Sunday 20 September 2009

Confirmation Mass Celebrated by Bishop Thomas Burns

Today's Confirmation Mass was a great success.

We were especially pleased to welcome our new Bishop, Thomas Matthew Burns, to our humble parish.

Of course all our thoughts and prayers were especially with the four children being confirmed, but we must extend a huge thank you to everyone who helped make the occasion such a great success.



The four Confirmation candidate prior to the Mass.


The four newly Confirmed parishioners with Fr. Thomas and Bishop Burns...


...joined by their sponsors and all the servers.


Our Bishop cuts the cake with Ieuan, Natalia, Stuart and Edward as Father Thomas looks on appreciatively.


The cake bearing the Confirmants' names and the image of the Holy Ghost.



The church cleaning, the beautiful flowers, the food preparation and serving, the setting-up of the Church Hall and the gazebo, this and much else was carried out dutifully by so many people.

There was also the preparation of the Confirmants themselves, plus the practice of the sung Latin parts of the Mass.

We are, of course, grateful to Bishop Burns for coming to Burry Port. Many parishioners had the opportunity to talk to him at the reception after the Mass, and we certainly hope our Bishop will come back and visit us again soon.

I don't think I'm alone in wanting to congratulate Father Thomas for all the hard work he did in preparing the whole parish for this wonderful event in all its facets. We all felt overjoyed for him that the Mass and reception went so well.

And so today we can all celebrate the fact that our parish has four more 'soldiers of Jesus Christ' qualified, according to the Catholic encyclopaedia, "for the duty of honouring God by professing the Christian Faith before its enemies. The sacramental character is compared by theologians to a military badge, or the insignia of an order of knighthood."


Link:
Confirmation

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