Bāgepalli Dear Parishioners,

A Eucharistic service should not be held in a church on the same day as a Mass is celebrated. We ‘bent’ the rule here in Clitheroe to accommodate, on Saturday morning, a small number of people who were unable to attend Sunday Mass because of their disabilities, agoraphobia being one, These parishioners have now gone to the Lord. Saturday. Next Saturday at 11am we celebrate the First Communion Mass for St Michael and St John’s, so the usual Eucharistic service has to be cancelled. Given that there is a 5 o’clock Saturday Mass here in Clitheroe followed by a 6.30pm Mass in Dunsop, with a further two Masses on Sunday we have more Masses than most other parishes and so I think that this is an opportune moment to announce that these Saturday morning Eucharistic services will not be resumed.

St Elisabeth Convent is a Russian Orthodox community in Belarus that was founded in 1999 in the outskirts of Minsk. The convent currently has a large number of sisters whose vocation is to serve the poor, particularly the physically and mentally disabled.

The convent has cared for 200 orphan children suffering from both physical and mental needs for the past 14 years. “We consider it vital to raise children in the atmosphere of love, mercy and care,” Sr Olga told me.

They also run a shelter on the Convent farmstead for the homeless, drug or alcohol addicts, ex-prisoners and the less able. Over 200 residents live there today. The Convent provides them with accommodation, meals and necessary medicines, medical and helps them to register for their important national identity papers.

There is a separate rehabilitation facility for female ex-prisoners and homeless and the mentally challenged women.

To support and develop these activities, the sisters run twenty craft workshops which include sewing and embroidery work, candle making, wood-carving, stone and metalwork – “all made with love and prayer”.

Two sisters will display a selection of their products for sale both here in Clitheroe after Mass and also in Our Lady’s, Langho.

Fr John