Lent 2012

As members of the Catholic Association, it is important to consider our own personal pilgrimages, as well as the one in August. As such, on this first Friday in Lent, we wondered what have you given up for Lent? Or what have you taken on?

Let us know how your Lent devotions are going and what reading you recommend. We can then share ideas and thoughts

One popular practice is to read something "spiritual"? What spiritual reading do you recommend?

CA Hospitalité AGM 2012

Thanks to everyone who came along to our Annual General Meeting on 11 February 2012 in Sawston (East Anglia Diocese). The Council would like to thank Colette Sharrock for organising our AGM.

For photos and more information, please see the Carmelite report on the event by visiting: http://www.carmelite.org/index.php?nuc=news&func=view&item=676

The AGM report will be available soon. Past reports can be found here: http://www.catholicassociation.co.uk/hospitalite/agm.shtml

Praying the Rosary

This year the Pastoral Theme for Lourdes is With Bernadette, Praying the Rosary.

The Catholic Association Pilgrimage offers some thoughts on the theme in the Pilgrimage booklet and our website, but as this will not be till later in the year, the CA web team would like to share some early ideas.

The rosary is a popular devotion, and in addition to meditating on the mysteries, it is normal to say the rosary for a particular intention. How often do you pray the rosary? Why not try it this month?

If you are already confused, have a look at these pages of our website, which will provide some guidance:
http://www.catholicassociation.co.uk/spirituality/sayrosary.shtml and http://www.catholicassociation.co.uk/spirituality/rosaryabout.shtml

Given this year's theme, we are inviting our fellow pilgrims to pray the rosary for their bishops and priests. Our clergy need all the support that they can get as the tide of secularism increases, and many of them found the prayers during the Year for Priests (2009/2010) very helpful.

There is even a handy site where one can sign up and get reminders to pray for one's bishop:

http://rosaryforthebishop.org/

Let us know how your devotion has gone, or if you have any further thoughts, please let us know below…

CA web team

Piscines

"The Lourdes authorities plan to move its baths for pilgrims from the crowded concrete building near the famous grotto to a field just across the Gave River that allows more room for a modern and more welcoming structure. The new facility should open in 2014. Announcing the decision, Jacques Perrier, the retiring bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, said the waiting area at the current site was not well suited for meditation before the bath and the building lacked individual changing rooms. The area was also said to be overcrowded during peak pilgrimage periods."

(Thanks to Richard King)

New Bishop for Lourdes

Yesterday, a new Bishop of Tarbes & Lourdes was announced at the Grotto. The official Lourdes website states: "On February 11, at midday, at the Grotto, the archbishop of Toulouse, Mgr Robert Gall, announced that the Pope Benedict XVI had just named Mgr Nicolas Brouwet as the new Bishop of the diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes. He succeeds Mgr Jacques Perrier, who has been Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes for the last fifteen years."

A video is available here of the Service is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOADftKiiSA

Congratulations to...

..Dom and Clare Hartley on the birth of their son, Benjy Graham Hartley who was born at home on Saturday 11 February at 12.49pm, weighing 9lbs 11oz.

East Anglia

Message from Fr David Bagstaff

The process of appointment [of a new Bishop] will involve discernment of the present needs of the Church in East Anglia, so that we may be an ever more effective channel of God's love and grace for all the people who live in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Central to this discernment is prayer: prayer for the Diocese, prayer for those charged with its care during the period without a bishop, prayer for those involved in the choice of a new bishop. Please use the prayer below in your own daily prayer, that the Holy Spirit guide us all to know the Father's will.

Eternal God, shepherd and guide,

in your mercy give your Church in East Anglia

a shepherd after your own heart

who will watch over your people with loving care;

a leader of vision and a teacher of your truth

who will inspire young and old alike.

So may your Church be built up,

your Gospel heard,

and your name be glorified.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Our Lady of Walsingham - pray for us!

St. Felix - pray for us!

St. Edmund, King & Martyr - pray for us!

St. Etheldreda - pray for us!

More information: http://www.catholiceastanglia.org/files/uplink/frb.pdf