend and see how quickly we can clear that job. If you are a tax payer and do not yet gift aid, please consider doing so. It will not cost you a penny more than you are contributing to the church. Alternatively, if you would like to save yourself the hassle of remembering to bring your envelope with you each week, why not set up a standing order with your bank? I’ll give you the necessary details.

The first of the area Penitential Services will take place at St Columba’s at 11am on Saturday 1st April. We hope that you will take the opportunity of sharing in this celebration as part of our Lenten preparation for the great feast of Easter. There will be a second service nearer Easter itself which will take place in St Tho-mas More Academy .

Every Friday throughout the season of Lent there will be a CAFOD Soup lunch starting at 12 noon in St Aidan’s. We had good turnout last week so why not tell your friends about it and invite them to join you for some delicious home made soup.?

third

WEEK

OF

LENT

2017

19th March

Easter is by far the most important feast in the Church’s calendar. The ceremonies leading up to the feast marking the last days of Jesus’ life are also the most important days in the Church’s calendar. This is one of the reasons why the celebrations call for the full and active involvement of all who are present. Music has a key role to play which is one of the reasons why I had hoped that we might have had some new faces at the singing practice which began on Wednesday night in St Aidan’s Please con-sider gifting some of your time to enhance our celebrations in that most sacred of weeks.

Given the trauma experienced by the people of East Africa in which a count-less number of people are dying, lets have a special collection at next week-ends Masses. Lets go one step further and declare it a paper only collection. I know every penny counts but there is no comparison with all that we enjoy and the misery being experienced in this troubled area of the world.

On Palm Sunday weekend there will be

only one Mass at St Aidan’s 9.30am—the

Saturday evening Mass is cancelled. The

11.15 Mass at St Bernadette's will be as

normal.

w/c 20th March

St Aidan’s St Bernadette’s

Mon

Tues 10.00am

Pat and Alf Todd

Wed 9.30am

Jack Read

Thurs 10.00am

Celebrant's Intention

Fri 9.30am

Patrick Doherty

Sat 6.30pm

Special Intention (CF)

Sunday 9.30am People of the Parish

11.15am John & Rose Hughes Rosemary Riley

The Scripture References for next Sunday’s Read-ings are: A Reading from the first Book of Samuel Ch 16,v1, 6 –7, 10—13 A Reading from the Gospel according to John Ch 9 vv 1—41

Earth Hour turn your lights off at 8.30pm for

one hour next Saturday 25 March to support ac-tion on climate change.

Our Lady and St Aidan & St Bernadette’s

Parish Communities Parish Priest Fr John McElhone Resident Priest Fr Pat O’Connell

www.wallsend-aidettes.co.uk

staidans.parish@btconnect.com 0191 2623820

An Easter Bingo will take place in St Ber-nadette's Hall on Wednesday 5th April from 7—9pm. The profits from this event will go to support the 2nd Battle Hill Guide Unit.

There will be Stations of the Cross led by parish-ioners every Friday eve-ning in St Bernadette's starting at 7pm

Active parishioners at St Aidan’s realise the need to be prepared for that time when they may not have a residential priest and have to do things in a very dif-ferent way to the way in which things are done now. At both Masses next weekend parish-ioners will be invited to place their skills at the disposal of the community. They will be given the opportunity to hear about the range of activities that take place in the course of the week and find out too how the work is done and who does the work. It should be really interesting!