News
Facebook StreamNEWS
Latest News
Whats on this Week
For Masses, streaming, and church open times see panel alongside
For events for students and young adults see the page here.
Monday 4:30pm Rosary Group – contact parish office
Tuesday 7:30pm Invited Course parish discussion opportunity A
Thursday / 10am: Invited Course parish discussion opportunity B
Thursday 8pm Virtual Deep Waters
Friday 6:30pm Stations of the Cross online
Friday 8pm Lectio Divina –
see below for details of each event and joining links
New opportunities on Wednesdays and Fridays
- Wednesday 8pm-9pm “An Evening with Friends” PAUSED FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS AS DAVID IS NOT AVAILABLE. With recent restrictions we have lost the opportunity to chat with friends and other parishioners at or after Mass. For the moment we have to do everything online, but we are launching a weekly purely social opportunity to be together as a community and chat. Every Wednesday evening there will be an hour on Zoom hosted by David Miller. David will ensure that there is an opportunity to talk to each other, and do some fun things together. Join him at 8 on Wednesday to take part and find out more. The zoom link for this Wednesday is
- https://zoom.us/j/97896232496 Meeting ID: 978 9623 2496
- Fridays 8pm to 9pm Lectio Divina An invitation to take part in an online Lectio Divina prayer group – from the Benedictine monks in Elm Grove. Lectio Divina, Divine Reading, is a form of praying with scripture, the Word of God, in which we allow the Word and the Spirit to speak to us, to enlighten us and to inspire us. Formerly the preserve of monks, in recent years this has become a widespread form of Prayer in the Church and is encouraged by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium https://zoom.us/j/92327977736 Meeting ID: 923 2797 7736
Stations of the Cross
Fitzherbert Community Hub
Many of you will have enjoyed visiting the community cafe run by the Real Junk Food Project at St John the Baptist before lockdown. It was really popular with parishioners and members of the wider local community alike but because of the condition of the parish hall and kitchen we were only able to open one lunchtime a week, despite such high demand. You will also be aware of the Food Hub, coordinated by Brighton Table Tennis Club, that has been operating out of St John the Baptist. Covid-19 has exposed the extent of food poverty in the area that we serve and the food bank is now providing food for 300 people a week and ready cooked meals to 45 refugee/asylum seeker families, some of whom have no recourse to public finance or cooking facilities.
Building on these two initiatives we are now working in partnership with our three co-located grassroots charities, Voices in Exile, Brighton Table Tennis Club and Real Junk Food Project to raise funding to redevelop the parish hall at St John the Baptist, creating a flexible, multi-purpose, socially inclusive Community Hub with a commercial standard teaching kitchen, dining area, food bank, full disability access (including a lift to the upper rooms) and additional meeting spaces. Central to our plans is the provision of a daily “pay as you feel” (customers pay what they feel the food is worth or what they can afford) community café using food otherwise destined for landfill. This is an exciting opportunity for us as a Parish as not only will we have access to a lovely new parish hall and cafe but we will be able to live out our faith through social outreach and community building.
Full information is on the hub website at https://fitzherbertcommunityhub.org.uk/
Please have a look at the short films in the following link which considers local need and how this project will help:
Mass resumes
The Covid risk in Brighton has now dropped considerably, both in the community and as reflected in hospital patients. Accordingly we are resuming attendance at Mass, starting with Ash Wednesday.
The regular pattern is now that weekday masses are at 10am at St John the Baptist (except Thursdays) and 6pm at St Joseph’s (except Monday). For Sundays there is the 6pm Saturday vigil mass and the 11am Mass at St John the Baptist, and 11:30am and 5:30pm masses at St Joseph’s. . The full details are in the newsletter.
Please remember that the obligation to attend Mass is still suspended, and that anyone in one of the Government’s risk categories should consider carefully before coming to church.
And if you do come to church please remember that the covid risk is still elevated, so full precautions, including not talking socially anyone before, during or after Mass are still very important.
Diocesan Mission – Lent Meetings – Invited
The short answer is everyone! This exciting free programme is open to people of all ages and backgrounds – everyone is welcome and all are Invited.
A video will be released each Monday in Lent, and then there will be a group opportunity to discuss it online. There will be parish groups on Tuesday evening and Thursday morning, and a Diocese wide meeting on Thursday evening.
The links to our parish discussion group opportunities are:
Tuesday evenings at 7:30 https://zoom.us/j/96161676521 Meeting ID: 961 6167 6521
or Thursday mornings at 10am https://zoom.us/j/92452001507 Meeting ID: 924 5200 1507
You need to watch the Diocesan video of the week before the discussion session. This week’s video is at https://youtu.be/NZUp4DF7XWI
If you need help with how to acces s zoom meetings click here
Support Us
With our churches closed our income has gone down significantly, whereas our costs haven’t changed. There are a number of ways in which you can donate to us.
Remembrance Book
As we cannot access the remembrance books in the churches this November, we have set up an online remembrance book here. On this page you can view our remembrance book with all the names submitted throughout November.
Our New Resource Page
In particular look out for our resources pages, providing links to good things to watch, listen to, or read. Also the Prayers of the Faithful are now published weekly on the newsletter page. We would encourage all parishioners to submit potential prayers by email to the office, so that increasingly these do become the prayers of all the faithful.
Great external courses and events
There are great online worship and events coming up. See our section Upcoming Courses and Events at the top of the Resources page.