West Hull Parishes

The Bible at your fingertips…………….

stmarys — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:41:58 +0000

Dear All,
Here is e-bible for your reading……….Click on any chapter……..

English Bible Online
http://www.jrsbible.info/bible.htm

Malayalam POC bible online
http://www.pocbible.com/

MALAYALAM MASS

stmarys — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:34:12 +0000

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Who Do You Say I Am?

jamesp — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:16:30 +0000

During Lent 2009, Bishop Terry is giving a personal invitation to every young person aged 13 to 30 in the Diocese. This is his message to you…

Last year I had the privilege of being at World Youth Day in Sydney. What a breathtaking experience that was! I wish you could all have been there with Pope Benedict and 400,000 young Catholics from all over the world. To be with so many young people full of faith was wonderful.

During our time in Australia, the Pope reminded us that Christ is the Truth and the Way which leads to real Life. Our faith brings us to life in Christ. This is the reason the Church exists, so we can come to know Jesus Christ and the life only he can give.

Pope Benedict reminded us all that we have been specially chosen by God who loves us. God our Father has called us into existence for a specific reason. He wants us to search and find Him in all that is good, beautiful and true in our lives and in the world. His gift of freedom enables us to choose these things and so find genuine happiness.

We talked about the gifts God gives us in the sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who gives us all we need as we journey through life. He helps us find our real purpose, so we can help build God’s family, of which we are all members.

When you were baptised, God drew you into his own life and you became his adopted son or daughter. Right then, the Holy Spirit came to live in you. During the ceremony the priest told your parents you had become a new creation. Let me quote from the Holy Father in Australia: Dear young friends, remember that you are a new creation! As Christians you stand in this world knowing that God has a human face - Jesus Christ - the Way who satisfies all human yearning and the Life to which we are called to bear witness, walking always in His light.

Returning from that special experience in Australia, it struck me that a simple way of supporting and encouraging you would be to create a life-changing opportunity for you. Each week during Lent I will come to Hull, York and Middlesbrough. I hope to meet you there. If you are open to what the Lord is saying, life will never be the same again. I promise. Together, I want us to begin to answer Jesus’ challenging question: Who do you say I am?

I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE LORD, THE GIVER OF LIFE…

frmassie — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:07:16 +0000

Homily: 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time yr. B, (2009)

He heals the broken-hearted, he binds up all their wounds. - Psalm 146

I’m sure that more people find the concept of the Holy Spirit easier to grasp and accept than that of the Eternal Word truly becoming flesh and blood for us. ‘I’m not religious but I’m a very spiritual person’. We are happy to admit a universal spiritual sense because it does not seem to demand too close a definition. Oh, but for us Catholics the truth about him is closely defined.

‘Giver of life’: of course, if the Son had a special role in creating all things, that was not to exclude either the Father or the Spirit. In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, there are two accounts of the creation of the cosmos. Those who accuse Christians of taking Genesis literally must face the fact that we’ve always know it wasn’t literal for there are two accounts and the world was only created once! The two accounts bring out complementary truths about creation, both of them in powerfully symbolic language. In the second account of creation, man’s body is described as being made from the dust or slime of the earth (sounds very much in keeping with Darwin’s theory of material evolution?!) But man was made special, given a unique relationship with God which none of the other animals were given: God breathed his spirit into the nostrils of Adam to bring him to life, “… and thus man became a living being”.

Now just think what this means to a man and woman who have sex and are open to bringing a new life into the world, who are open to having a baby: they are opening their hearts and lives to the Lord, the Giver of Life, really and truly. This is why sex, for a Christian, should always but always be something very special, very holy. It is a calling to be a cooperator with God, in bringing new life into the world. How wonderful! But doesn’t this also imply something quite serious about contraception? Doesn’t this also make sense of what the Catholic Church still says (what all the Christian churches said until the 20^th century) that contraceptive sex is always wrong, in fact very wrong: because couple is saying: we want sex but we exclude God from this, we exclude the Lord, the Giver of Life, in fact we positively want Him to stay away.

