St Augustine
of Canterbury
Roman Catholic Church
Harehills Road Leeds LS8 5HR
Parish Priest: Rev'd Father Ghebreyesus
We have been awarded £20,000 by the
National Lottery
Awards for All
Scheme for which our Parish is truly grateful.
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
08/09/2024 Year B Mass Book Page 129
TwentyThird Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
Jesus bring healing by touching, it’s what we sometimes call the “human touch.”
He made it a point to touch the deaf and mute man, with one word “Ephatha!”, “Be opened!”
Jesus may no longer be present on earth physically, but he still wants to touch people. He wants to do it through us. This is especially important in our time, as we live in a world where human interaction seems to be decreasing every day.
Something that seems as insignificant as a warm handshake or a pat on the shoulder can be a huge comfort at times. A warm embrace can bring healing to a close friend who is struggling. Even a simple “hello” coupled with a smile can lift someone’s spirits. And if you can pray with someone, you might ask if it’s okay to hold their hand or place your hand on their shoulder while you pray.
God has given all of us a healthy desire to give and receive love. When that desire is bottled up, we suffer, and the people we have an opportunity to help suffer as well.
So, let’s make it a point to go out of our way to touch people with a smile and a warm gesture of affection today. In our homes, let’s make it a point to offer displays of affection to our spouse and children.
After all, Jesus did tell us to love one another as he loves us—and he loves to touch us!
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
01/09/2024 Year B Mass Book Page 126
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
Last Sunday we celebrated in our Parish, Holy Mass for our Youth. Many boys and girls positively attended. Well-done and thank you to the parents for encouraging them.
Our reflection and meditation was about SERVICE and understanding the true meaning of serving the Lord.
Remember once again, you are not only holders of the candle, but you are also evangelizers. You are not only reading the bible, but you are also proclaiming it.
I want to send a message to all our youth and children at the start of the new school year.
How should I approach the school year of 2024/2025?
Examine and reflect on your holiday, did it refresh your mind? Did you benefit from new ideas? I hope and believe your mind was recharged with new perspectives, which have prepared you for going back to school and college. Do not worry about starting back, as your teachers will support you to be successful.
You should all be inspired, motivated and encouraged to be curious and to develop a love of learning.
You will meet new teachers who will support you in gaining knowledge and wisdom in a safe environment, where your learning will be both exciting and adventuresin and out of the classroom. You will also make new friends.
Our Catholic Schools always start the day with 10-15 minutes of prayer and worship. This is amazing and brings Christ Jesus to the centre of the school day. Remember the disciples called Jesus their Master. Your TEACHER is on your side, and you can trust him/her.
Be delighted to go to school and learn. Do your best to achieve and be successful. If you study seriously, you will surprise yourself with how well you can do.
Families encourage and support your children more than ever. Remember, home is the first school. This approach will give your children the best possible start to their education.
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
25/08/2024 Year B Mass Book Page 123
Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.
When Jesus said this to his disciples, was he saying that our physical bodies are worthless, and that this world is ungodly? It may be easy to over-spiritualize the Christian life, thinking Jesus wants us to live on some other, higher plane of existence. But that would be forgetting an essential truth: God made everything good! He had a reason for giving us bodies and fashioning this world.
So, what is Jesus trying to teach us? Maybe that as we look at our lives in a “fleshly” way, using only earthly parameters and seeking physical proof, we can miss out on the fullness that God wants to give us. In the same way that we are not meant to live above the physical realm, God did not create us to live only in the physical realm either. By placing his Spirit within us, he wants to see our earthly existence take on a spiritual dimension that we could not possibly experience without him.
Many times, when our perspective is on the “earthly life” endless of the varieties, God gives us a glimpse of heaven, and the Holy Spirit gives us proof of his action or presence. We may witness physically unexplainable healings, reconciliation where we doubted it was possible, or transformed lives. But God doesn’t show us these things simply for the sake of proving himself to us. These glimpses are meant to bring us to deeper faith. Consider Thomas, demanding physical evidence of the resurrection: When he finally saw the risen Lord, he proclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”. Thomas didn’t just say, “Now I understand it; now I have enough proof.” No, the spiritual insight swept away his need for physical proof and brought him to a new level of faith.
The Holy Spirit wants to open our eyes to heaven and so bring life to our earthly existence. So, let’s recall the ways we have seen proof of our faith. And let’s allow this proof to lead us to a deeper relationship with our heavenly Father.
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
18/08/2024 Year B Mass Book
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
Jesus tells us He is the living bread that came down from heaven. He says that anyone who eats this bread will live forever. This bread is His flesh, given for the life of the world.
Jesus contrasts this with the manna the ancestors ate in the desert. They ate the manna and still died. But those who partake in Jesus, the living bread, will have eternal life.
Eternal life through the Eucharist comes as we connect what we eat with how we live. As beloved children of God, we should be "making the most of the time". We should be taking care that our days are filled with praise and worship of the Lord and that we are constantly seeking more of the Holy Spirit. We should be seeking wisdom from God for our future and healing from God for our past. The glory of the Eucharist is that as we receive Jesus in this special way and pay attention to the way we live, we become one with Christ: "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them". We are not left simply with a list of dos and don'ts. We are given the promise that each of us can come to see as Jesus sees, to speak as Jesus speaks, and to pray as Jesus prays. We can become Christ to the world!
Today at Mass and in every moment of your life, make the most of the time. Take up Scripture's call to sing psalms and hymns from your heart. Seek to become wise as you welcome Jesus into your heart. Becoming one with God as we accept the Eucharist is not only our source of holiness, but also our source of wisdom.
