General chat about anything. Please remember to log in before attempting to post a message.

• Plainsong Choir
• Posted: 2010-06-28 16:17:14 By Peter Dixon
• I notice that the choir has no mention on the website and wonder if this can be rectified please?

• Article on 'History' under 'Our Parish' Menu
• Posted: 2010-01-16 22:25:23 By Moya St Leger
• While this article is very well written and most informative, may I just point out that the spelling of the architect's name is incorrect. Austin's surname is Winkley.
  
  I should also like to challenge the notion that the new church "...may be considered as one of the first fruits of the Second Vatican Council...."
  
  The new church was the visible expression of a parish whose minds and hearts had been changed utterly by the painstaking work at the grass roots over ten years by Fr Sidney Dommersen. This work was begun years before the opening of Vatican II.
  
  I can testify to how very differently Fr Dommersen's thinking about the Church was, because I received instruction from him as a teenager from 1953 - 1954. It was only during the Council 10 years later that I realized just how advanced his thinking was, well ahead of his time. I was received into a deeply conservative, inward-looking, ultra-montane Church. The content of my instruction was its very antithesis.
  
  Fr Dommersen brought his advanced thinking to St Margarets when he was appointed PP in the mid-1950s. Over the years to follow he changed the thinking and behaviour of the people who came to St Margaret's Church, a large number from far beyond the parish boundaries.
  
  The new understanding of the Church in the World which gradually took hold within the Council as the meticulous theological disquisition of the Council Fathers progressed, was nothing new to the parishioners of St Margarets. Fr Dommersen had already laid the foundation for such thinking years before the opening of the Council.
  
  I therefore humbly submit that St Margaret's Church is a prophetic building, solid historical evidence of a pre-Vatican II vision for the future of the Catholic Church. It stands as testimony to the prophetic priest and his parishioners, whose advanced ideas were perfectly understood by a brilliant, young architect, Austin Winkley, who went on to great eminence as a leading church architect in this country.

• Name corrected
• Posted: 2010-01-16 22:31:06 By Administrator
• I have corrected the spelling of "Winkley". Thanks for pointing it out.

• what would you say?
• Posted: 2008-11-15 19:14:52 By the Phelan family
• A few years ago when I was preparing a group of children for first Holy Communion I was asked a very thought provoking question by one young man.
  
  He asked " How do we know that Jesus really existed? How do we know that the disciples didn't just make him up??"
  
  I was really impressed that he was atleast thinking so deeply about his faith, the beliefs he had been brought up in and that he felt it so important to be sure before he made an important commitment. It was indeed a very mature question for a 7yr old to ask
  
  I gave him an answer , which led to more questions and more answers and a very fruitful discussion. That difficult question led to much fruit.
  
  I was wondering how each of us would have answered that question to both a young boy and to an adult??
  
  Often we are called upon to answer such questions about our faith suddenly, out of the blue by others we encounter day to day and often we feel taken aback and unprepared to give a full answer.
  
  Maybe by helping each other now we can give others some of the answers they are searching for.
  
  Anyway, anyone want to share?
  
  Vxxxxxx

• The historicity of Jesus
• Posted: 2009-02-07 09:53:01 By Moya St Leger
• I've only just seen this, so my response is well out-of-date.
  
  It was a very bright child who asked this question! The first scholars to ask about the historical existence of Jesus were 19th century Protestant theologians. Catholic theologians didn't get the green light to proceed with indepth biblical studies until the publication of Pius XII's encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu in 1943. Liberated from constraint, Catholic exegetes have powered forward ever since. However the Pontifical Biblical Commission recommends that Catholic biblical scholars add spiritual and pastoral interpretation and application to their exegetical tasks.
  
  There is no independent evidence of the existence
  of Jesus. The child is asking the right quesions!
  
  M.StL

• Hello
• Posted: 2008-09-05 00:28:45 By Andrew
• Just testing this again. Any suggestions for forum topics please let me know. Thanks.