Our Lady of Grace Conference

Meeting of 24/11/2016

Since the last meeting our Vincentians undertook a total of 16 visits to people in the local community and care homes, providing support and companionship to the housebound and visiting the sick, helping with shopping and problems. 

Opening prayers for our meeting included a reading from the Advent Walk With Me booklet “The promise of love”.   Members then discussed visits, correspondence and the plans for wrapping and delivering the Christmas parcels.

The meeting concluded by praying for the people of Mosul that Our Lady, Queen of Peace should help bring peace to them and to other regions affected by war.

Mary Queen of Peace, we pray for the Christian communities in Mosul and in other parts of the Middle East, where they have lived with their fellow citizens from the very beginning of Christianity. 

Through your intercession bring light out of this present darkness and hope from despair so that guided by the Holy Spirit, all God’s children may find a new way forward together based love.

Amen

If anyone would like to join us as a visiting member or to support us in any other way they would be most welcome.  For further information, contact Our Lady of Grace presbytery on 0161-773 2324.

Our Lady of Grace Conference

Meeting of 10/11/2016

Since the last meeting our Vincentians undertook a total of 15 visits to people in the local community and care homes, providing support and companionship to the housebound and visiting the sick, helping with shopping and paying bills. 

Opening prayers for our meeting included a reading of the Year of Mercy prayer.   Members then discussed visits, correspondence and the arrangements for Christmas parcels.

The meeting concluded by praying for those of our families who are unwell.

Father,

Your love is as wide as the oceans
As deep as the sea
And as tall as the heavens.
May your spirit rise like a mighty wave

And come and restore those who are ill.

We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Amen

If anyone would like to join us as a visiting member or to support us in any other way they would be most welcome.  For further information, contact Our Lady of Grace presbytery on 0161-773 2324.

Our Lady of Grace Conference

Meeting of 27/10/2016

In October our Vincentians undertook a total of 19 visits to people in the local community and care homes, providing support and companionship to the housebound and visiting the sick, helped with shopping and paid bills.  Members also helped with clothing grants and took a present and card to an elderly person to celebrate their 90^th birthday

Opening prayers for our meeting included a reading of a CAFOD prayer.   Members then discussed visits, correspondence and the central council meeting and made initial plans for the Christmas parcels.

The meeting concluded by praying for our families and refugee children.

Using a prayer issued by the Children’s Society we pray:

God of compassion, 

We have seen the harrowing images, of children fleeing danger and desperately seeking safety; of families risking everything without the assurance of anything in return; of young people whose only hope depends on finding refuge in an unknown country.

Lord, may we offer a welcome as warm as the one we would offer the Child who once fled to Egypt.

AMEN.

If anyone would like to join us either as a visiting member or would like to support us in any other way you would be most welcome.  For further information, contact Our Lady of Grace presbytery on 0161-773 2324.

Our Lady of Grace Conference

Meeting of 06/10/2016

In September our Vincentians organised a mass and party for the elderly, sick and housebound and undertook a total of 22 visits to people in the local community and care homes, comforting the bereaved, providing support and companionship to the housebound and visiting the sick, helped with shopping and paid bills.  Members also attended the district council meeting.

Opening prayers for our October meeting included a reading of the CAFOD harvest prayer.   Members then discussed visits, the mass for the elderly, sick and housebound and the district council meeting.

The meeting concluded by praying for three people who had died recently.

God of mercy, look kindly on Your servants.

As they served You faithfully throughout their lives,

may You give them the fullness of Your peace and joy.

We give thanks for their lives, now caught up in Your eternal love.

We make our prayer through Jesus Christ,

Who is our risen Lord now and forever.

AMEN.

New members are always welcome and can become involved in many different ways.  For further information, contact Our Lady of Grace presbytery on 0161-773 2324.

Our Lady of Grace Conference

Meeting of 08/09/2016

Our Vincentians did not hold any meetings in August, but during the short summer break members undertook a total of 19 visits to people in the local community and care homes and they provided support housebound and companionship to the and visiting the sick.  They also took people to church, supported the bereaved, provided transport, helped with shopping and paid bills, distributed grants and delivered clothes that had been kindly donated for those in need.

Opening prayers included a reading “God loves a cheerful visitor” taken from the SVP Spiritual Reading manual.   A new member was then welcomed and members discussed visits made, grants issued, donations and correspondence received.  Arrangements were also made to attend the district council meeting later in the September before the meeting ended with prayers.

New members are always welcome and anyone interested should contact Our Lady of Grace presbytery on 0161-773 2324.

We now adapt one of the Minnie Vinnie prayers as we pray:

Dear Jesus, 

As Christians we are asked to listen to what you told us and to try to understand & show this in the way we live and how we treat others. Help us to be the best we can be.

Help us to show others, by the way we see, think & do that we are following your example, so that they too will want to join us doing your work.

Inspire us and all who join us to follow the example of Blessed Frédéric Ozanam who was motivated to alleviate poverty and injustice and endowed with untiring generosity in the service of all who were suffering.                                                                                                                     Amen.

Mass Party for the Elderly, Sick and Housebound

On Saturday 17 September at 11.30 am the SVP have arranged a Mass with Anointing (the Sacrament of the Sick) in church for the elderly, sick and housebound. The SVP has also arranged a reception and buffet in the parish hall after the Mass.

 If you need a lift or would like to help either by giving lifts to those in need or in some other way please ring 0161 773 2690.

Our Lady of Grace Conference

Meeting of Thursday 21/07/2016 

Since our last meeting our Vincentians have undertaken a total of 12 visits to people in the local community, providing support and companionship to the housebound.  Members have also taken people to appointments, provided transport, helped with shopping and paid bills.

Opening prayers included a reading taken from the SVP Spiritual Reading manual “Welcome at any time”.   The members then discussed visits made, holiday grants and the minutes and other documents received from Manchester Central Council.

The meeting ended with prayers for peace in our time after the tragic events in Nice, Turkey, Syria and other parts of the world.

Adapting the prayer for world peace by Sister Joan Chittister of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie we pray:

Great God, give us the strength it takes to listen rather than to judge,

to trust rather than to fear, to try again and again to make peace even when peace eludes us.

We ask, O God, for the grace to be our best selves.
We ask for the vision to be builders of the human community rather than its destroyers.
We ask for the humility as a people to understand the fears and hopes of other peoples.

We ask for the love it takes to bequeath to the children of the world to come more than the failures of our own making.
We ask for the heart it takes to care for all the peoples of the world as well as for ourselves.

Give us the depth of soul, O God, to constrain our might, to resist the temptations of power to refuse to attack the attackable, to understand that vengeance begets violence,
and to bring peace--not war--wherever we go.

For You, O God, have been merciful to us.
For You, O God, have been patient with us.
For You, O God, have been gracious to us.

And so may we be merciful and patient and gracious and trusting with these others whom you also love.
This we ask through Jesus, the one without vengeance in his heart.
This we ask forever and ever. Amen