As part of the Home is a Holy Place project we are collecting parish or diocesan based liturgical resources that raise awareness of and support or enhance the spirituality of the home. If you have any resources that you may be willing to share please do let the project office know. If you decide to use or adapt any of these resources for your parish please respect copyright where appropriate.

Pastoral Letters | Homilies | Marriage Week | Lent & Easter | International Day of Families | Liturgies used at Releasing Formidable Energy Symposium | Liturgies used during Listening 2004 | Day for Life 2004 Blessings of Families Liturgy Guidelines | Prayer for Madeleine

Pastoral Letters

Feast of the Holy Family 2007

Arundel & Brighton
Birmingham
Leeds
Liverpool
Westminster

Feast of the Holy Family 2006

Arundel & Brighton
Birmingham
Hallam
Hexham & Newcastle
Portsmouth
Shrewsbury

Feast of the Holy Family 2004

Plymouth

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Homilies

Homily developed by the Diocese of Shrewsbury Marriage and Family Life Commission for the Feast of the Holy Family 2002

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National Marriage Week (Feb 7th-14th 2008)

Bishop Malcolm McMahon will celebrate a special Mass on Wednesday 13th February 2008 at 7.30 pm at St Barnabas Cathedral, Nottingham.

National Marriage Week is:

• A platform to encourage people to celebrate, discuss and enhance their marriages.
• A week-long opportunity for couples to reflect on their marital relationship, sharing their joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, achievements and disappointments.
• A time for the wider community to reflect on their own role in supporting couples and creating a more helpful environment within which marriages can thrive.

Ideas for parishes to mark the week include:

• Holding a social event to celebrate marriage
• Creating an opportunity to renew marriage vows during the week
• Organising a small group to respond to the 'Love and Marriage: Are We Bovvered' project of the National Board of Catholic Women 
• Celebrating marriage, with all its joys and sorrows in some other way during the Sunday liturgy.
• Organising a week-long display of wedding photos and paraphernalia
• Taking a collection for one of the many organisations that support marriage
• Using the week as a chance to witness ecumenically to the importance of marriage.
• Inviting a speaker or hire the Rob Parson 60 minute marriage video to facilitate some marriage enrichment. The Family Caring Trust also produce a straightforward package for marriage enrichment called Couple Alive. www.familycaring.co.uk
• Re-examining parish provision for marriage preparation, enrichment, and support during difficult times; give a party for those involved in this work, perhaps on a deanery basis.
• Sending a card to everyone married in the church in the past year inviting them to come back for a celebration

Download more information and resources from:
www.nmw.org.uk
www.everybodyswelcome.org.uk/top_tips_feb.html
www.listening2004.org.uk (Click on Through the Year)
www.bethanyfamilyinstitute.com/nmwintro.htm
www.marriageresource.org.uk
www.2-in-2-1.co.uk

Do's and Dont's for the Building of Loving and Healthy Marriages (Archdiocese of Liverpool resource for National Marriage Week 2007)  

A non-Eucharistic service devised by the Archdiocese of Cardiff Family Life Commission in 2004

Suggestions for liturgies created by Marriage Care

Liturgies for renewal of vows (Diocese of Leeds Family Life Ministry website)

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Lent and Easter 

See also A Home Liturgy for Holy Week

The Garment of Suffering
This family-centred community-building inter-generational parish ritual for Lent and Easter was forwarded by Clara Donnelly, Coordinator of Marriage and Family Life Ministry in the Diocese of Shrewsbury. Contact Clara for more details about its practical implications. This is the explanation inserted into a parish bulletin before Lent begins.

THE GARMENT OF SUFFERING
Each one of us has some amount of suffering or hurt in our life, sometimes dating from our past. The Garment of Suffering symbolises the hurt that is contained in our lives and community.

During Lent we ask that you bring to the Church a piece of cloth (any colour) about four to six inches square and leave it in the basket. Your piece of cloth can represent the pain, grief or hurt in your life. It may be associated with:

• Grief at death and separation;
• Pain of living with an alcoholic partner, parent or child;
• The pain of sickness;
• The pain of being misunderstood;
• The pain of failure, etc.

During Holy Week the cloths will be collected and sewn together into one complete garment. On Good Friday after the Veneration of the Cross the garment will be draped over the Cross and left there throughout Easter. At Pentecost the garment will be removed and burnt.

During Lent and Easter we will pray to be healed.

What is unique about this ritual is that you will be able to recognise your own piece of cloth, your own grief and suffering and yet understand that so many others share similar worries.

Please feel free at any time during the coming weeks to place a piece of
cloth in the basket.

Source: Parish of St Oliver Plunkett, Shaws Road, Belfast 11, N. Ireland.

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A Home Liturgy for Holy Week

This liturgy takes place each day during Holy Week, at the family table, during a meal. The youngest person able to asks the questions.