The Holy Spirit is the ‘Giver of Life’ to our spirits. There is a further, deeper meaning to this line of the creed. The ‘Life of the Spirit’ is more than just being alive. It is the life of a Christian. Even that doesn’t adequately express this life: it is what St Paul calls “life in Christ” . Let’s add the next line:

‘Who proceeds from the Father and the Son…’.

This was added to the creed at the Council of Toledo in 589. There was a concern that the divinity of the Son was being down played and so it was made clear that the Son sent the Spirit with the Father. If I were the pope I would add another line to the creed here which gets across the full meaning of what is intended by these lines:

‘and gathers all to the Father through the Son’

You see there’s NO separation between the work and Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. After the Ascension of Christ to heaven, the Father and Christ sent the Holy Spirit into the world to work in the hearts, minds of souls of all who are open to God to gather all to the Father by coming to Christ through his Church, through his sacraments, especially through the sacrament of his living flesh & blood, the Eucharist. Why? Because God still wants to come to us in a way we can fully grasp and so he wants to unite our living flesh & blood with his living flesh & blood.

·Giver of Life: and yet another meaning! ‘Get a life’ we sometimes say or think about someone. The ‘Life of the Spirit’ or ‘Life in Christ’ is the best life anyone could ever ‘get’. This kind of experience of life, of the Holy Spirit in our lives, is something some of us may experience. It’s the life of the mystic, the life of a few great saints. St Theresa of Avila almost certainly experienced it and wrote about it. It is accompanied by moments of exquisite joy and peace but these, we’re told by those who’ve had them, only last for moments. Sometimes it is to prepare us for a time of great trial or testing. I read something during the week which made the fairs on my neck stand on end: the account of the last Mass of the Carthusians in London on the eve of the Reformation…

One of the names that Jesus gave the Holy Spirit is ‘the Comforter’ and Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter would be given to those who needed him in times of great suffering. We’ll sing in the hymn to the Holy Spirit later in Mass:

Thou of all consolers best,
Thou the soul’s delightsome guest
Dost refreshing peace bestow:
Thou in toil art comfort sweet;
Pleasant coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life: and that life has been given to us: in our Baptism, in our Confirmation, in divine Absolution after Confession, in EVERY sacrament; for in every sacrament, the priest holds out his hand over us and calls on the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life to come down upon us. “He heals the broken-hearted, he binds up all their wounds”. We heard that in today’s psalm. It’s true: the Holy Spirit does that for us, to us, above all through the sacraments.

‘he has spoken through the prophets.’

Do we always remember when we hear those sometimes difficult OT readings on a Sunday, from Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, that it was the SAME Holy Spirit who inspired them as who spoke through and in Jesus and now speaks in and through his body the Church: through John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and hopefully your parish priest? Since the Spirit is one, the message must be one. Something is wrong if someone thinks that the Holy Spirit is leading them to act in a way that contradicts Scripture or Church teaching.

There is no one here whose life has not been touched, affected, deeply changed through the action of the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life: parent, child, Christian. How much our creed proclaims and celebrates!

Our Vision

jamesp — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:15:07 +0000

Fr Des Hanrahan & Fr Peter Corcoran

Changing The Model

Although the three parishes were quite different with regard to numbers, age span, social mix and things like that, they shared one common feature–the priest was very much the focal point of their parish activity. We wished to change that and asked our fellow parishioners if they were prepared (with us) to try another model. We explained………….& they said Yes.

Neither of us would be the Parish Priest of any of the Parishes. We would be parishioners who would contribute to the parishes our Priesthood and all that entailed–especially in the area of Sacramental activity and leadership. We would also bring our individual qualities and experiences, the same way that our fellow parishioners would bring their individual qualities and experiences.

My Parish……..Whose Parish?

