Next Event

There will be Carol Singing on Sunday 9 Dec at 4pm in Washington, plus a visit from St Nicholas. If you are coming, please bring some food to share, a lantern or torch, some warm clothes, and your best singing voice! If you do not have the details please request them by emailing paul@hammond.me

In new hands!

Today we officially handed over the running of Holy Family Guild to a young couple with two young children. As grandparents now, it is time! It is also important that young Catholic families work together to share their faith and most importantly keep their children in the faith in this world, which is at odds with much that we hold as true, beautiful and good. We will continue to join in the group’s activities as long as we are able and above all pray for the growth and fidelity of Holy Family Guild in the years to come. We thank members for their supportive messages and for the generous spiritual bouquet presented to us. We treasure all our memories of family days going back more than twenty years and know our little group (and this blog!) is in good hands.

Holy Family Guild celebrates Halloween the Catholic Way

More than 50 people attended this years Holy Family Guild All Saints Bonfire and BBQ. I blogged about the thinking behind this last year. Briefly, we provide an alternative for Catholic families to the pagan and often gruesome takeover of All Hallows Eve and the symbolic burning of a Catholic at Guy Fawkes! Instead children and adults dress up as saints and, at our parade, share something about those saints with one another. This year we had a great selection which included Theodore the General, Blessed Karl of Austria, Emperor and King, St Juliana, twin martyrs, Gervaise and Protaise, all the Archangels!, old favourites, St George, St Joseph, St Paul, the children of Fatima and Our Lady, Queen of Heaven. Also included were two of the saints canonised in October this year; St Kateri Tekakwitha, the first American Indian saint (in fact two of those!) and St Anna Schaeffer, a German laywoman.
After the parade of saints we had benediction, a talk on the current threat to marriage, for adults, while young children heard the story of St Dominic Savio. This was followed by a candlelit procession to the grotto where families remembered the Holy Souls especially the deceased from their own families. Father Gary Dickson who had welcomed us to his parish in Durham led the prayers and blessed the bonfire before it was lit. Following this, families enjoyed fireworks, mulled wine, hamburgers and sausages. there was also pumpkin pie and chocolate.

Thanks go to everyone who came and shared the fun and the prayers and also to Father Dickson and his many parishoners who supported the event.