On Monday we had a very successful beginning to our new Sharing our Faith programme.
In recent weeks some of the people who have been part of the programme in the last few years have spoken at Mass and it has been beautiful.



Below is the text of three of those.
 

"Even though our family had been attending church for some years, I realised that I knew very little about what it means to be Catholic, especially after I decided to have our children baptised and brought up as Catholics, like their father.  So when I found out that Holy Family Church was running a ‘Sharing Our Faith’ program, I jumped at the opportunity to find out more.

Having been brought up without any religion, I was open to learning about Christianity, in order to pass on the knowledge to my children but had not really intended to take it further than that.

However, during our meetings, I met some very  lovely people; others like me who were wanting to learn, and the ‘leaders’, senior members of the Church who tried to answer whatever questions I had and helped me understand about God and Christ and Catholicism. We had meetings over several months and during this time I learnt the meaning of the Eucharist, I learnt about the life and teachings of Christ and I learnt about having faith.

I felt welcomed, and as the meetings went on - a sense of belonging.  And so it wasn’t too long before I made the decision that I wished to be baptised and be a part of the Church.

I was baptised at the Easter Vigil and was quite overwhelmed by the number of people who came to congratulate and welcome me into the Parish. So I wish to say thank you to Father Kevin and the ‘leaders’ of the Sharing Our Faith meetings and to the Holy Family Parish for accepting me and my family into this wonderful Church."
                                                                                                                                                 Lisa

Father Kevin has asked me to say a few words about the time I came through the sharing the faith program.

I am not from a catholic family and was baptised into the Church of England, but from my teens I did not attend church.
My wife was from a catholic background and when we married over 20 years ago I made a promise to the priest that my children would be brought up as Catholics.  Although I still did not attend church to worship, I supported my wife and daughters through baptism, first Holy Communion and confirmation here at Holy Family.

I started to attend church on a regular basis when my wife fell ill and began  to bring my daughters to church on a regular basis.  I found this strange as I had no knowledge of the mass and what it all meant. I was guided by my daughters as to when to sit, stand up, kneel and pray.  It was during this time that I felt I wanted to find out more about the catholic faith and after attending the fantastic Jubilee Mass at St Bernard’s school in September 2005, I decided to speak to Fr Kevin.

I was encouraged to come and join that years sharing the faith program and found my self nervously coming to a meeting that October.

I did not know what to expect,

Did I have to learn scripture?

Did I have to pass an exam to become a catholic?

What I found when I entered was a group of people like me all very nervous and that included the leaders and Fr Kevin.  The welcome we all received from Fr Kevin and the leaders along with the informal atmosphere made us all relax and feel comfortable and over the course of the program the group became close as we shared our faith journey.

We learnt about the church and its seasons, the mass and prayer. We visited the sisters at St Bernard’s for an evening of prayer and spent a day of reflection at the convent with the Daughters of St Paul; we went to Northampton to meet Bishop Peter at the rite of election and were welcomed into the church at the Easter Vigil 2006.

During this journey of faith we where all made to feel welcome by everyone we met from the parish and I would like to thank you all for the welcome you gave us.

As this years sharing the faith program starts I encourage you all to welcome, pray for  and support the people starting out on their journey of faith.
                                                                                                                                                        Paul
 

I attended St. Bernard’s Grammar in the 1980s when it was a girls’ school, and was surrounded by the Catholic ethos and love of the school and the Sisters from a young age. Although I was a Christian, I was neither encouraged nor discouraged by my parents to take part in the Catholic masses and celebrations, but felt happy and nourished by the Catholic teaching. Some of my happiest memories are from a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the mid-80’s with my friends and teachers; I revisited this route with my Family only last year.

When I left school, I attended a Catholic college in Roehampton and continued to feel part of a family. I then left education for the real world and always felt that a part of me was lost, but couldn’t really explain why.

Some years later, when a was married and had a beautiful daughter, I felt that the Catholic teaching would enrich my child in the same way as myself, and we chose for our daughter to attend St Bernard’s Prep. She hadn’t been baptised, and expressed her own wish to take a more active part in Catholic celebrations, so we had her baptised in St Bernard’s school chapel at the age of 8 years old, and one of my former teachers, Sr Mary Stella, became her Godmother. In the same year I felt the desire to re-kindle my beliefs and put myself forward to take part in the ‘Sharing our Faith’ group along with my husband, who was a Christian but not a Catholic. We all learned much as a family and as our daughter took her Communion, we were confirmed Catholics at the Easter vigil. At last, I felt complete.

The Faith Group introduced me to people of all ages, exploring the Catholic religion for all different reasons, and I still meet them and am pleased to know them. We supported each other, and along with our leaders and Fr Kevin, become part of the Family of God, and that is something I will never forget.

Now we are active members of the Holy Family community, and I feel truly fulfilled.
                                                                                                                                            Rebecca
 
 
Prayer for Faith

Lord, I believe:  I wish to believe in Thee.
Lord, let my faith be full and unreserved, and let it penetrate my thought,
my way of judging Divine things and human things.

Lord, let my faith be joyful and give peace and gladness to my spirit,
and dispose it for prayer with God and conversation with men,
so that the inner bliss of its fortunate possession
may shine forth in sacred and secular conversation.

Lord, let my faith be humble and not presume
to be based on the experience of my thought and of my  feeling;
but let it surrender to the testimony of the Holy Spirit,
and not have any better guarantee than in docility to Tradition
and to the authority of the magisterium of the Holy Church.  Amen.