Newsletter

Let the Church always be a place of mercy and hope,
where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven.
~ Pope Francis

Safeguarding – The Holy Name Parish operates at all times in accordance with Statutory Safeguarding Guidance, the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) and our Diocese’s policies and procedures. Our parish Safeguarding representative is Madeleine Hardy who can be contacted via the parish office (0191) 281 0940. Alternatively, you can contact the Diocesan Safeguarding personnel by email at  safeguarding@diocesehn.org.uk,  by telephone (0191) 243 3305 or via its website here 

Please remember the following who are ill – Mary Stanford, Canon Robert Spence, Jane Noble, Frank McCombie, Winifrede McCombie, George Taylor and Bob Murphy. May the Lord grant them comfort, strengthen them in their weakness, take away their fear and give them his peace.

A Stay in Hospital – If you or any members of your family are going into hospital and would like to see the Catholic Chaplain, please ask a member of the ward staff to contact the Catholic Chaplain. Alternatively, you can contact the Chaplaincy Department Office directly. For the RVI and Freeman Hospitals here in Newcastle, telephone 0191 233 6161 (Catholic Chaplain: Fr Mariadass). In an emergency, please ask the Ward Sister to contact the on-call Catholic chaplain. Please do not contact your own parish priest who will be unable to respond due to hospital protocols.

Prayer for People Critically Ill or Facing Great Uncertainty
God of the present moment,
God who in Jesus stills the storm and soothes the frantic heart,
bring hope and courage to all who wait or work in uncertainty.
Bring them hope that you will make them the equal of whatever lies ahead.
Bring them courage to endure what cannot be avoided,
for your will is health and wholeness;
you are God, and we need you.
—Adapted from New Zealand Prayer Book, p. 765

Fourth Sunday of of Advent, 21 December 2025 – Second Sunday of Christmas, 4 January 2026

I wish all members and friends of Holy Name, including the many who are members of our on-line community, a very Happy Christmas.

As the end of the year approaches and we are about to enter another, thank you to everyone who has supported and served our parish in any way. We have a thriving and happy community, thanks in no small part to the generous commitment of so many. I am most grateful. ~ Fr Michael Campion


Who We Are – Our parish has a growing, talented congregation – growing in the numbers taking part in Mass, in the diversity of participants, including young families, and in the range of social, spiritual and cultural activities. Everyone is welcome to join us. 

If you are not a regular church-goer but are searching for a spiritual home where you can find acceptance and God’s healing love, you will be especially welcome. You may be hesitant about doing this if you are visiting Holy Name for the first time or, perhaps, returning to Church after an absence. If this is the case, and you so wish, our parish priest, Fr Michael Campion, would be happy to meet privately with you beforehand.

Parish Statistics -. By the end of this year we will have had 22 baptisms, 8 people received into the Full Communion of the Church, 4 marriages and 20 funerals. The average number of people taking part in Mass for the four weekends of October was 285.

Website – On average we have nearly 700 visitors per week to our parish website with around 1200 ‘views’

Gift Aid – For the financial year April 2024 to March 2025 our parish received £24,543 in Gift Aid (from HMRC) on the Offertory and other donations made by parishioners. Many thanks to all who contribute so generously to our parish.


Mass Times and Intentions 20 – 22 December 2025 – 4 January 2026      
Saturday 20 December – Mass 4pm – Cathy Price (A)
Sunday 21 December – Mass 10am – Luke and Fran O’ Rafferty (WA)
Monday 22 December – Funeral Mass 12pm – Dr Philip Kenna RIP

Christmas Eve – Christmas Mass for Children, 2pm
Christmas Eve – Carols with the Holy Name Choir, 5.15pm
Christmas Eve – Mass of the Nativity of The Lord, 6pm
Christmas Day – Mass of the Nativity of The Lord, 10am

Saturday 27 December – Mass of The Holy Family, 4pm – Mary Martin (A)
Sunday 28 December – Mass of the Holy Family, 10am – Deceased Members di Giorgi Family
New Year’s Day – Mass of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of [the Son of] God, 10am
Saturday 3 January – Mass 4pm – Jean and Arthur Donnelly (A)
Sunday 4 January – Mass 10am – Dee Howe (A)

Requiescat in Pace – Please remember in your prayers Dr Philip Kenna whose Funeral Mass takes place on Monday at 12 noon.

Christmas Celebration – After Sunday Mass today we are having a Christmas Celebration in the Hall with Fizz and Mince Pies as well as tea/coffee. We will be screening a power point display of the photographs taken during the three Holy Name Jubilee pilgrimages in this Holy Year. These were joyful occasions and, hopefully, many of you, pilgrims or just interested, will join us. We can take this opportunity to donate to the People’s Kitchen. Any gifts of mince pies would be gratefully received before on on Sunday. Please come! ~ Clare Robson

Christmas Collections – The collections at Mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be donated to the St Vincent De Paul Centre on New Bridge Street, Newcastle for the Christmas dinners it is providing for the homeless and other destitute people.

