Washing and Watching

Children washing each others feet.

At 8.00 last night many will have gone outside to clap or beat pan lids to signal their appreciation and thanks to all Key Workers, especially those in the NHS. They like so many are following Jesus' example of service to others.  

Image left: is when the children remembered Jesus washing the feet of his Disciples Children's Liturgy 2019.  This year, we are reminded of the importance of washing our own hands, and may wish to take a moment to think of how lucky we are to be able to turn on a tap and have clean water.

Bishop Paul Swarbrick washing parishioners feet Mass of the Lord's Supper 2019

Last night St Peter Keys spent time watching with the Lord.  

Watching with the Lord at St Clare's Fulwood.

Visiting St John's Portsmouth Cathedral

Last Sunday one of our parishioners attended Mass online at Portsmouth Cathedral which is named after St John and was built in 1882.  Mass was celebrated by Fr Anthony Chiatu who also led prayers for the dedication of Our Lady's Dowry.  

St John's Cathedral, Portsmouth

To find out more about the history of this parish and Cathedral and read more about their parish groups and what life is like in St John's Parish.

To make it easier for readers to share their experiences of Mass in other churches please use the following form News and Stories to share.

Short video for children (and maybe adult's too?) about St John and ideas for how John became friends with Jesus and how we can get to know Jesus better too.

St Peter's Keys visiting St Joseph's and English Martrys

On Sunday, 4th Sunday of Lent, which is also known as Latare Sunday, one of our parishioners attended the online Mass at Catholic Parish of Bishop's Stortford, St Joseph's and the English Martyrs in the Westminster Diocese. 

Mass was celebrated by Fr Carlos Quito who welcomed parishioners and people from around the world joining him for Mass.  We listened to the readings including the Gospel of Jesus healing the blind man after that he shared a pastoral letter from Cardinal Vincent Nicholls (see the video which covered some of the same messages). He closed Mass with a special blessing for Mothers and finished with the Angelus.

Above the altar on the marble arch it says Copiosa apud eum redemptio (With him is plentiful redemption)

St Peter's Keys from Lancaster visit
Parish of Bishop's Stortford: St Joseph's and English Martyrs -
Sunday 22nd March Latare Sunday - 4th Sunday of Lent

As we visit churches around the country offering online Mass it is a chance for us to see inside those Churches and by visiting their websites learn more about what they do. Tomorrow we share a special Beatitudes for all those healthcare professionals and for those who are looking after someone who is sick at the moment.

If other parishioners visit other online Masses and wish to send their photo and brief message please use the contact form.

Summer Holidays - keys, children's liturgy

St Peter's Keys

St Peter's Keys
Last week in children's liturgy we shared a picture with our young people of St Peter's keys and asked them to see where they would take St Peter and his keys during the holiday.  If you look at our post at the end of June Happy Feast Day see earlier messages.  We look forward to sharing new images over the summer, so please let us know if you have any photos using the contact form, either with the image below or a pair of keys.


Happy Holidays
Well its been a very hot week with some spectacular thunder and lightening ... signs of God's creation. 

Map from CAFOD's Kidzone - Zin Zin Thu's video of keeping safe from storms

Children's Liturgy
A colouring page linked to today's Gospel reading on the Our Father Luke 11: 1-13, showing people sharing their daily bread. 

And for adults a reflection from Bishop Barron on the Lord's Prayer.

Happy Feast Day

Today we celebrate the Feast of St Peter and St Paul.  This is a great day for the Church, but especially for us at Lancaster Cathedral, because St Peter is our patron.

St Peter's Statue decorated for the Flower Festival and sponsored with the intention
"We pray for an increase in the number of vocations to the priesthood and to the consecrated life."

To read more about the flower festival and custom of 'dressing the statue' see post on the original Cathedral Blog.