Items needed: Six candles (one of them red) in holders; a palm cross; a copy of the Lord’s prayer; a bottle of perfume; a purse filled with money; a bowl of perfumed water and a hand towel; a wooden cross; the makings of an Easter garden; a special Easter candle.  

Palm Sunday

Place six candles on the family table and arrange them in the shape of a circle. Light the six candles. Place a palm cross (brought from church?) on the table, in the centre of the circle.

Reading : Mark 11:1-11

Question: ‘Why do we have six candles and this palm cross on the table today?’

Answer: ‘Because this week is Holy Week. In six days it’s Good Friday, and Easter is coming. Today we remember how all the people welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem by waving palm branches.’

Holy Monday

Light five candles (of the circle of six). Place a copy of the Lord’s prayer on the table, in the centre of the circle of candles.

Reading : Mark 11:15 -19

Question: ‘Why do we have five candles and the Lord’s Prayer on the table today?’

Answer: ‘Because this week is Holy Week. In five days it’s Good Friday, and Easter is coming. Today we remember that Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple. “My house shall be called a place of prayer,” he told them. His special prayer is for us all.’

Say or read the Lord’s prayer together.

Holy Tuesday

Light four candles. Place a bottle of perfume on the table, in the centre of the circle of candles.

Reading : Mark 14:3-9

Question: ‘Why do we have four candles and some perfume on the table today?’

Answer: ‘Because this week is Holy Week. In four days ft’s Good Friday, and Easter is coming.  Today we remember the woman from Bethany who anointed Jesus’s head, who recognised that he was the King of kings and would soon die.

Holy Wednesday

Light three candles. Place a purse filled with money in the centre of the circle of candles.

Reading : Mark 14:10 -11

Question: ‘Why do we have three candles and this purse full of money on the table

Answer: ‘Because this week is Holy Week. In three days it’s Good Friday, and Easter coming. Today we remember that Jesus was betrayed for money, and that Jesus wants us to give what we can to help those in the world who are poor.’

(The family could discuss right and wrong ways of using money, in the light of today’s and yesterday’s readings.)

Maundy Thursday

Light two candles. Have a bowl of warm water and a towel on the table between them. The family wash each others’ hands before the meal. The meal could include elements of a Passover meal (unleavened bread, wine...).

Reading : Mark 14:22-26; John 13:2-5, 12-15

Question: ‘Why do we have two candles and this towel and water on the table today?’

Answer: ‘Because this is Holy Week. One candle is for Good Friday, and one is for today, Maundy Thursday. Today we remember the last Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples. Our Eucharist derives from this meal.’

Good Friday

The one red candle is lit  - and then blown out. A wooden cross is placed on the table. The palm cross is blu-tacked to the front door until the Sunday after Easter or until Pentecost.

Question: ‘Why did we blow out the candle today?’

Answer: ‘Today is Good Friday. This is day that we remember that Jesus died and went home to God.’

Reading : Mark 15:21 —39

Everyone is quiet for a few minutes.

Holy Saturday

Reading : Mark 15:42 —47

The family together make an Easter garden on a tray or plate. An Easter garden includes a model of a cave, with a stone that can be rolled away on Easter Day. (The cave represents the tomb where Jesus was buried.) Spring flowers are traditionally included in the garden. Let your creativity play.

Easter Sunday

Light seven candles (the circle of six and the special Easter candle in the centre circle). Roll away the stone from the cave/tomb and light a candle beside it. Have on the table: spring flowers beside the circle of candles, Easter eggs, and whatever else you like to make the table festive.

Reading : John 20:11-18

Question: ‘Why do we have Easter eggs and all these flowers and candles today?’

Answer: ‘Because today is Easter Day, the last day of Holy Week. Today we remember that Jesus rose from the dead and showed us the new life God offers all of us, not just after we die but through the difficult bits of living now.’

If sufficiently extrovert, people cheer or shout Alleluia!

Created by Chris Polhill. Published in ‘Eggs and Ashes: Practical and Liturgical Resources for Lent and Holy Week’ by Ruth Burgess and Chris Polhill. Willd Goose Publications, 2004

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International Day of Families (May 15th 2007)

A celebrants format for Mass this day in 2004
More information about the International Day of Families

Visit Everybody's Welcome Top Tip for May 2006 regarding international parish celebrations

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Liturgies used at Releasing Formidable Energy Symposium

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Liturgies created for Listening 2004

Prayer and liturgy used at the Archdiocese of Cardiff Family Listening Day 20th November 2004

Opening liturgy used at the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton Family Listening Day 27th November 2004 (.tif 85kb)

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Day for Life 2004 The Blessings of Families

Liturgy guidelines created by the Liturgy Office (.tif  227kb)

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