20th March the week ahead:-
Mass 12 noon (Saturday) Dunsop Bridge
Mass 5pm (Saturday) Clitheroe
Mass 9.30am (Sunday) Clitheroe
Mass 11am (Sunday) Sabden
Monday No Public Mass
Tuesday Mass 10am
Wednesday Mass 10am
Thursday Mass 10am The Annunciation of the Lord
Friday No Public Mass
Palm Sunday
Mass 12 noon (Saturday) Dunsop Bridge
Mass 5pm (Saturday) Clitheroe
Mass 9.30am (Sunday) Clitheroe
Mass 11am (Sunday) Sabden
Masses received this week
Rita & Frank Donbavand, Special Intentions x 3, Holy Souls,
Kathleen Hargreaves x 2, Laura Hargreaves
Lately Dead
Kathleen Hargreaves, Jean Ashworth, Jeremy Grout Smith
Anniversaries
Laura Hargreaves, Joan Preedy, Marion Hutchinson, Betty Brown, Bryan Roberts, Alice Wilkinson
The Year of St Joseph & the Family
March 2021 – 2022
“Although it may not be frequently mentioned, St Joseph is a Principal Patron of our Diocese. We will be celebrating his feast day on 19th March and we need to mark that day in a special way this year because Pope Francis has dedicated this year to St Joseph and the Family. That announcement was probably overshadowed by so much news about the pandemic but we have the year to remind ourselves of the important role of St Joseph in the history of our Faith and his example to us in his role as a protector and guardian of Mary and the child Jesus. In the secular age in which we live, we have a special need to “protect” the sense of Faith and all that it can provide for our world when we put gospel values into action to establish peace, the dignity of every human being, the sanctity of life from conception to its natural end and to eradicate poverty and suffering.
“It is too easy to think of St Joseph as just one of the saints whose statues we see in many churches, or in the crib at Christmas. But his influence is strong, as a model of the best qualities of manhood, in providing security and well-being for his family and for his trust in all that God was asking of him. He has been the inspiration in the founding charism of several religious orders, including the Mill Hill Missionaries and the Franciscan Missionaries of St Joseph, founded in this Diocese.
“We marked his goodness for many years in this Diocese particularly in what was known as “St Joseph’s Penny”, a collection for the poor and the needy, which became a foundation of the present valuable work of Caritas and its wide range of projects and programmes for those most in need in our towns and cities.
“In this Diocese we will mark The Year of St Joseph and the Family together from 19th March 2021 – 19th March 2022.
“St Joseph, pray for us.”
Bishop John Arnold
The Word This Week:
In the weeks of Lent so far we have followed God’s work of salvation: we have seen the Covenants he established with Noah, Abraham, Moses and the people of Israel after the return from Babylon. Now we come to one of the most significant parts of the Old Testament: the promise of a brand new Covenant, which will be different from all those that went before. This Covenant will see God and Man living more closely together. For the ratification of a Covenant, something was always sacrificed as a sign of the new relationship – normally man would offer some animal offering to God. But the New Covenant will be ratified not with the death of sheep or bull, but by the death of Jesus Christ, God and Man. In this perfect sacrifice is the source of our eternal salvation.
Please –
We must go on adhering to present restrictions and regulations when in church, these are laid down by the Hierarchy and the Government, and also outside church either before or after Mass. We have done really well this last twelve months, in difficult circumstances, let us not prematurely change things at this stage. Things will eventually change, but please wait for further instructions in the weeks and months ahead, and then we will hopefully be able to go back to what was familiar. Thank you for your patience and cooperation which has enabled us to remain open and get to where we now are.
Forty Martyrs:
The new online exhibition on the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, put together by the British Province Archives, Dr Jan Graffius, Curator at Stonyhurst, and others, can now be viewed here: www.jesuitcollections.org.uk. Drawing on the Province’s extensive collection of papers and relics, it tells the story of the martyrs with short talks, text and pictures.
St. Joseph:
Last Friday we celebrated the feast of St. Joseph, and this year has been dedicated to St. Joseph at the request of Pope Francis.
“Each of us can discover in Joseph – the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet, and hidden presence – an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation. A word of recognition and of gratitude is due to them all.” Pope Francis
RVY Youtube:
The next RVY livestream will be on Friday 26th March at 7PM on the RVY Youtube channel:
GIFT AID ENVELOPES 2021/2022
The new Gift Aid envelopes commence on Sunday 11th April 2021. They will be available hopefully next weekend after both the Saturday and Sunday masses. Please collect them from the Presbytery door as you leave church by the side porch. After next weekend they will be available after Mass and for collection from the Presbytery.
PALM SUNDAY AND HOLY WEEK SERVICES:
Unbelievably, we’re nearly at Easter again (I’m not sure if this has been the longest or the shortest year ever). Once again, many thanks to everyone for their generous donation of time, especially when the snow and rain arrived. I’m guessing that June may bring some changes, but I’m not counting any chickens as there will be a few surprises along the way.
