All Saints Day - Thursday 1st November 12 p.m.

Solemnity of All Saints - Thursday 1st November 2018

Holy Mass for All Saints will take place on Thursday 1st November at Sacred Heart Church, Morriston, 12 p.m.

Propers for the feast of All Saints Day can be found here

  

All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows, Day of All the Saints,^[3]Solemnity of All Saints,^[4] or Feast of All Saints^[5] is a solemnitycelebrated on 1 November by the Roman Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations, and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in Eastern Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, in honour of all the saints, known and unknown. The liturgical celebration begins at Vespers on the evening of 31 October and ends at the close of 1 November. It is thus the day before All Souls' Day.

In Catholic theology, the day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven. It is a national holiday in many historically Catholic countries. In the Catholic Church and many Anglican churches, the next day specifically commemorates the departed faithful who have not yet been purified and reached Heaven. Christians who celebrate All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day do so in the fundamental belief that there is a prayerful spiritual bond between those in heaven (the "Church triumphant"), and the living (the "Church militant"). Other Christian traditions define, remember and respond to the saints in different ways; for example, in the Methodist Church, the word "saints" refers to all Christians and therefore, on All Saints' Day, the Church Universal, as well as the deceased members of a local congregation, are honored and remembered.^[10]

Propers for the feast of All Saints Day can be found here

Corey - Final Arrangements for Thursday 25th and Friday 26th October

Dear Friends,

On Thursday at 7.30 p.m. Corey's body will be received into church at Sacred Heart, Morriston .

A Low Mass will be celebrated.

The family will meet the funeral director outside the church at 7.25 p.m.

On Friday 26th,  we are anticipating a large congregation at both the University in Carmarthen and Parc Gwyn in Narberth.

For those who have not yet done so,  if you could let me know names for the coach from the University to Parc Gwyn and back.

Car Parking on campus will be limited and available on a  first come first served basis.

However,  the Carmarthen Park and Ride has been made available to us which is situated near the Show Ground

Nant-y-ci Car Park, Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, SA33 5DR

The bus departs from the park and ride on the hour and at half past each hour.  A timetable is attached.  And will run until 7 p.m.  The bus will stop at the University Campus.

If possible, we recommend the use of the park and ride on the day.

we would like as many as possible from our church and Start Mater community to be with us in the main auditorium.  Due to the numbers,  if you are able to be with us as early as possible, this should ensure you will be able to be in the main chapel.

A video link is provided in the ante-rooms as an alternative.


If you require anything further,  please do contact either elaine or myself 

tom.sharpling@btinternet.com

With Very Best Wises

The Sharpling Family

Funeral Arrangements for Corey

Dear Friends,

Elaine and I are now in the position to be able to advise about the funeral arrangements for Corey.

Corey's body will be received into the church at Sacred Heart Morriston at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday 25th October, at which point a Low Mass will be celebrated

On 26th October, the solemn Requiem Mass for Corey will take place at 11 a.m. at the University Chapel,  University of Wales Trinity St. David campus,  Carmarthen, SA31 3EP followed by the committal service at Narberth Parc Gwyn SA68 8UD at 1.45 p.m.

A coach will be available to transport people to Narberth and back to Carmarthen if required.  If you require this service, would you be so kind as to email me on the following address

tom.sharping@btinternet.com

so we have an idea of numbers

Following the committal, we will return to the University Campus where  refreshments will be available at the Halliwell Theatre,  Carmarthen Campus, adjacent to the chapel.

We have asked for family flowers only,  but we would be delighted to receive donations for the following local charities which have been so much part of our and Corey's lives over the last years.

The Army Cadet Force
Mencap Ceredigion

Our funeral director Colin Phillips will be able to receive donations on the day or by post at the following address

Colin Phillips and Daughters
Funeral Directors
4 Morgan Street
Cardigan
Ceredigion
S43 1DF

We thank you for your continued support and prayers at this time, and assure you of our heartfelt thanks.

Tom and Elaine

Corey Sharpling RIP (1997 - 2018)

Dear Friends,

With great sadness I have to bring the news that our dear son Corey has lost his life in a tragic accident in Carmarthen yesterday.

The exact circumstances are not fully clear but it appears a landslide onto the main road occurred.

We would like to thank you for your prayers and support at this time,

As and when the funeral arrangements become known,  I will post again on the site ,

Requiescat in Pace


Tom,  Elaine,  Sheila,  Louise and Peter

External Solemnity of Our Lady of the Rosary - Sunday 7th October at 4 p.m.

Holy Mass will take place  Mass - Saturday 7th October at Sacred Heart R.C Church, Morriston.

the Holy Rosary will be said 15 minutes before Mass begins.

There will be the opportunity for confession and refreshments will be served in the Sacred Heart Centre after Mass

Please click here for the propers of the Mass.

On October 7, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the yearly feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Known for several centuries by the alternate title of “Our Lady of Victory,” the feast day takes place in honor of a 16th century naval victory which secured Europe against Turkish invasion. Pope St. Pius V attributed the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was invoked on the day of the battle through a campaign to pray the Rosary throughout Europe.

The feast always occurs one week after the similar Byzantine celebration of the Protection of the Mother of God, which most Eastern Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholics celebrate on October 1 in memory of a 10th-century military victory which protected Constantinople against invasion after a reported Marian apparition.

Pope Leo XIII was particularly devoted to Our Lady of the Rosary, producing 11 encyclicals on the subject of this feast and its importance in the course of his long pontificate. 

In the first of them, 1883's “Supremi Apostolatus Officio,” he echoed the words of the oldest known Marian prayer (known in the Latin tradition as the “Sub Tuum Praesidium”), when he wrote, “It has always been the habit of Catholics in danger and in troublous times to fly for refuge to Mary.” 

“This devotion, so great and so confident, to the august Queen of Heaven,” Pope Leo continued, “has never shone forth with such brilliancy as when the militant Church of God has seemed to be endangered by the violence of heresy … or by an intolerable moral corruption, or by the attacks of powerful enemies.” Foremost among such “attacks” was the battle of Lepanto, a perilous and decisive moment in European and world history. 

Troops of the Turkish Ottoman Empire had invaded and occupied the Byzantine empire by 1453, bringing a large portion of the increasingly divided Christian world under a version of Islamic law. For the next hundred years, the Turks expanded their empire westward on land, and asserted their naval power in the Mediterranean. In 1565 they attacked Malta, envisioning an eventual invasion of Rome. Though repelled at Malta, the Turks captured Cyprus in the fall of 1570.

The next year, three Catholic powers on the continent – Genoa, Spain, and the Papal States - formed an alliance called the Holy League, to defend their Christian civilization against Turkish invasion. Its fleets sailed to confront the Turks near the west coast of Greece on October 7, 1571. 

Crew members on more than 200 ships prayed the Rosary in preparation for the battle - as did Christians throughout Europe, encouraged by the Pope to gather in their churches to invoke the Virgin Mary against the daunting Turkish forces.

Some accounts say that Pope Pius V was granted a miraculous vision of the Holy League's stunning victory. Without a doubt, the Pope understood the significance of the day's events, when he was eventually informed that all but 13 of the nearly 300 Turkish ships had been captured or sunk. He was moved to institute the feast now celebrated universally as Our Lady of the Rosary.

“Turkish victory at Lepanto would have been a catastrophe of the first magnitude for Christendom,” wrote military historian John F. Guilmartin, Jr., “and Europe would have followed a historical trajectory strikingly different from that which obtained.”