Bhileag 5th August 2018

Lapaich: please note Fr. John Paul will delay the housebound visits till he returns from his holiday. Therefore the housebound will be visited on the week beginning 20th August.

Fr. Emmanuel: will be looking after the parishes while Fr. John Paul is away till the 15th August. Fr. Emmanuel will stay in Castlebay Chapel house and can always be contacted there.

Pastoral & Spiritual Priorities of the Diocese: Bishop Brian is keen to meet parishioners from around the island Deanery and to look at the pastoral/spiritual priorities of the Diocese. Bishop Brian has asked for 5 parishioners from each parish to go along to a meeting on Saturday 11th August from 1pm-3pm in St. Mary’s Hall in Griminish in Benbecula. If anyone would like to go from the island on behalf of the parish please email Fr John Paul- it would be nice to send a few parishioners over to the meeting.

Fr. John MacMillan Mass: on Friday 17th August Fr. John Paul will celebrate a Gaelic Mass in thanksgiving for the life, works and Priesthood of Fr. John MacMillan. The Mass will be at 12 Noon in St. Brendan’s in Craigston. This year a Gaelic book will be published (hopefully for October this year) on the life of Fr. John MacMillan- so it will be a lovely opportunity to remember Fr. John in a special Mass of thanksgiving. After the Mass there will be a walk to the grave of Fr. John in the old graveyard in Borve. Later that day there will be a ceilidh in the Heritage Centre. All Welcome.

St. Brendan’s Church: Fr. John Paul would like to get the outside of Craigston Church painted this Summer. We will hopefully get a group together to look at how best to approach painting the church and possible dates to do it.

Keeping an eye on our churches: sadly over the last few weeks we seem to have people taking the easy option of deciding to sleep in our churches. This last week in Northbay church we had at least 4 people sleep overnight in the church. It’s one of the lovely things that makes our churches on the island different to the mainland churches because we keep our churches open all day for people to go in and pray at any time. Sadly some people take it too far and it would be a real shame to have to start locking our churches. So please keep an eye out on your local church and make sure that there is no one deciding to camp out in it.