Please see the Service times at the end of the newsletter.
May I ask for volunteers for
Monday, Thursday and Friday please. Ann Harkin
Live Simply thought for the week:
“Fast” from excess water use. Pay close attention to your water footprint and try to eliminate it as much as possible through conservation. If you don’t have one already, it would be a good idea to install a water butt ready for the summer.
LENT
This year our focus is on “Walking for Water.”
Abdella, who is a young man, lives in an extremely remote and mountainous part of Ethiopia, where it is getting hotter and drier each year. It takes him ten hours every day to collect water for his family.
Throughout Lent each time you resist a treat or give up something put the money you save in an envelope and then return the envelope at Easter.
We have only just received the Cafod envelopes but they are now available from the side porch, please collect as you leave church, or you can use an ordinary envelope but please mark it ‘CAFOD’
Laudato Si:
Global Healing: a series of talks for Lent 2021.
This is Week 4: https://youtu.be/Ccy0HsRi1cQ
UPDATE!
CYCLE RIDE – CLITHEROE TO LOURDES
Our ‘virtual journey’ began on Saturday 13th February. We are now 34 days into the trip and arrived at Valence, on the River Rhone. Our plan is to ‘arrive’ in Lourdes on Easter Sunday, 4th April, after completing the challenge of cycling the 1071 miles route from Clitheroe in 51 days.
Back in the ‘real world’ we have cycled 34 different local loops of 21 plus miles. The weather has been so much better this week with much less wind and even some sunshine.
We cycled through Lyon last Saturday and have been slowly making our way down the River Rhone all week. We have arrived in Valence and will be in Avignon on Sunday. Avignon is also known as the city of the Popes and is in Provence. From 1309 to 1377, it was the seat of the Catholic popes. It remained under papal rule until becoming part of France in 1791. This legacy can be seen in the massive Palais des Papes in the city centre, which is surrounded by medieval stone ramparts.
We will then continue south along the Mediterranean coast to Narbonne before heading west to Lourdes via Toulouse.
Mary’s Meals is a charity dedicated to providing life changing meals to some of the world’s poorest children. Their vision is that every child receives one daily meal in their place of education and that all those who have more than they need, share with those who lack even the most basic things. We would really appreciate your support in helping raise funds for this charity. You can read more about their great work and perhaps donate to our project via the link below.
https://giving.marysmeals.org/en_gb/projects/cin1-clitheroe-to-lourdes—virtually
Alternatively you may like to ring Arnold Marsden on 01200 427096 or email cycle21lourdes@yahoo.com to be added to our sponsor list and receive weekly updates on our progress if you desire.
Please enjoy the journey with us and follow our progress, both real and virtual, via our travel blog www.mytb.org/BernieW
RIBBLE VALLEY YOUTH:
JOIN THE TEAM! Could you be someone we are looking for? We need people who have a passion for young people to join the RVY team. You don’t have to be young and cool (look at Chris and Lucy!) but you do need to genuinely want to see young people hear about Jesus, grow in their relationship with him, have a clear DBS and a bit of spare time. Currently we are looking for people who would like to be on our Livestream team – help plan and present the livestream videos. People to be part of the gaming team – be in the game, help lead the conversation in the zoom call and monitor behaviour to keep it a safe space. We are also looking for people who like being outdoors, who would like to join our detached team, going out into the community and talking to young people who are out and about. To find out more head over to our website. If you are thinking about getting involved with RVY we’d love to hear from you. We are always looking for people to join the team. We need volunteers for all three streams of RVY. We have a recruitment process for all volunteers to ensure that the young people and the volunteers are safe. Our procedure is as follows: – Application form – Interview – DBS check If you are then accepted on to the team we will then train you in the following areas: – Safeguarding – Health and safety (appropriate to the stream you are joining) – RVY youth work principles, policies and procedures. Continuous team development: We believe that volunteering is not just about giving but also about your development. We organise a termly (3 times a year) for our team to come together and build their skills and confidence together. Our promise to our team: That each member would have an amazing opportunity to be part of a fantastic team who serve the young people in the Ribble Valley, with all the support, training and practical skills that they need to do it. If you want to know more, please get in touch
This is to let you know the next RVY livestream will be on Friday 26th March at 7PM on the RVY Youtube channel:
RVY Youtube
Please feel free to bring this to the attention of your congregations as you wish.
Graphics in PDF and jpg form are attached if you would like to use them.
