On Sunday 6th April, 2025, Bishop Peter Collins wrote a pastoral letter to be read at all Masses over the weekend. The letter related to the forthcoming third reading in Parliament on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill which could take place on 25th April 2025. Bishop Peter urges us all to contact our MPs asking them to vote against this bill - the reasons for this being laid out very clearly in his letter.
You can download the letter by clicking here.
If you are new to the parish, or have only recently joined, please could you complete a registration form that can be found in the church porch, or downloaded here. This will ensure we have your details in the parish records and can effect a proper introduction and welcome to you and your family.
If you are, or know of anybody who is, housebound and cannot get to Mass regularly, and would like a home visit with Holy Communion from a priest or an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, please let Fr Luke or Fr Paul know, or send an [javascript protected email address], and we will organise something for you.
Now available in the church porch are the new editions of the Diocesan Year Book for 2025 priced at £3.50 per copy. The annual Yearbook contains a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to the Diocese of East Anglia. It can also be read and referenced online here on the parish web site - click on the image to the left to access it.
The East Anglia Diocesan Youth Service exists to help young people in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to connect with Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church. It carries out this mission by running pilgrimages and events, by providing support to parishes and schools and also through its Ignite Team, which visits schools and churches to run retreats, activities and workshops.
The Diocesan Youth Service publishes an annual newsletter summarising the passing year's activities, and the most recent newsletter, November 2024, has just been published - you can find copies in the church porch or you can read it online here.
We are very grateful to the North West Ipswich Big Local Trust which has recently made two grant awards to the parish to be used for improvements to our church hall. These are an award of £1,000 for participating in a Dragons Den event at the end of September and a further £3,000 towards refurbishing the kitchen. We are very grateful to the Trust for these awards which will greatly assist with our continuing activity to modernise our hall.
The gate to the right hand side of the church giving access to the memorial garden is padlocked and normally closed, thus preventing people from visiting without making prior arrangements with a key holder to give them access. To address this, the gate padlock has been changed for a combination lock. If you wish to visit the garden, please send an [javascript protected email address] and the combination will be sent to you. Your name and email address will also be added to a list and you will be automatically advised if, at any future time, the combination is changed.
Thank you all for the continuing generosity you show by your regular donations to the FIND tub in the church porch. We have been given a list of most needed items from FIND which is as follows:
FIND has also asked for fresh fruit and veg, but these should not be donated unless you can deliver these direct to their premises as they will perish if placed in our FIND tub at church.
Any of these items will be very gladly received but they are only suggestions - any and all donations that you can make will be very welcome and help others less fortunate than ourselves. Also, if anybody has any spare bags they could donate, these are always useful in distributing food.
We have also received a special thank you from Maureen Reynel, founder and director of FIND, for all our donations in the past and for our continuing support.
The 5 yearly cycles of giving and pledges as part of the Diocesan Alive in Faith fund raising initiative are now complete in all the parishes that signed up to take part, and the committee that oversaw its operation is now being rundown. The final newsletter from the Alive in Faith team has been issued and you can read it here.
With the warmer summer weather on its way (!), our thoughts turn to the wonderful garden that the parish is blessed to have available. Chrissie and Paul Riches work tirelessly to maintain this for us and do a fantastic job for which we should all be very grateful.
We want to encourage greater use of this tranquil space, and to that end if anybody has, or knows of, any garden benches that are, or are about to become, available, and could be donated to the parish, we would love to receive them to provide additional seating in the garden.
Please speak to Paul or Chrissie, or email [email protected] if you can help.
