A new page has been added – Catholic Social Teaching. This is a sub-page listed under Faith in Action.

Please check our website updated pages – Community, Parish News, Woodford Fellowship of Churches. Community events this coming week, a letter from Bishop Alan and a Coronation service at St Mary’s.

Check out the Parish Events page and Woodford Fellowship of Churches page which are both updated with the Easter Walk of Witness. A new web page has been added: Parish Activity Photos. Check this for photos of the Walk of Witness.

Ask your MP to sign the pledge and back a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act

We’re calling for a new law to ensure our sisters and brothers overseas can get justice when their rights and environment are harmed by irresponsible businesses connected to the UK.

That means businesses would have to take steps to prevent people’s water being contaminated by their business operations.

It means they’d have to take steps to prevent workers being exploited by companies they own.

And it would mean they’d have to take steps to prevent communities from being forced from their lands by companies involved in their supply chains.

People who are affected by these abuses are calling for a new law. Dozens of businesses and investors themselves are calling for a new law. And polling shows more than four in five voters would back a new law.

Will you ask your MP to sign a pledge backing a new law?

Click the link below:

https://cafod.org.uk/campaign/human-rights

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) is the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales and part of Caritas International.
Charity no 1160384 and a company limited by guarantee no 09387398. © CAFOD 2003–2023

Recently I along with the Parish’s other confirmands visited the local food bank where we helped support the volunteers in sorting and storing donated items. The first thing most of us realised was the organisation displayed, the volunteers had organized all the food into dated crates and there was a streamline process of the intake of donations. When we entered, we were greeted warmly by the staff and were promptly set up with tasks namely sorting out salt and tea bags into smaller containers to be either handed out or to be stored for later.

Whilst there, we learned how important it was to date the items as it was explained to us about how the warehouse stores food that has best before dates that are years into the future and that they needed to ensure all produce that they hand out had not expired. We also had it explained to us who visits this food bank and learnt that the people there were people referred by someone as they had fallen on harder times not just homeless people as many of us had assumed. So although the food bank had subverted our expectations it was all around an interesting experience that opened our eyes to work that these centres do and allowed us to lend a hand to help our local community.

-Lara

On Wednesday 15th March the Wednesday Club was visited by an officer, Anis Mahar, from our local police force. He gave a talk on mobile phone safety (avoiding theft) and also on protection when using an ATM.

In brief, advice was to keep phones hidden when not in use and to record the IMEI number which may assist in the event that it is lost or stolen. The IMEI number can be found on the back of the phone. You can also dial  *#06#  and the IMEI will be displayed instantly on the screen.

His advice on using an ATM was to decline any offers of help from anyone, to step back from the machine and cry out ‘I don’t need any help. Please leave me alone’. This is to alert other people to the fact that you are facing some pressure.

You can contact the local police force for any advice/with any queries at  SNTJI-South-Woodford@met.police.uk

We are pleased to announce that we have now reactivated our parish and social committee Facebook accounts (one page for each). We have also set up a Twitter account which is @saintanneline On Twitter we also follow Pope Francis.

Our Facebook accounts will mainly feature items from the parish (inc social events). We may be unable to respond to all individual messages at this time.

Our Twitter account will mainly feature items from the parish website as well as Tweets from the Papal team. We will probably be unable to respond to individual tweets at this time.

I died so that you may have life.

Caritas Diocese of Brentwood is here in solidarity with those affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. 

We have a webpage dedicated to ways that people can help, through prayer and financial donations.  All information is at: www.caritasbrentwood.org/news/earthquakes

 

Fr Barto & Rev Alan succeeded in scaling Mt Kilimanjaro in August 2022. They visited Huruma Orphanage in Arusha who care for 94 children. The orphanage have to cover the cost of the Tanzanian Govt school fees of $100 USD per child per year. Perhaps you might like to donate the cost of a coffee into the red fire extinguisher which will be on the sanctuary.

If you are affected by the Cost of Living crisis, or if you are part of a group that is offering help and support locally, please look at https://www.caritasbrentwood.org/cost-of-living/. You can add to this webpage by contacting the Director of Caritas Diocese of Brentwood, Siân Thomas-Cullinan on caritas@dioceseofbrentwood.org