The Presbytery, Water Street, Port Talbot, SA12 6LE, Wales
Tel. 01639 882846
Diocese of Menevia
Parish Priest: Canon J Cefai, MA, PhD

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Commencing 21 January 2012

Saturday: 6.00pm (Vigil Mass)
Sunday: 8.45am, 10.00am, 6:30pm
Monday: 10.00am
Tuesday: 6.00pm
Thursday: 9.30am
Friday: 9.30am (School Mass)

Commencing 28 January 2012

Saturday: 11.00am (Baptism), 12.00pm (Wedding), 6.00pm (Vigil Mass)
Sunday: 8.45am (Cwmavon), 10.00am, 6.30pm

Confessions: Saturday: 11.30am, 5.30pm, and on request

The Lenten Station Mass
will be on Wednesday, 21st March at 7.00pm. Parish yet to be decided.

The Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity
concludes on Wednesday.

Please remember in your prayers:
sick of the parish, and sick clergy of the diocese; the benefactors of the parish. Anniversaries: Richard Corish; Denis Madden; Terence Patrick O’Connor. Recently dead: Kath (Catherine) O’Keefe. Requiem Mass Thursday at 9.30am. Our condolences and prayers to her family.

Diocesan Pilgrimage to Rome:
16th-21st April 2011; £545 (B&B) from Bristol, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our diocese (1987-2012) and Bishop Tom’s 40 years of priesthood and ten years as a bishop. Poster in porch.

Pilgrimage to Fatima:
9th–15th October 2012, half board, flights from Heathrow to Lisbon, cost £545. Please contact Sr Margaret Fitzgerald (01792 473453).

The parish has been allocated 8 tickets
for the celebrations on Monday, 19th March at the Cathedral, Swansea. The tickets are for those who attend Mass regularly in our parish. Please give your name and address to the parish priest as soon as possible.

Infant School:
The Governors seek to appoint a temporary lunch-time Supervisory Assistant sympathetic to the Catholic ethos of the school. Advertisement in the porch. Tel: 882579.

Year Two children from St Joseph’s Infant School
would like to invite all members of the parish to come to the school on Wednesday, 1st February at 3.30 pm to celebrate the feast of St Brigid and to show you how to make St Brigid’s Day crosses. Also if you can help with crocheting, painting, cooking, carpentry or music or have any traditions that you would like to share please contact the Infant School.

Human Organ Donation and Presumed Consent:
(Sent by Bishop Tom.) The Welsh Government is making proposals regarding human organ donations. Up until now, Catholics and others have donated organs as an act of charity and generosity. They have been free to do so or not, at their own choice and initiative, without pressure. That freedom risks being removed by the proposed legislation. In normal, everyday matters, few adults would allow anyone else to presume their consent to something, without asking them beforehand. When it involves donating something as important as a person’s own organs, consent should not be presumed, but should be explicitly requested and voluntarily given. Not to do so would seem to violate human rights. The State should be maintaining the rights and dignity of each human being, rather than usurping them to itself. By default, someone could have their organs removed automatically because of forgetfulness, an accident or other form of premature death, or be so ill that they had not taken steps to opt-out. Silence is NOT consent. Individuals or their relatives should not be pressurised or even compelled to donate or to refuse. These plans suggest that there is a risk of widening this principle to other areas, without gaining people’s consent on these issues either. These proposals have no place on the statute book of a free and democratic nation.

Confirmation Date:
Meeting for all candidates will be this Thursday, 6.30-7.30pm.

First Holy Communion:
Next meeting for parents: Tuesday 6.30pm.