We celebrated together the first Sunday in Lent with a mass that encouraged all members of our community, especially those with learning difficulties, to help with the preparation and the celebration itself.

Our preparations started a week before the mass with an art workshop. In the workshop we looked at stones. Some were round, some were rough. Some were jagged and sharp. The stones had many differnt colours, ranging from black, brown, cream, beige, some were even stripy.

We wanted to make a little gift from these stones that people could take away as a memento of the mass. As we thought about Lent we wanted to give people the message that we did not want to be people with hearts of stone, but hearts of love. So we made our stones as beautiful as we could. It was a very busy morning, as the church was still being cleaned after the work on the floor. We all worked really hard and the stones were works of art. Many people saw them during the week and could not believe what had been created out of simple stones.

Our next assignment was to create our banners. As it is Lent we could not produce some of the more colourful banners we have had in the past. Instead we kept to the liturgical colour of Lent-purple. The words on the banner reflected our message for the day;
Love God Serve Him.
The banner team worked really hard, it is not as easy as it looks!

The day of our celebration arrived and so did our Consultant Director, Pius. Pius has many years acting experience and had kindly agreed to help us. In the past he has appeared on stage and in many TV programmes so we were lucky to have him. Pius worked with two members of our congregation Francis and Medford to produce a drama from the Gospel of the day. They were helped by Danielle and Claire who both read.

The drama was very moving and effective. Many people were spellbound and commented on how they had enjoyed it. Fr Keith respoded by giving us the message;

Jesus says to you today, Love me and serve me.

We were supported by Mary and Moira from our music group and they played beautifully. Visitors from other parishes commented on the the great music.

Our signing group worked really hard, and we saw just how far they had progressed with their signing.

After mass we all had a little party in the Fatima Centre where people had been really generous with their donations. Everyone had just one question, when can we do it again?? Watch this space.