As always, if you have anything you would like to publicise on the RVY livestream please get in touch with Chris or Lucy.
chrischrismeyer@gmail.com
lucyskelton@stjamesclitheroe.co.uk
Combatting Sex Trafficking in Lancashire
(By Anthony Brown and originally posted on the Love Clitheroe website)
A recent LEP article took me back to 2015 when a special anti-trafficking unit was set up in East Lancashire. DCI Sion Hall was travelling back from a European conference on human trafficking with a colleague. They were inspired to do something and scribbled down their initial thoughts on the back of an envelope. From those first thoughts emerged Sion’s team of 7 officers fighting human trafficking in East Lancashire. For the size of the Police division it was proportionally bigger than any other Police force in the country yet no bigger than Sion judged to be the minimal requirement to be effective. That envelope now hangs in a frame in the office of the current Chief Inspector’s office as testimony to what can grow from small beginnings. Lancashire Police’s achievements are recognised throughout the country.
The nature and extent of sexual exploitation is little recognised locally. In 2017 I went into a pop up brothel after the second major East Lancashire operation. The door had yielded easily to the Police battering ram leaving only a barely noticeable circular impression. The perpetrators and victims had been taken away and I looked at what was left in the now vacated terraced house in Preston – condoms and thrush pills on a table, barely any furniture, mattresses on the floor and next to one of them a teddy bear. I looked into the eyes of the big, hard looking, steely eyed policeman I was with and recognised in his face the same emotion I was feeling. One of the girls had left a diary. She was a Romanian as are many of the girls who are trafficked to the UK. She wrote “I’m no longer a human being and my soul is wrapped in thorns. Oh, God this is so hard and I’m feeling so bad, that’s it, I can’t take this anymore! The pain in my heart is making me scream. I wish for happiness and I get sadness, I wish for love and I get nothing but pain. I’m worth nothing, maybe death doesn’t hurt as much as life does.” I wondered if the teddy bear belonged to the girl who wrote that.
Detective Stuart Peall was one of Sion’s recruits and he featured in a recent LEP newspaper article talking about how Lancashire Police were successfully tackling modern slavery in the way they are targeting the gangs. Stu emphasised the reluctance of terrified victims to cooperate with police which makes victim testimony almost impossible to get. But a tactic used by Lancashire Police has enabled them to have the best charge rate out of any force in the country at almost 30 per cent.
The force has found success by pursuing sexual offence charges such as controlling prostitution alongside trafficking charges, to strengthen cases without a cooperating victim. Victims don’t testify because the protection offered by authorities to eastern European women “is nothing near what the offenders can offer them in threat. All they want to do is go home,” Stuart said. “And that’s basically just sending them back to the problem of how they got here in the first place.
“Every woman I’ve met is poor, they’re from Romany backgrounds, and they have children. He pointed out that nine in 10 investigations are sparked by tip-offs from the public and other forces should simplify their approach. He said: “People think that to prove a human trafficking offence you have to prove that the perpetrator moved a girl from say Romania to England.” But actually it’s much simpler. “All you have to do is prove movement from one place to another. If a girl in a brothel in Preston gets an incall for a private house you have proof that that there was movement or control of movement and that constitutes human trafficking in the terms of the Modern Slavery legislation. That’s enough. You don’t have to move to another town or even another street.
East Lancashire Police had another idea. While it’s illegal to pay for sex with a trafficking victim many of the men will be unaware they are committing a serious crime. The criminals targeted are the gangs bringing the girls in but the reason they’re brought in is the demand. As a way of reducing demand East Lancashire Police came up with another idea. Officers recently contacted numerous men whose numbers they found on seized mobile phones and texted: ‘A lot of women around this time are being trafficked. If you have any concerns or know anything please contact 101 or reply to this text message’. Men have nothing to fear if they tip off police about a suspected trafficking victim but very few do. However even without a response to the texts they probably went a little way in reducing demand making the exercise worthwhile. If men really understood what they were doing far fewer would do it.
You can read the full LEP article here.
The Modern Slavery Helpline for reporting potential cases is 08000 121 700.
Improving communication in the Parish
Not everybody is comfortable with the digital world that we have had to rely on in the Parish for so long now. Lots of information about the Parish including a much enlarged Parish newsletter is on the Parish website and for topical items of interest to Catholics there is Facebook. But what about the people who don’t access websites, aren’t familiar with zoom or haven’t felt safe attending Mass during lockdown?
Some of these problems will disappear when normality returns but we would like to improve communication generally. Communication is more than information, it’s community building, reaching out, keeping each other informed, looking after each other.
If you are interested in contributing to ideas and action on how to use communication to build a better community please join our next Communications and Media zoom meeting on 30 March at 7.00 pm. We want your ideas more than commitment to action but practical assistance would of course be most welcome too.
Email Janet Clegg by telephone 01200 423307 or email janet.clegg@dioceseofsalford.org.uk so we can give you the link to join the meeting.