We are aware that the path to full co-responsibility in the Church is not an easy one. Not a smooth one. With obstacles due to lack of confidence on the part of the laity and lack of willingness on the part of the clergy. Especially by clergy whose natural conversation includes such phrases as ‘my parish’ and ‘my church’ and ‘my people’. Whereas for some, this language is nothing more than a traditional way of speaking, it does tend to betray an underlying attitude of possessiveness, which somehow seems inappropriate in the Church of today. Perhaps co-responsibility is seen as a threat or possibly as an inevitable option for the Church, when all else fails. Unfortunately when the latter is the case one can tend to have a core of responsible volunteers doing Father’s wishes–which is not really co-responsibility, is it?

A Question of Role:

Not More Holy, Nor More Wise

Embarking on this new approach to parish life in West Hull, we felt that it was essential that pretty early on we looked at the distinct, different and complementary roles of clergy and lay people. We reminded ourselves that the priest was essential to the celebration of the Mass not because he was more holy or more educated - but simply by virtue of his ordination. That the priest was able to be the instrument by which the forgiveness of God and reconciliation with the Church comes to the individual penitent, not because he is more sensitive or a wiser person - but by virtue of his ordination. That the priest being the instrument of the sacrament of the sick to a person in a hospital bed does not have anything to do with his having a better bedside manner or being more comfortable with the medical staff but simply because he is an ordained priest. Likewise with the other sacraments where he is the chief minister.

Different Continent, Same Belief

In our opening ‘Three Parish Meeting’ we used quotations from Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural Speech as President of South Africa in 1994:

We ask ourselves.

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

The words chosen by the newly inaugurated President of South Africa in 1994 suddenly took on a challenging relevance for us in West Hull in 2001. Words which made us stop and look deep into the mirror of our own being and with stuttering embarrassment reflect: I am brilliant? I am gorgeous? I am talented? I am fabulous? That’s me? In fact, to be honest, few of us could cope immediately with being either fabulous or gorgeous but the fact that some of us were admitting, first to ourselves, and hopefully soon to others, that Actually I’m not too bad, is at least a start. And an encouraging start for the future of the Church here in West Hull.

Historical Photos

jamesp — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:20:23 +0000

Fr James L M Hall at a wedding outside the old St Wilfrid

Fr James L M Hall - priest at St Wilfrid

Fr. Patrick Smyth with Rt. Rev Augustine Harris Bishop of Middlesbrough

Canon Wilson - priest at St Wilfrid

Fr. M Barry and Fr. Cornwall with two Missionary Priests

The Altar at the Old St Wilfrid

The Old St Wilfrid's Church Building

The old St. Wilfrid's after bombing

Father Cornwall, Corpus Christi Parish (1940 - 1970s)

jamesp — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:15:47 +0000

By Anthony Larkman

One of your contributors asks if we remember Fr. Cornwall. Indeed I remember him well.

I was an altar boy during the second World War and served Mass daily for Fr. Cornwall. But this is by the way. Fr. Cornwall was very patriotic (I believe he flew fighter planes during the First World War.) However war-time meant a shortage of food, so using the land behind the church (the church hall came later) he built a hen house and raised chickens from young pullets. A bold venture you may think? But - next came the ducklings followed by the young geese. Finally the turkeys which were almost fully grown and took some persuading to roost in the turkey house.

By this time the whole field was covered in sheds and various buildings to house the poultry. Fr. Cornwall paid me ten shillings a week to feed the birds after finishing school for the day. Ten shillings - 50 pence now but a princely sum in those days. By way of a bonus or a reward Fr. Cornwall also bought me a couple of rabbits. However, I soon learnt the art of mixing food for all the poultry and Fr. Cornwall even had a metal copper behind the Presbytery for boiling potatoes.
Well, Christmas came and an army of women volunteered to pluck the birds. Many went to the Christmas raffle, some were sold, and quite a lot of birds were given away. So the object of the exercise, to provide a good number of Christmas dinners was achieved.

So much for Fr. Cornwall’s war-time efforts. It must be said that these activities never interfered with his pastoral duties. After the war all evidence of poultry keeping disappeared and eventually a parish hall was built on the field, which I believe has since been demolished.