St Peter Pray for us

St Paul Pray for us

St Peter's Keys
Over the past few years members of the parish have visited other churches and taken St Peter's Keys with them, or captured images of other churches whose patron is St Peter

• St Peter's Keys: a fresco in France
• St Peter's Keys in Germany
• St Peter's Keys in Slovakia
• St Peter's Keys in Japan
• St Peter's Keys in USA
• St Peter's Keys in Scotland
• St Peter's Keys in Barrow
• St Peter's Keys on pilgrimage to Walsingham
• St Peter's Keys on pilgrimage to Fatima

We even have

• St Peter's Keys an a little bit of heaven

St Peter's Key's visit Walsingham

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham a place of pilgrimage. For more information about Walsingham visit the Walsingham Village website Today we share some photos of St Peter's keys.

Close up of keys in Slipper Chapel
Our Lady of Walsingham

See the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham in the Slipper Chapel
Look closely at the stained glass window above and in the bottom left you can see
St Peter's Keys

Sisters from Community of St Peter
with St Peter's keys

Walsingham is also known for its ecumenical work - Belinda met two sisters from the Anglican order of the Community of St Peter (UK) (Horbury) who were delighted to flourish the photo of the stained glass window in St Peter's Cathedral, Lancaster!  The setting is the shop in the main square, Walsingham, that sells jams and other tasty souvenirs.

Thanks to Belinda who is one of the regular meditators who meet on a Monday evening in Hala or Halton between 7.00 and 8.00.  If you'd like to know more about the meditation group please contact Ann-Marie on 65442.

St Peter's Keys - St John the Evangelist

Today, we share images from the Mann family's visit to St John the Evangelist church in Banbury.  When we visit another church there can be many familiar things, what can you see in the picture below that reminds you of the Cathedral at Lancaster, or St Thomas More's?  

We celebrate the feast of St John the Evangelist who was one of Jesus' apostles on 27th December. 

St John is one of the gospel writers, how many books are there in St John's gospel?

Sanctuary St John Evangelist, Banbury

We've also got a close up of the stained glass windows from the parish of St John the Evangelist website. See the lamb in the left hand window, this reminds us of the Lamb of God.

Stained glass windows St John the Evangelist

St Peter's Keys - Our Lady of Mercy

Standing in front of altar

Today we start to share some of the photos of places where you've been taking St Peter's Keys.  Family holidays often include visiting familiar places, today we start with the Wareing family who returned to the Our Lady of Mercy, Aberfeldy in Scotland. To see last year's visit and the stations of the cross

We celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mercy on 24th September.  

Have you heard of the Mercy sisters?  They were founded by Catherine McAuley, to read more about the sisters of Mercy and their vocation, visit the Institute of Our Lady of Mercy website.  A section on spirituality on their website looks at reverencing the earth and its people's 

Our Lady of Mercy, Aberfeldy in Scotland

Summer Photos

This year St Peter's keys will be taken out to who knows where.  The idea is to take a photo of the image, or a set of keys in places you visit during the summer.  This might be a church you visit, or could be a place of natural beauty.  For inspiration you might want to look at some Picturing God images on the Arts and Faith Loyola site, or search for St Peter's Keys to see earlier posts.


Can you find out where this year's keys are in the Cathedral?  

Holy Family and St Peter's Key's

St Peter's Keys

Holy Family, Allestree Derby

St Peter's keys take a visit to Holy Family in Allestree which is in the Diocese of Nottingham.  

The modern stained glass is quite a contrast to that of the cathedral but the image of St Peter and his keys is one of 27 images of key episodes in Jesus' life.

Mary Woman of Faith
As part of their Year of Faith, Bishop Malcolm followed Pope Benedict XVI in dedicating the Year of Faith to the care and prayers of Mary.  Each parish has been given a copy of the icon below for display in church or to travel round the parish, similar to the travelling icons of the Lancaster diocese that are visiting secondary schools around Lancashire and Cumbria. The icon of Mary was especially commissioned for further details of the icon. 

Diocese of Nottingham icon of Mary for Year of Faith

Twitter
The Holy Family parish newsletter reported news of a new twitter account so we are posting this as something they can tweet about!  We welcome Holy Family readers and invite them and others to take a look at what Lancaster Cathedral have been doing as part of their Year of Faith activities. 

