Newsletter

Feast of the Holy Family

December 28th 2025

 

My dear parishioners,

I hope you have enjoyed a very happy Christmas with family and friends. I offer the following words from Pope Francis for our reflection and encouragement:

 

On this first Sunday after Christmas, the liturgy invites us to celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Family of Nazareth. Indeed, every nativity scene shows us Jesus together with Our Lady and St. Joseph in the grotto of Bethlehem. God wanted to be born into a human family, he wanted to have a mother and father like us.

 

Today’s Gospel presents the Sacred Family to us on the sorrowful road of exile, as seeking refuge in Egypt. Joseph, Mary and Jesus experienced the tragic fate of refugees, which is marked by fear, uncertainty and unease, Unfortunately, in our own time, millions of families can identify with this sad reality. Almost every day the television and newspapers carry news of refugees fleeing from hunger, war, and other grave dangers, in search of security and a dignified life.

 

In distant lands, even when they find work, refugees and immigrants do not aways find a true welcome, respect and appreciation for the values they bring. Their legitimate expectations collide with complex and difficult situations which at times seem unsurmountable. Therefore, as we fix our gaze on the Sacred Family of Nazareth as they were forced to become refugees, let us think of the tragedy of those migrants and refugees who are victims of rejection and exploitation, who are victims of human trafficking and of slave labour. But let us also think of the other ‘exiles’ : I would call them ‘hidden exiles’, those exiles who can be found within our own family: the elderly, for example, who are sometimes treated as a burdensome presence. I often think that a good indicator of how a family is doing is seeing how their children and the elderly are treated.

 

Jesus wanted to belong to a family who experienced these hardships so that no one would feel excluded from the loving closeness of God. The flight into Egypt caused by Herod’s threat shows us that God is present when we are in danger, where people are suffering, where they are fleeing, where they experience rejection and abandonment: God is also present where people dream, where they hope to return in freedom to their homeland, and plan and choose life for their family and dignity for themselves and their loved ones.

 

Today our gaze on the Sacred Family lets us also be drawn into the simplicity of the life they led at Nazareth. It is an example that does our families great good, helping them increasingly to become communities of love and reconciliation, in which tenderness, mutual help and mutual forgiveness are experienced. Let us remember the three key phrases for living in peace and joy in the family: ‘may I’, ‘thank you’, and ‘I am sorry’. In our family, when we are not intrusive and ask, ‘may I’, in our family when we are not selfish and learn to say, ‘thank you’, and when in a family one realizes he has done something wrong and knows how to say ‘I am sorry’, in that family there is peace and joy.

 

I would also like to encourage families to become aware of the importance they have in the Church and in Society. The proclamation of the Gospel, in fact, first passes through the family to reach the various spheres of daily life.

Pope Francis

 

Schedule for the Daily Liturgy:

Monday December 29th: Mass at 10am

Rosary at 9,40am

 

Tuesday December 30th: Mass at 10am

Rosary at 9.40am

 

Wednesday December 31st: Mass at 10am

Rosary at 9.40am

 

Thursday January 1st 2026: Mass at 11am

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

 

The church’s daily liturgy is a wonderful gift and enables us to journey with Jesus, Mary and the Saints every day of the year; the daily Eucharist offers us the opportunity to contemplate the great mystery of Christ day by day: it is a beautiful way to prepare for Christmas.

 

St. Mary and St. Paul’s Parish, Senior Citizens Christmas Meal, Tuesday 30th December, John Carrigan’s Restaurant, Eddlewood Toll at 2pm.

 

Sincere thanks: Nan Dalton, who died in 2025, left a bequest of £10,000 to St. Mary’s and St. Paul’s Parish; as a parish community we are deeply grateful for such kindness and we will remember Nan in prayer among the benefactors of our parish, requiescat in pace.

 

Recently Deceased: Rose Rooney (Requiem, Saturday, January 10th at 10am), Mary McFall, Camille Lynch, John McCready, Will MacAlpine, Susan Gothard, Maureen McNeill,

 

Special Remembrance: Mary Dorman, Wullie Savage, Joseph Smith, Marion Gallacher, John Carrroll, Ellen Carroll, Margaret Carroll, Margaret Carroll Campbell, Alejo Sanchez-Vivar, Sister Josefa Suarez, Brian, Margaret and Ronnie Bonnar, deceased members of the Wilson and Wright families, James McDonald, Daniel Devanney, Lynne Devanney, Catherine Devanney,

 

Margaret Duffin, Jaime Donnelly, Anna and Elizabeth Donnelly, William Ward, Alice and Michael Sweeney, Frank Docherty, Catherine Reilly, Frank Lyons, Mark Hughes, Thomas, Elizabeth and John Kane, Catherine Muldoon, Eilidh McHugh, Catherine and Daniel McKenna, Richard and Catherine Purcell, Walter Stewart Snr, and Jnr., Agnes Stewart, Joan Stewart, Nan Dalton, deceased members of the Dalton and McKenna families, John and Hannah McGuire, deceased members of the McGuire and Gallacher families, John Fitzpatrick Jnr., Hugh Morgan, Minnie and Edward Morgan, Anna and Alec Darragh, Maeve Mulrooney, Kevin Bryant, Ella and Joe Paterson, Anna McAdam, Catherine Seagreave, John and Elizabeth Fulton, James Fulton, Gerard Falsey, Mary and John Dowds, Betty and Tommy Falsey, Mary Hepburn, James Keeney, George Cree, Jan and Mary Kozak, Elizabeth and James McCafferty, Bernard and Rosaleen Mournian, Harry and Patricia Doyle, Sandra Bogan, Eric and Helen Murphy, Charles Feeney, Helen and James Lennon, deceased members of the Dillon, Murphy, Morgan, Currie and O’Brien families and all our own deceased relatives and friends, and all the benefactors of our parish.

 

Diocese of Motherwell Website:

for good and reliable information about events across our Diocese

please consult www.rcdom.org.uk