Operation Pied Piper

jamesp — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:13:31 +0000

(the code name given to the evacuation of children in WWII)

My mother was fourteen years old when the Great War started and could remember vividly the Zeppelin raids on Hull. During the 30’s we had seen newsreel shots in the cinemas of air raids by the Japanese in Manchuria, by the Italians in Abyssinia and in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, particularly the raid on Guernica. She was a pessimist, and after Munich and the distribution of gas masks, preparations for war began in earnest and she was really worried about what would happen. At this time I was a pupil at the Hull College of Commerce in Brunswick Avenue which covered a two-year course in commercial subjects. It was a mixed school with ninety pupils in each school year and we had completed our first year of the course in the summer of 1939. During that year parents had been asked to indicate whether or not they wanted their children to be evacuated in the event of war and my mother gave her consent for my sister (who was at a different school) and me to take part. My friend, Kathleen Murtagh, was also a possible evacuee and we hoped we could “be together”. We were both in our fourteenth year.

We were given instructions as to what to take with is in the event of evacuation - a change of clothing, night clothes, and toiletries which had to be carried in a haversack plus our gas masks. I can’t remember if we wore labels. All through August everyone was glued to the “wireless” listening to news bulletins and little groups of people gathered in the streets discussing events. My mother’s brother was a “Territorial” and he had already departed with his regiment (the 4th East Yorks). My father was home from sea, and on Thursday 31st August it was announced on the one o’clock news that the evacuation of children would commence on the 1st of September and the various places involved were listed including Hull. My father left that day to go back to sea, my brother was already in the regular army and so my mother had a great deal to worry about.

Lilian has already commented on the logistics involved in this great movement of people, and the authorities in Hull had planned for the evacuation of 50,000 children. The evacuation began at 6.00 am from Paragon Station and Hull pier, and continued until 6.00 pm. In the twelve hours over 55 trains and seven ferryboats took the children school by school to the area allocated to them. In the event not all the children who had their names down for evacuation turned up. These figures appeared in a “Flashback” edition of the Hull Daily Mail.

My sister left home first and she went with her school to Snainton near Scarborough, and my mother’s youngest sister was one of the helpers which pleased my mother. We reported at our school at about 9.30 am and left around 11.00 am as far as I can remember. We walked to the railway station, and I recall how light the traffic was in Ferensway and the newspaper placards announcing the German invasion of Poland. Once we were on our way the teacher in our compartment told us that we were going to Malton.

When we arrived in Malton we were taken to a hall and met some friendly ladies (probably the nucleus of the WVS) and given a meal. We then each received a small brown paper carrier containing a can of corned beef, a tin of condensed milk, a packet of biscuits and a Kit-Kat, plus a stamped postcard for writing home. We were then taken by car to the hone of our host family - Mrs Marwood and her unmarried daughter, Ethe1. They welcomed us and were very friendly. We were given a large bedroom with a double bed and also the use of tile “parlour” which contained a piano and as Kathleen and I had had music lessons we were allowed to make use of the piano. Miss Marwood, as we called her, was very kind to us and found out the times of Mass at the RC church and later on arranged for her hairdresser to cut our hair at her expense. War was declared on the Sunday morning and again everyone was sitting by the wireless waiting for news bulletins. On the day before, conscription of all men aged 18 to 41 had been announced. During our stay there we tried to be helpful, looking after our room, helping to wash up and clean the silver on a Saturday morning, but we were never told to do certain jobs.

The Head of the College, Mr. George and his wife, plus several members of staff and their families had evacuated with us, and after a few days it was obvious plans were afoot to get the school organised. The local authority had opened up part of the Malton Grammar School including the gymnasium, where we used to meet daily and we used the gym quite a lot in the early days. One favourite pastime was having races up and down the ropes and I learned how to tie two ropes together and swing upside down. The staff worked hard keeping us busy, taking us for walks and we visited Kirkham Abbey by coach and had a picnic there, some hardy souls even swimming in the river.

