Silver Jubilee of our Guild of St Stephen

On Sunday 24th November there was a wonderful thanksgiving Mass to celebrate the 25 years of St Augustine's enrolment into the Guild of St Stephen.
Our Altar Servers, past and present, gathered to serve at the Mass which Mgr Bernard spoke beautifully about the role of the Altar Server and how it links to the Feast day of Christ the King who was our servant.
All our Priests were there to concelebrate and there were servers from around the Parishes in Communion. At the end of the Mass there were some special presentations of the Guild medals:
Guild Silver Medals were presented to Eilis Higgins, Andrea Martin & Joshua Shuttleworth,
a Guild Silver Medal of Merit was given to Mike Norris,
a Papal Blessing was presented to Peter Iles and all Altar Servers and Barrie Teucher, one of our 1st Altar Servers and organist for the past 40 years received a Papal Blessing as a thank you from the Parish.
There was also a special thank you gift given to Petra Jordan who been Server Sacristan, responsible for the maintenance of the Albs for many, many years!
Afterwards, everyone gathered for refreshments in the Parish Hall.
A wonderful day.







Movember!

You may have noticed that Deacon John has dispensed with the beard of late and is cultivating a rather fetching moustache (circa 1920's Poirot)
 all in aid of raising awareness and money for Men's Health issues during the month of November (or MOvember as it is now known!).
Visit his blog http://www.deaconjohn.co.uk/2013/10/its-movember.html to find out more about why he is involved, to see the link if you wish to make a donation for this wonderful bit of face art and to keep up to date with photos of how the moustache is getting on.

Extraordinary Meeting of the Synod of Bishops - have your say...

Pope Francis has called an Extraordinary Meeting of the Synod of Bishops for October 2014 regarding questions over Pastoral challenges facing family life today. The conclusions of which will be taken to the General Synod in 2015.

Our Diocese, as with Diocese' all over the world, are looking to gather opinions from their people so that as many people as possible are actively involved with the preparation of the meeting.

We have attached below a few links which include; 
the online questionnaire which will give your thoughts, opinions and hopes directly to the main data:
the Lineamenta giving more information and background to the questions that will be discussed;
plus a copy of the questionnaire should a word or paper version be needed.



Click here to view the paper version of the questionnaire

The deadline for all responses is Saturday 30th November 2013 which we realise is quite a short period of time, however, it will be wonderful if as many of us can have a say as possible.

The questionnaire can be completed as an individual, a family or as a parish group.

If you know of someone who would like to express an opinion but has no access to the internet, please offer to complete it on their behalf, or maybe to print the paper version above for them to send to Anne-Mare Sparrow C/O St Ambrose, North Road, Leigh Woods, Bristol, BS8 3PW or paper copies will be available from the Parish Office.