This dynamic and evolving role, made possible by external funding, will be vital in delivering on KYT’s commitment to continued development of high quality, innovative Catholic Mental Health resources, programs and training. A fixed term post for 18 months with potential to extend, which can be worked flexibly, with an option for some time to be spent working from home.
Salary £26-£29k depending on experience. Closing date for applications 7th August.
work4KYT - KENELM YOUTH TRUST
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St Mary's College, Oscott is happy to announce the return of its popular College Tours. 
 
Take a walk through the public halls of the college, visit the chapel, library and newly renovated museum and finish with homemade cake and a cup of tea. Tickets are £15 per person.
 
Want to take things at your own pace? Why not visit us on one of our free-flow afternoons. Take in all the public areas and talk to our friendly volunteers who are on hand to answer any of your questions. Take a few minutes to sit and admire the peace and beauty of the chapel or take the time to discover more in our new exhibition. Tickets are £8 per person.
Visit us - Experience a unique Catholic history (oscott.org)
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The North Staffs Area Pastoral Council is organising a coach to the Annual Diocesan Pilgrimage Mass to Harvington Hall on Sunday 1st September 2024. The coach will pick up from Holy Trinity at 9.20am. The cost of the coach will be £17 for adults and £10 for under 16s. To book your place speak to John Macdonald or contact the Parish office. 
The Principal Celebrant of the Mass with be The Right Reverend Paul Gunter OSB, Abbot of Douai. Confessions from 1.45pm, Mass at 3pm. Please bring your own lunch and a chair to sit on. 

The Area Pastoral Council visit to Aston Hall due to take place on Sunday has been cancelled. The Sisters are not yet in residence and so are unable to welcome visitors. The APC hopes to rearrange this event later in the year.  Apologies for the short notice. 

On Saturday the Archdiocese celebrated the Ordination to the Sacred Priesthood of Fr David Bench, which took place in St Chad's Cathedral. Fr David trained for the priesthood at the Venerable English College, Rome and is currently halfway through a post graduate licence in Dogma and Fundamental Theology so will return to Rome for another year to complete the course.
We offer Fr David our congratulations and our prayers for his ministry. 
Full story and photo gallery Ordination of Fr David Bench | Birmingham Diocesan Trust (birminghamdiocese.org.uk)
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The Vatican has granted permission for Our Lady of Walsingham to be celebrated as a new Feast in the dioceses of England, starting this year on 24 September.
Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, wrote to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the Bishops’ Conference, in response to his request last year that the Obligatory Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Walsingham be raised to the rank of Feast.
He explained that normally it wouldn’t be moved but an exception would be made. He said:
“Given the historic importance of this shrine for the Church in England and Wales, dating back just over one thousand years, and given the growing devotion to Our Lady of Walsingham to which you attest, the Dicastery has decided that, by way of exception, your request may be granted.”
The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in 1061, according to the text of the Pynson Ballad, when devout noblewoman Richeldis de Faverches asked in prayer for inspiration so that she could carry out a special work in honour of Our Lady.
The Pynson Ballad says that Our Lady appeared to Richeldis and showed her in spirit the House of the Annunciation where the Angel greeted Mary in Nazareth, and asked her to build a replica in Walsingham as a perpetual memorial of the Annunciation.
Cardinal Roche said he hoped that the new Feast day would strengthen the faithful:
“May this yearly celebration be a source of renewed grace and evangelical endeavour for the Church in England and Wales, as, imitating Mary, the faithful may ever more become disciples of her Son, receive the message of the Gospel, treasure it in their hearts and reflect on it in their minds”.
The Feast will be in the National Calendar for England as the National Marian Shrine in Wales is Our Lady of Taper.
Texts for Mass, the Lectionary and the Liturgy of the Hours may be found on the Liturgy Office website.

News from Vatican News
‘Loneliness’ at heart of Pope’s theme for 4th Grandparents Day
On Sunday 28 July Catholics around the world will be invited to take time to reflect on the great heritage and wisdom passed on by their grandparents and the elderly.
In preparation for the 4th World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life released the theme for the 2024 iteration.
The Pope has chosen the theme: “Do not cast me off in my old age” (cf. Psalm 71:9).
According to a press release from the Dicastery, it is meant “to call attention to the fact that, sadly, loneliness is the bitter lot in life of many elderly persons, so often the victims of the throw-away culture.”
In his message, Pope Francis will draw on the verse from Psalm 71 that depicts the plea of an elderly person who reflects on the story of their friendship with God.

“His mercy is from age to age” (Lk 1:50)