After a couple of week a school was organised. This was in the Friends Meeting House in Greengate, a small building used as a community centre and a children’s clinic was held there weekly. We had two rooms with trestle tables and in the meantime members of the staff had returned to Hull, loaded their cars with stationery, books, typewriters etc, and soon we were able to continue our studies. I can’t recall how many evacuees there were originally -some did drift back to Hull in the early days, but the numbers in Malton did not need a large staff and when the school opened there were three male teachers and one female teacher - when we had our end of term exams that Christmas my report records 26 pupils. We were given homework and not allowed out at all at night without permission from Mr Parsons who was in charge. Occasionally we went to the cinema and my friend Kathleen who was an exceptionally clever dancer, was given an introduction through our host family to a local dancing teacher, Mrs. McCormack, and was twice the star of the show at a concert for the troops which the teacher had organised. Malton is quite a pleasant country town, with plenty of country walks and we seemed to spend most of our spare time walking round the shops (Woolworths was one) or going for country walks, and later on in this phoney war period when several of us bad been home for a weekend and brought back hockey sticks, we played hockey. One day Miss Fair suggested we play the boys at hockey but it never happened again as the boys forgot the rules and lifted the sticks over their heads - she said it was dangerous and we said it wasn’t fair!

We wore school uniform and of course stuck out like sore thumbs in the town - they knew “who we were” and we had to be on our best behaviour. The main street in Malton isn’t very wide and Kathleen and I were on one side of the street when a couple at boys from the school called to us from the other side. We replied and continued our walk, but the next morning in school the sky fell in on us when Mr Parsons admonished us in no uncertain terms about this behaviour saying, “Miss Fair said you were screaming like fishwives!” On another occasion when we had had some heavy snow we were taken tobogganing down a local hill. Miss Fair quite wisely was wearing slacks but by the time we got home everyone knew that our lady teacher had been seen wearing trousers!

After a while we moved from the Marwoods and went to stay with Mr. & Mrs. Bradley. They too were extremely friendly and kind to us and I can remember sitting round the fire on Saturday nights either darning socks or helping to patch sheets and listening to Garrison Theatre on the radio.

We went home for Christmas and my father was home from sea which was a bonus as his ship was very rarely in Hull at Christmas time.

After our return to Malton plans were made for the College to re-open in Hull, and at the end of February Kathleen and I returned home and joined the College again. When Mr. Parsons called for us in the car to take us to the station and saw all the things we had to take home he said, “It seems incredible to look back and realise you both arrived here with a haversack each”. We had to change trains at Driffield where I left all my schoolbooks on the station platform and it cost a shilling to get them back again. I kept in touch with Mrs. Bradley for a long while and visited her once in 1941 - she told me they could see the glow in the sky there from the fires in the Hull blitz and her neighbour was so worried about “those poor little kids”.

I left the school at the end of March 1940, the school having found me a position as a shorthand typist with a local firm. We did not know at that time what lay ahead.

Looking back I am grateful to the people of Malton for taking us in and for the College staff for their sterling work in getting the school organised.

A housekeeper looks back - and forward fondly

jamesp — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:58:48 +0000

Hello, Mona Plumtree here.

Twenty years ago I came to St. Wilfrid’s to be Fr. Peter Coleman’s housekeeper from which I found a great pleasure and joy as we got on so well together.
But sadly after three years Bishop Harris moved him to Scarborough, from which we all were devastated.

However, they sent us Fr. Michael Boyd who also became chaplain to the Hull Royal Infirmary and made a very good one.

He was also devoted to Our Lady. At his Golden Jubilee he had a lovely Mass with a terrific ovation, with the Bishop there and all the Diocesan Priests.

Afterwards Evelyn Beach and all of us in the Parish put a lovely buffet on for him and was enjoyed by everyone.

But unfortunately towards the end of his years he had a bad accident in his car and was never right after it and was sent home to Ireland to his sister’s Nursing Home where he sadly died.

Of St. Wilfrid’s Parish

jamesp — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:45:21 +0000

By John Oxley

On moving to South Cave we discovered it would only take 15 minutes on a Sunday morning, without travelling at breakneck speeds, to reach St. Wilfrid’s. My wife and I found great changes afoot.

Father Boyd was ill in Ireland and Father Corcoran and Hanrahan were running 3 parishes.