St Peter meets St Peter, Calgary

St Peter's Keys visit from Lancaster

Wooden sculpture:
Jesus & St Peter

St Peter from Lancaster meets St Peter as the Parker family visits St Peter's in Calgary. The image on the back wall shows Jesus is pointing to the cross and had his arm round St Peter who is holding two keys. 

The Calgary parish has its own website and makes a link with St Peter's in Rome with an image of the statue of St Peter holding his keys.  During their summer holidays they've organised a Vacation Bible week Children of Hope: A Walk with the Prophets. To learn more about this Calgary parish of St Peter's why not visit their website.  

Image of St Peter with his keys

SNAP
The Diocese of Calgary is celebrating its 100th Anniversary and for the Year of Faith is reflecting on the Creed in a series of discussions entitled Believe. Here in the parish of  St Peter's and St Thomas More's, Lancaster, the Drop in Day for Prayer  at St Thomas Mores spiritual sessions have been looking at lines of the Apostles Creed. The next meeting on the 2nd Monday of September 9th, for further details see Calendar.  

St Peter's Keys and Our Lady of Mercy

Standing next to the 15th Station of the Cross

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of the Assumption.

Today one of our parishioners has taken St Peter's Keys to a Tin Church in Averfeldy, Perthshire in Scotland.  Our Lady of Mercy used to be known as 'Our Lady Of Good Counsel', the church was funded by the Third Marquis of Bute, who was a convert to Catholicism. 

This was a very unusual church and was made of Tin, see see a picture Our Lady of Mercy, Aberfeldy.  For readers interested in church architecture may be interested to read more about the features of Our Lady of Mercy church which is also a listed building. 

On the day of the families visit to this church the parish priest Fr Dr Tobias Okoro was celebrating the 20th anniversary of his ordination. 

What do we remember when we visit the 15th Station of the Cross? 

Answer and a link to children's station of the cross

St Peter's Keys a fresco in France

St Peter holding his keys

Today we share the first of a number of St Peter's keys in France.  The first one is a fresco from Cahors Cathedral in South West France in the Lot area.


Sheila Green reader at 6.30pm mass on a Sunday evening writes:

Travelling France and visiting its many fascinating churches and cathedrals is a great way to seek out links with our own Cathedral of St Peter; sculptures, paintings, frescoes are all equally interesting in their detailed depiction of St Peter.

Image of Cahors Cathedral

Where will you take or find St Peter's Keys?
We welcome photos of St Peter with his keys, a picture of you holding keys or a copy of the picture of the stained glass window from Lancaster Cathedral.  

St Peter's Key in Hiroshima Peace Garden

At Easter St Peter's Keys were taken to Hiroshima memorial Peace Park.  
Pictures of  the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, at the peace memorial and at the iconic A-bomb dome, called the Genbaku dome in Japanese.

A moving experience to see at first hand.

Iconic A-bomb dome which survived in the distance

Close up across the river of the Genbaku dome

This is a timely reminder to pray for peace throughout the world.  

Martha, Mary and St Peter's Keys

Today as the Ladies Choir began their well earned rest, the choristers from the Cathedral School came to sing during the 10.30am Mass.  

Whilst older pupils stayed in church and helped Fr Kevin with his homily,  younger pupils joining us for Children's Liturgy, both heard and practically experienced the message of today's gospel.  Given the weather we took the opportunity to have children's liturgy in the cloisters with the statue of St Therese of Lisieux to keep us company!  

We sit and share how we listen to the Lord

We stand and face the person reading the Gospel 

The children listened carefully to the Gospel and then we shared where we listen to Jesus.  After talking about what we had in common with Mary, we then thought about Martha and her actions.  As we had said our prayers, listened to God's Word, we then helped serve our parish community by picking up some of the weeds that were beginning to appear.

Children helping to pick up weeds from the cloister garden -
showing that we can all serve our parish family

St Peter's Keys

Taking keys to Germany
to read about last years trip

After Mass children and families were given pictures of St Peter and his keys.  During the summer everyone is invited to see where they can take St Peter's keys.  If you didn't get a picture then please use the one on the left, or simply have a photo of you holding a set of keys, like one of our young parishioners from last year.  Another idea is to look for other statues, stained glass windows of St Peter in other churches.  