Anthony Brown
FROM THE ARCHIVES
1954
Catholic Hall Pantomime is another winner
Clitheroe’s only Christmas show – and it extends into the New Year – is the pantomime “Robinson Crusoe,” submitted at the Catholic Hall with tremendous enthusiasm by a company well versed in the arts of entertainment and properly encouraged by crowded audiences.
This group of young people, thoroughly coached over the years by mrs J.Sherliker, a producer of talent and imagination, now has the additional advantage of the experience of Mr Edmond Cambien as co-producer.
Any decline in entertainment which might have been caused by the departure of popular principles has been avoided by the introduction of new leaders of pleasing personality and accomplishment.
The music and dancing challenge comparison with a long list of earlier successes, but there will be some who miss the robust humour of former shows.
New qualities of inventiveness and liveliness are added, however, and this pantomime has unmistakably won public favour.
HAPPY PRINCIPALS
The new principals, Margaret O’Donnell as Crusoe, and Audrey Smith as Polly, set splendid standards in singing, acting and dancing, and another performer winning instant approval is Derek Rawcliffe, as Smug – one of the few comic figures.
As Mrs Crusoe, John Walmsley is happily effective in all he does, particularly with Derrick Hutchinson as Sultan, another figure of mirth.
John Chatburn is an inevitable success as Man Friday, and Edmond Cambien, as Captain Skull, leaves no doubt about his skill.
Frances Lofthouse, who shares with Derrick Hutchinson some of the most impressive scenes in the show, takes the part of Coraline, and her dancing is delightful and infectiously gay.
With Miss Peggy Wilson, Miss Lofthouse has arranged the dancing and trained the children in a number of vigorously contrasting scenes. Their “Ballet of the Enchanted Reef” is beautifully done.
Other characters were taken by Fred Waterhouse, Eileen Smith, Charlie O’neill, Kevin O’Neill and Michael Jackson, while the singing star is Raymond Grice a tenor vocalist of resource who joins with the children in many a happy number.
Scenic effects, designed and executed by Mr Donald Kershaw, provide first class settings and the music is firmly led by Mr Philip Robertson.
Each year at Pantomime time the company always received a letter from a well know personality – this year it was Norman Wisdom.
His letter was as follows:-
A MESSAGE FROM NORMAN WISDOM
I am very happy to send a few words of greeting to everyone who is helping to make “ROBINSON CRUSOE” the grand success I am sure it will be.
To you, the audience who are giving the company your attention and applause, realising that the “live” theatre, both in its amateur and professional forms, is worthy of support because in no other form of entertainment can the audience itself so participate by its actual presence to form that invisible but necessary link between a stage performer and his or her public.
To you, the “back-stage” staff and organisers of this pantomime, whose hard work rarely receives any other recognition than the knowledge of a job well done, but without whose unsparing efforts there would simply be no show.
And to you, the cast of “Robinson Crusoe” with your long hours of rehearsing in your spare time now over, and the excitement of the actual performances bringing you the fruit of your labours, I would like to send some special words of encouragement, because you have not been satisfied merely to go and see shows, but have done something about it, often at the expense of your leisure hours, to bring pleasure to the thousands of people who will form your audience.
I think that Pantomime is important because it is usually the very first REAL stage show that a child sees, and so has the responsibility of creating a liking for the theatre by those first impressions which often remain with people for their whole life.
So you all have my very best wishes, and I would like to take this opportunity of sending you “The Compliments of the Season.”
Norman Wisdom
Holy Week 2021:
Last year Holy Week was celebrated in church behind locked doors, the priest celebrating alone in an empty church. Twelve months later our Holy Week ceremonies are able to be celebrated with a congregation, in church. They will obviously be different to the way we have become familiar with, but at least we are able to publicly celebrate the Easter Triduum, following the guidelines given, and at all times adhering to the present rules and regulations.
You can see below the times of all our Holy week Masses which will be celebrated in
Our Lady of the Valley Parish.
HOLY WEEK 2021
Palm Sunday Mass 12 noon Saturday (Dunsop Bridge)
5.00pm Saturday (Clitheroe)
9.30am Sunday (Clitheroe)
11am Sunday (Sabden)
Monday Mass 10am (Clitheroe)
Tuesday Mass 10am (Clitheroe)
Wednesday Mass 10am (Clitheroe)
EASTER TRIDUUM:
HOLY THURSDAY
Mass of the Lord’s Supper 7pm (Clitheroe)
GOOD FRIDAY
The Passion of the Lord 3pm (Clitheroe)
(Stations of the Cross 11am in Sabden)
(Stations of the Cross at 11am in Dunsop Bridge)
HOLY SATURDAY
Easter Vigil 5pm (Clitheroe)
EASTER SUNDAY MASS
9am (Dunsop Bridge)
9.30am (Clitheroe)
11am (Sabden)
Abdella, who is a young man, lives in an extremely remote and mountainous part of Ethiopia, where it is getting hotter and drier each year. It takes him ten hours every day to collect water for his family.