PORTER STREET CHAPEL

I have been asked to comment on the changes that have taken place in the parish of St. Wilfrid’s and Hessle Road since my childhood and early manhood. I was born in the parish in 1928 and left it in 1960 when we went to live in Liverpool. I was born in Villa Place, which was not far from the borderline of St. Patrick’s and St. Wilfrid’s parishes. We attended Mass at the St. Patrick’s chapel-of-ease down Porter Street, until the family moved to Welsted Street when I was about 3. I wonder how many people remember that chapel-of-ease? It vindicates the number of Catholics that were in St. Patrick’s, as Porter Street was a continuation of Hessle Road. What a change in that area now!

On moving to Welsted Street we attended Mass at St. Wilfrid’s and I started school in Miss Walsh’s class at St. Wilfrid’s School.

FULL TO THE RAFTERS

On Sundays there were 4 Masses: 6.45 a.m., 8.00 a.m., 9.30 a.m. and 11.00 a.m., the last 3 being packed. Frequently people stood around the walls and even in the doorway, most people clutching missals and rosary beads and all the ladies with covered heads. There were 4 priests tending the needs of the Parish, one being a canon. His name was Canon Wilson.

HAT TRICK FR. JOHNSON

Another priest, Father Johnson, lives in the memory as the priest who scored a hat trick when the priests’ team played the police team at Marist College ground and beat them 5.2 in front of a vast crowd. One thinks of the significance of Hull having enough priests to form a football team.

HESSLE ROAD IN THOSE DAYS

St. Wilfrid’s served Hessle Road, in those days a densely populated area, much of the housing had been hurriedly built to cater for the fishing industries which boomed with the coming of the railways in the 19th century. Bean Street was said to have a bigger population than Withernsea at that time.

In those days most people did their shopping on Hessle Road and rarely went ‘into town’. All of the household necessities could be bought there. A huge Jackson’s Bakery at the corner of Bean Street was not unusual and the Scotch Wool Shop, managed by a St. Wilfrid’s parishioner, was typical of the high quality shops which stretched from porter Street to Dairycoates.

My wife has peeped over my shoulder and said that I am going on a lot about Hessle Road. The answer to that of course, is that the huge congregation attending St. Wilfrid’s came from there, as well as the area between Anlaby Road and Hessle Road which were also in St. Wilfrid’s Parish, streets as far away as Plane Street.

IRISH CATHOLICS

The reason for there being so many Catholics in the population dates back to the Irish emigration in the latter half of the 19th century. The Great Irish famine took place between 1845 and 1852 but there were other famines too. In 1890 a very bad time, Irish immigrants responded to job opportunities in Hull on the roads and at the Docks and many Hull Catholics can trace their origins back to places like County Mayo from this period.

NEVER THE SAME AGAIN

I have spent some effort on the pre-war situation but things began to change after the War. The school and church were demolished. Canon Hall had the church rebuilt but the population of the Hessle Road area began to move out to the estates and suburbs. The dockside area and much else was demolished. The church no longer had a place for their famous choir, which had broadcast on Sunday radio on more that one occasion, and congregation numbers were drastically reduced. Canon Hall once said ‘This church will one day be called Canon Hall’s folly’. He was no doubt thinking of the cost of maintaining such a church with such a severely reduced population. But how could he have anticipated such a drift of the population?

CANON HALL

Before I finish I must say something about Canon Hall. Speaking to some older members of the congregation recently we all could recall him in the pulpit speaking in his slow quiet and very profound manner. He possessed a certain magnetism and was very sympathetic to people with problems. During the War he tried to enlist as a chaplain but was not released by the Church. He was a tower of strength in the Blitz and one could have imagined him the same in the trenches.

SO TO TODAY

St. Charles has survived, St. Patrick’s has gone and 2 relatively young priests are running 3 parishes, one being St. Wilfrid’s. There is one Mass now said on a Sunday at St. Wilfrid’s but the congregation is growing largely due to the thoughtfulness and enthusiasm and energy of Fathers Corcoran and Hanrahan.