Feast of St Peter and St Paul

Statue of St Peter

Happy Feast Day. Although the feast is on the 29th June, this year we celebrate it on Sunday. Today read a past post on the original Cathedral Blog to find out more about when and why our statue of St Peter was dressed in vestments and crowned with flowers.

St Peter Pray for us

St Paul Pray for us

New Keys

New St Peter's Keys given out to those leaving Mass this weekend.  The summer challenge is to see where St Peter will travel.  Take a photo of places your visit with St Peter's Keys and yourself or just the picture if you are shy!  You can pass details to members of the Children's Liturgy Team or let us know via the contact form. To mark our Year of Faith, we we've chosen the image that shows St Peter's Cathedral in Lancaster and Rome to see the image visit our Year of Faith site.

St Peter's keys visit Slovakia

Members of the Mount family went to visit family during the summer of 2012 and took St Peter's keys with them.  Here they are at the entrance of the Catholic Church in the village of Dunajská Lužná.  Below is an image of the door showing the letters IHS.

IHS are known as a Christogram based on the Greek word  IHSOUS (ΙΗΣΟΥΣ) for Jesus, or the words Iesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus Saviour of  'mankind' a title given to Jesus.

Next time you go to church, have a look to see if you can find the letters IHS in church

Dunajská Lužná is a municipality (village) in the Bratislava Region of western Slovakia in Senec District. 

There is a large Roman Catholic community in Dunajská Lužná with the Church, devoted to

 "The Elevation of the Holy Cross".

Fatima Shrine ... can you spot the keys?

Shrine at Fatima in June 2012

Although our photo today doesn't have St Peter's keys present, parishioners from St Peter's Cathedral did visit the shrine at Fatima and have sent the picture above.

Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta

Our Lady of Fatima appeared first on the 13th May 1917 to three young children from Fatima in Portugal.  She then appeared for the next five months on the first Saturday between June and October 1917.  

More information visit Fatima Website and the Vatican website for a more detailed account of the message of Fatima.

Praying the rosary on the first Saturday of the month happens in Lancaster Cathedral at 5.15pm

A colouring page of Our Lady of Fatima

After Mass refreshments with a difference

The May's who took St Peter's Keys to Japan, also sent in photos of refreshments after Easter Sunday morning Mass which make a change from the English Hot Cross Buns. 

After Mass refreshments with a difference 

Gerry explained:

After Mass there was food and drinks available for everyone in the courtyard outside the Kyoto Cathedral where young children offered the congregation hard boiled eggs wrapped in the yellow paper. Also available were a local delicacy known as Takoyaki (battered balls of octopus) which were very popular with the crowd. I suspect not something that would go down like hot cakes in Lancaster! 

Sorry no octupus this week, but there will be a welcome smile

Meeting up after Mass for coffee and a biscuit is an important part of getting to know the other members of the parish community and catch up on news. Everyone is welcome and there is always room for more volunteers to help serve refreshments.  

Ray and Jackie McGlone serving coffee after 10.30 Mass

Friday Photos of Faith: St Peter's Keys are back

Today we show some photos of St Peter's Keys taken by parishioners on Easter Sunday.

Gerry and Bernadette May took a copy of St Peter's Key's to Japan and on Easter Sunday visited another Cathedral.  

Gerry and Bernadette May
in Kyoto Catholic Cathedral

Gerry writes: 

We took the keys to the Catholic Cathedral in Kyoto whose patron saint is St Francis Xavier. The original building was built in 1890 after Japan abolished the edict forbidding Christianity. The new modern building was consecrated in June 1967. We attended the English language Easter Sunday service given by a Dutch priest who had been in Japan 37 years. One of the highlights was the singing by the Filipino women members of the congregation. Prior to our service there had been a Mass in Japanese celebrated by the Bishop of Kyoto, Paul Yoshinao Otsuka.

Next week we'll post some of the other images we have of St Peter's keys.