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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.
Tuesday 7:30pm: “The Gift” Series on the Holy Spirit
Wednesday 7:30pm Alpha
Thursday / 10am: Taking our Parish forward – see below
Thursday 8pm Virtual Deep Waters
How can we take our parish forward? – Thursday mornings
Join us online at 10 on Thursdays, and take part in the discussion. The link is https://zoom.us/j/91314781431
Meeting ID: 913 1478 1431
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.
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.
Please have a look at the short films in the following link which considers local need and how this project will help:
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.
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.
Attendance at Mass suspended – message from Fr Kieron
This morning (January 12th) our Parish Leadership Team, after much prayer and thought, came to the unanimous decision, that for the time being we should suspend all masses and services open to the public in our churches.
We have taken this measure in the light of the alarming rates of infection for Covid 19 in the city, mindful of the health of our own parishioners and the safety of the wider community.
Yesterday Fr Seb was called out to A&E at the RSCH and was shocked to see so many patients just waiting on trolleys with nowhere to go. With our own local hospital being under such pressure, we cannot in conscience encourage people to do anything that might contribute to the rising infection levels. A further consideration is that both Fr Seb and I come into regular contact with Covid patients in the hospital and although the risk is mitigated by PPE and the vaccine, we cannot know for certain that we are safe from transmitting the virus.
So for the time being Mass will be live streamed every day and we encourage everyone to participate in this way and also to engage with the other opportunities for prayer, formation and socialising which we are providing on line. Although our church buildings may be closed, the Parish is very much open for business and now more than ever we must connect with each other and come together spiritually in prayerful support for our Community, our city and our country. Over the next couple of weeks we will be looking at extra ways in which we can invite people to pray together and have some social interaction.
We also need to take care of each other and particularly to look out for the lonely and isolated. I know that there are various informal networks whereby people keep in touch with each other, but if you think there is anyone falling through the net, please let us know via the Parish Office, so that we can put the necessary support in place.
The current arrangements will be reviewed regularly and updates will be posted on the website. We hope to be able to welcome people back to church within a few weeks.
In the meantime, stay safe and keep in touch !
Fr Kieron
Tuesday evenings – New 6 week series starts
Another Lockdown! Why not join other parishioners on Zoom as we explore and share together a series on the Holy Spirit entitled The Gift. This six week course, includes each week a 25 minute presentation from some well known international speakers along with testimonies from laity and clergy. A time of discussion and sharing will follow. The teachings are relaxed, personal and informative, rooted in the Bible, the Catechism, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) and reflections on the Holy Spirit from Pope Francis. We can’t linger in church chatting to fellow parishioners at the moment, so this is one way of meeting together. We hope to see you there.
The link for the zoom meeting is https://zoom.us/j/93881974930
Meeting ID: 938 8197 4930
During the meeting we will break off from Zoom to watch the video input independently at https://youtu.be/zfp0oCdLPsk
and then reconvene on the same zoom details.
If you would like any more information, email alpha@eastbrightoncatholic.org.uk
If you need help with how to access zoom meetings click here
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.