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
11/08/2024 Year B Mass Book
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
Jesus performed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and a crowd of people who had been fed by Him were now seeking more food. Jesus uses their desire for more food to begin to teach them about the Most Holy Eucharist, and He wants to do the same for you.
Put yourself into this scene. What is it that you hunger and thirst for the most? Perhaps you have plenty of physical food, but perhaps you don’t. If you do, what else do you need? What do you desire? When you have identified your deepest desires right now, use these desires to allow our Lord to teach you about the Bread of Life. It might be useful to say to our Lord, “Here are my current desires in life…” And then, allow yourself to hear Jesus say to you, “I want to give you so much more. I am what you truly long for. If you come to Me, you will have all your desires fulfilled and more.” This is essentially the conversation Jesus had with this crowd throughout John Chapter 6.
Do you believe that the Most Holy Eucharist is capable of fulfilling you on the deepest level? Too often we approach that Sacrament in a lazy and distracted way. As a result, we often fail to truly receive our Lord on a level that provides this deepest delight and satisfaction.
Reflect, today and throughout this week, upon your approach to Holy Communion. The Eucharist is Christ Himself. It’s a gift that has the potential to not only sustain us in every way but also to draw us into the greatest Heavenly delights. Believe Jesus’ words in this holy chapter of John’s Gospel. For if you deepen your belief in all that Jesus has said, you will begin to realize that all you crave in life will begin to be fulfilled by this precious gift in ways beyond your imagination.
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
28/07/2024 Year B Mass Book
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
In today’s Gospel, we see a large crowd following Jesus because they were impressed by these signs. Who else could turn water into wine or raise a dead boy with a mere word? They wanted to see more, and Jesus didn’t let them down. He performed yet another sign: feeding more than five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish!
Over the next few Sundays, we will hear how Jesus explains this miracle and how important it is for us. He’ll tell us that this multiplied bread points to the true Bread of Life—his own Eucharistic flesh, which he will give “for the life of the world”. He’ll tell us that this special Bread of Life is greater even than the manna that Moses gave the Israelites in the desert. And best of all, he’ll promise to raise up “on the last day” everyone who eats this bread with faith and trust in him
These are only three of the many promises Jesus has made to us. He promises to be with us, to teach us, to heal us, and to lift us up. He promises to feed us with his very life, and after this life, he promises to open heaven itself for us. This is how good Jesus is!
Today is a perfect day to fix your eyes on Jesus, the Bread of Life offered at Mass, and thank him for everything he has promised you. It’s also a perfect day to tell him that you want to keep following him so that you can receive each and every blessing he has in store for you.
“Thank you, Jesus, for giving us your Bread of Life!”
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
04/08/2024 Year B Mass Book
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
We come together to share a meal and be fed with the bread and wine that is Jesus. The Eucharist is a gift of Jesus' love through which we remember his death and resurrection and share in them.
When Jesus called himself the bread of life, his listeners no doubt thought of Moses. Through Moses God sent down manna, bread from heaven that fed the chosen people for 40 years before they reached the promised land. Jesus explained, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die”.
God prepared us for the mystery of the Eucharist in several ways. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a town whose name means “House of Bread.” His mother laid him in a manger, a feeding trough, a hint that someday he would be bread for the world. All four Gospels tell the story of the miraculous feeding of crowds, which foreshadows what happens at Mass. Even the time Jesus gave us the Eucharist was a clue to its meaning—the time of Passover. At this feast the Jewish people celebrate their salvation from death in Egypt by a meal that includes unleavened bread and wine.
When we partake of the Eucharist, Jesus feeds us with his body and blood. We enter into communion with him and with one another. Unlike other food, which becomes part of us, Jesus in the sacred bread and wine makes us more like him. Therefore we, too, are to be bread for the world.
The living bread sustains us and prepares us for that day when we will come to the heavenly banquet. It is a pledge of future glory. It is how Christ fulfills his promise, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD!“Thank you, Jesus, for giving us your Bread of Life!”
Believing, Belonging and Becoming through Christ
21/07/2024 Year B Mass Book
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 Year B
“COME AWAY! REST FOR A WHILE.”
Jesus said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile”. This is a wonderful picture of the concern, gentleness, and wisdom of Jesus. After the disciples told him all they did and taught, Jesus did not grade their efforts. And the Lord did not immediately give them their next ministry assignment. Jesus was most concerned about the toll their ministry efforts had on them. So, he bid them to get away from the crowd, retreat to a quiet place, and rest. As weak people, we need regular time of rest, refreshment, and relaxation.
Jesus called his disciples to rest after they wore themselves out doing kingdom business. This verse is not a call to take a break from your worldly pursuits. It is a spiritual challenge:
What percentage of life DO YOU GIVE REST for your soul and for meditation and what percentage for business? Obviously, everyone works as much as they can until they gain enough wages for life. Remember the work of the Lord. The divine work which is our Sunday worship.
Paul exhorts us all: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain”. May the Lord fill our congregations with saints who are so busy for the Lord that he bids us to Come Apart and Rest Awhile.
Mass Times at St Augustine's
Sunday
| Mass | 10:00am |
| Mass | 6:00pm (vigil) |
Weekdays*
| Tues-Fri | 9:00am |
| *weekdays subject to change - please see bulletin | |
Holy Days of Obligation
| As Announced | Please see bulletin |
Confessions
| Every Saturday | 5:30-6:00pm |