The week beginning 7 October will be a very special week in the life of our parish. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal will be here to lead us in a mission. It has been a long time since there has been a mission in our parish, but this is an opportunity to stretch out of our usual routines, open our eyes, reach out to others in our wider community, and to share an experience which we pray will be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, with expectation and hope, and with light and faith.

The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal were founded in New York in 1987 and are known for their faithfulness and love for the Church, their simplicity and poverty, their work with the poor in some of the hardest hit areas of the UK, Ireland, Central America, and the United States of America, their dynamic preaching and work with young people. You can learn more about them on their website, www.franciscanfriars.com and there is a great BBC documentary available which recounts their life in Bradford which can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL9TGKRaVpA 

A big part of the mission to Workington will be for the friars to visit all of our schools. Already the pupils at the school have been preparing posters to publicise the event, and prayer cards have been distributed to all the parishioners, including the housebound, to ensure that everything that happens in this coming week is soaked in prayer. The theme of the Mission is 'Rise up and Walk', a theme that is drawn from the story in the Acts of the Apostles where Peter and John find a man crippled at the Beautiful Gate in Jerusalem. He looks up at them and asks for alms, but Peter responds that they have neither silver or gold, but in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk. The man finds himself healed and leaps and jumps with joy (see Acts chapter 3). It is a story that calls us too to stand up. On the journey of faith, we can so often become despondent and even despair, we lose any sense of expectation, and we sink into ourselves. Time and again, we need to re-discover or perhaps even discover for the first time the power of a living encounter with Jesus who sees where we struggle, who knows in what ways we are crippled, and who seeks to heal and fulfil us. 

We hope that all parishioners will come to the mission talks and prayer services, but more than that, we hope that all parishioners will invite their family members, neighbours, colleagues, and friends to join them. Our faith is not something private to hide away, but something to be shared generously, and we want to invite and reach out to everyone in the wider community, knowing that Christ has something beautiful to offer to each person, a moment of grace. And so a warm invitation is extended to all the people of Workington, Harrington and West Cumbria to any or all of the events that will take place. We will kick off with family Masses at St Mary's Harrington at 6pm on Saturday 7 October, and at St Gregory's at 9.30am and at Our Lady's & St Michael's at 10.30am on Sunday 8 October, followed by refreshments. During the week, there will be a series of evening talks  at 7pm at St Gregory’s Church, Furness Rd, Workington CA14 3PD, which will be at the heart of the mission: 

• Unconditional Love. If there are times that you feel unloveable, when you have been hurt by others, and even questioned whether love is possible, or if you are just fed up and want to experience a new kind of love, then the talk on Monday 9 October is for you.

• Medicine of Mercy. If sometimes you beat yourself up about your past and wish that things could have been different, if you suffer from broken relationships with your friends and family, if you are struggling with addiction or fear and feel alone, then the talk and Reconciliation Service on Tuesday 10 October is for you.

• Power came out of Him. If you are hurting inside, if you are suffering physically, mentally, spiritually, if you need healing, then the talk and healing service on Wednesday 11 October is for you.

And then, on Thursday 12 October at 6:30pm, there will be a Concluding Mass in Our Lady’s & St Michael’s church, Banklands, Workington, followed by Meal of All Nations, a celebratory occasion with food and drinks from different countries.

We would like to offer a warm welcome to everyone in the wider community to all of the above events, especially if you feel far away from your faith or if the idea of faith is something new to you. Rise up, and walk!

Mission Prayer:

Come, Holy Spirit! Give us the grace today to rise up, to open wide the doors, to go out of ourselves so as to draw others to Christ, to be disciples and to make disciples, that we may walk in your ways joyfully and build up Your Church across West Cumbria. We make this prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.