World Day for Grandparents and Elderly
Sunday, 23 July 2023
Papal MessageDear brothers and sisters!
This is the theme of the Third World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, and it takes us back to the joyful meeting between the young Mary and her elderly relative Elizabeth (cf. Lk 1:39-56). Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth addressed the Mother of God with words that, millennia later, continue to echo in our daily prayer: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (v. 42).
The Holy Spirit, who had earlier descended upon Mary, prompted her to respond with the Magnificat, in which she proclaimed that the Lord’s mercy is from generation to generation. That same Spirit blesses and accompanies every fruitful encounter between different generations: between grandparents and
grandchildren, between young and old. God wants young people to bring joy to the hearts of the
elderly, as Mary did to Elizabeth, and gain wisdom from their experiences. Yet, above all, the Lord
wants us not to abandon the elderly or to push them to the margins of life, as tragically happens all
too often in our time.
This year, the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly takes place close to World Youth Day.
Both celebrations remind us of the “haste” (cf. v. 39) with which Mary set out to visit Elizabeth. In
this way, they invite us to reflect on the bond that unites young and old. The Lord trusts that young
people, through their relationships with the elderly, will realize that they are called to cultivate
memory and recognize the beauty of being part of a much larger history.
Friendship with an older person can help the young to see life not only in terms of the present and realize that not everything depends on them and their abilities. For the elderly, the presence of a young person in their lives can give them hope that their experience will not be lost and that their dreams can find
fulfilment.
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and their shared awareness that the Lord’s mercy is from generation to generation remind us that, alone, we cannot move forward, much less save ourselves, and that God’s presence and activity are always part of something greater, the history of a people. Mary herself said this in the Magnificat, as she rejoiced in God, who, in fidelity to the promise he had made to Abraham, had worked new and unexpected wonders (cf. vv. 51-55).
To better appreciate God’s way of acting, let us remember that our life is meant to be lived to the
full, and that our greatest hopes and dreams are not achieved instantly but through a process of
growth and maturation, in dialogue and in relationship with others. Those who focus only on the
here and now, on money and possessions, on “having it all now”, are blind to the way God works.
His loving plan spans past, present and future; it embraces and connects the generations. It is
greater than we are, yet includes each of us and calls us at every moment to keep pressing
forward. For the young, this means being ready to break free from the fleeting present in which
virtual reality can entrap us, preventing us from doing something productive.
For the elderly, it means not dwelling on the loss of physical strength and thinking with regret about missed opportunities. Let us all look ahead! And allow ourselves to be shaped by God’s grace, which from
generation to generation frees us from inertia and from dwelling on the past!
In the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth, between young and old, God points us towards the
future that he is opening up before us. Indeed, Mary’s visit and Elizabeth’s greeting open our eyes
to the dawn of salvation: in their embrace, God’s mercy quietly breaks into human history amid
abundant joy. I encourage everyone to reflect on that meeting, to picture, like a snapshot, that
embrace between the young Mother of God and the elderly mother of Saint John the Baptist, and
to frame it in their minds and hearts as a radiant icon.
Next, I would invite you to make a concrete gesture that would include grandparents and the
elderly. Let us not abandon them. Their presence in families and communities is a precious one,
for it reminds us that we share the same heritage and are part of a people committed to preserving
its roots. From the elderly we received the gift of belonging to God’s holy people. The Church, as
well as society, needs them, for they entrust to the present the past that is needed to build the
future. Let us honour them, neither depriving ourselves of their company nor depriving them of
ours. May we never allow the elderly to be cast aside!
The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly is meant to be a small but precious sign of hope
for them and for the whole Church. I renew my invitation to everyone – dioceses, parishes,
associations and communities – to celebrate this Day and to make it the occasion of a joyful and
renewed encounter between young and old.
To you, the young who are preparing to meet in Lisbon or to celebrate World Youth Day in your own countries, I would ask: before you set out on your journey, visit your grandparents or an elderly person who lives alone! Their prayers will protect you and you will carry in your heart the blessing of that encounter. I ask you, the elderly among us, to accompany by your prayers the young people about to celebrate World Youth Day. Those young people are God’s answer to your prayers, the fruits of all that you have sown, the sign that God does not abandon his people, but always rejuvenates them with the creativity of the Holy Spirit.
Dear grandparents, dear elderly brothers and sisters, may the blessing of the embrace between
Mary and Elizabeth come upon you and fill your hearts with peace. With great affection, I give you
my blessing. And I ask you, please, to pray for me.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 31 May 2023
Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
FRANCIS

Reflection for Ordinations Week 
They strive to be conformed to the image of Christ himself 
and offer you a constant witness of faith and love.
 
These words from the Preface at Holy Mass, which will be prayed at each of the ordinations at St Chad’s Cathedral, are worth further reflection as our Mother Church becomes the focus of much celebration during the coming week.  
 
The month of July is often a month of ordinations, both to the presbyterate and the permanent diaconate, but this year we will also celebrate the Episcopal Ordination of Monsignor Timothy Menezes and Canon Richard Walker.
 
An ordination – like a marriage or religious profession – is always a moment to rejoice, but it is also the moment when we witness God powerfully at work amongst us. Through the Prayer of Ordination, the man kneeling before the Altar is conformed to the image of Jesus, as his whole life reflects His love for us.  
 
I remember how moved I was during the first ordination I attended – even before I began discerning the priesthood – as the man being ordained prostrated himself before God, in complete abandonment to His Will.  
 
Now, in my role as Vocation Director, it is always a real joy to witness the ordination of men to the diaconate and the priesthood after many years of formation.  
 
Please join me in praying for an increase in vocations to the single life, married life, consecrated life and particularly that more men will respond with courage to the Lord’s personal invitation to follow Him as priests and deacons for our Archdiocese.  
 
Rev. Fr Craig Szmidt
Vocation Director

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​These are challenging times. But thanks to your support at Lent, we have been able to support communities in Liberia and Bangladesh build resilient and thriving food and fishing schemes and those communities are sharing their knowledge and expertise with their own neighbours and a beautiful example of how a better world needs all of us to play our part.
Thank you also to those who responded to the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis unfolding in Sudan. Our partner, Caritas Sudan, is alongside people right now providing shelter for displaced people, helping people with emergency food and assisting with planting crops now during the vital growing season to stop a hunger crisis turning into famine. Please, please keep the people of Sudan and the incredible work our Catholic partners are doing there in your prayers. The Catholic church in Sudan is doing all it can to aid a peaceful solution amongst the warring factions.
Updates on all you help fund can be found in our online Side By Side magazine.