From Bishop Stephen – May I wish you all a joyful Christmas Season when it arrives. I pray the peace and the joy of Christ will enter our hearts and the hearts of all people as we celebrate Emmanuel, God is with us.

I am sure, like me, you were deeply disturbed by the recent terror attack on Bondi Beach. Our Jewish sisters and brothers were gathered there to celebrate Hannukah which celebrates the Light of God shining through the difficulties and tragedies of life. For such a joyful gathering to be the target of such evil horrifies us all. I have a long-standing invitation to join the Reformed Jewish Community at Synagogue this Saturday and I will pass on the prayers of us all to our Jewish sisters and brothers at this time.


New Direction? –The Pope has shaken up the American Catholic Church by naming a progressive bishop to take over the key archdiocese of New York from the conservative cardinal and President Trump loyalist Timothy Dolan. In his first key appointment in the US, Leo named Ronald Hicks, a fellow Chicagoan, as archbishop of New York, slowly making his mark on the politically polarised American Catholic Church seven months after taking office. Dolan offered his resignation as archbishop when he turned 75 in February, as is customary in the Church, although popes are allowed to keep them in the job until they are 80. Leo instead opted to replace him with the little-known Hicks, 58, the bishop of Joliet, Illinois.

Hicks has stood firmly behind the Pope’s recent criticism of Trump’s round-ups of illegal migrants, last month endorsing a message from the US bishops’ conference which condemned the raids. The message “affirms our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters”, said Hicks, who ran an orphanage network in El Salvador for five years before becoming bishop. Dolan has been seen as a leading light among American bishops who favour Trump’s faith-inspired conservatism. A gregarious guest on TV chat shows, Dolan prayed at the president’s inauguration and was backed by Trump to become pope before Leo was elected in May after the death of Pope Francis.

The National Catholic Reporter wrote: “[Hicks’s] appointment is widely seen as a signal from Rome that the centre of gravity in US Catholic leadership is continuing to move away from media-driven cultural confrontation and towards a model rooted in listening, social engagement and pastoral proximity.” ~ The Times, 19 December

Children’s Christmas Eve Mass – Our Children’s Mass at 2.00 pm is specifically adapted to allow even the youngest to participate and there will be a child-friendly version of the Christmas Story. This is strictly for families with small children so only for adults accompanied by children to attend. Children are welcome to dress up for the occasion -– nativity costumes, wings, party clothes, Christmas jumpers etc. They can also bring small percussion instruments – bells, shakers etc but no drums or whistles.


Today is the birthday of Irish revolutionary, activist and suffragette Maud Gonne, born 1866. She was the lifelong muse of Irish poet William Butler Yeats, who proposed to her several times. She refused each time, mostly because she thought his political views weren’t radical enough, but also because, she told him: “You make beautiful poetry out of what you call your unhappiness and are happy in that. Marriage would be such a dull affair. Poets should never marry. The world should thank me for not marrying you.” Her social activism led her countrymen to nickname her “Ireland’s Joan of Arc.” She was six feet tall, with deep red hair, and when she met Yeats they were both 25 years old. She married someone else and had a daughter she named Iseult. Yeats even proposed to Iseult when she turned 23. She turned him down, too. Yeats wrote some of his finest poems for Maud Gonne, including the following.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
by William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

New Church Leader – Pope Leo has  appointed the Right Reverend Richard Moth, age 67, as Archbishop of Westminster who, de facto, is considered the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. He was born in Chingola, a copper-mining city in Zambia, in 1958. His parents, Charles and Barbara, moved back to Britain with him two years later to settle in Kent. He was was ordained Priest for the Archdiocese of Southwark in 1982. Archbishop-elect Moth has served as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton since 2015 and, prior to that, he was the Catholic Bishop of the Forces from 2009 to 2015. He will succeed Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who has served in the role since 2009. Cardinal Nichols will now become Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Westminster until Archbishop-elect Moth is Installed at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday, 14 February 2026.

Supermarket Sermon – I wonder whether seminarians are being taught to avoid in their preaching any hint of contemporary relevance? Newly ordained priests appear to continue in the pulpit the habit of their elders: simply retelling the stories we have all just heard in the Scripture readings. It has meant that in 27 years of listening attentively to sermons at Sunday Mass I am able to remember the precise words of only one piece of advice relating to everyday life: “Ignore the use-by dates on food bought at supermarkets.” – Francis Brown, London E1, in The Tablet 18 December

A Short Introduction to The Bible – On Saturday 10 January 2026 between 0930 to 1200 in Holy Name Parish Hall, Deacon Jeremy and the facilitators of the Parish Journey in Faith programme are offering a short introduction to the Bible. The Bible has had more influence on the world than any other book in history. But what exactly is The Bible? Where does it come from? Can we trust it? And what difference can it make to our lives? The morning will consist of watching short videos with time for discussion. All are very welcome to attend. Tea and coffee provided. For further information and to register your interest please contact me at jeremy.wynne@diocesehn.org.uk ~ Deacon Jeremy Wynne

Christmas Gifts – In Advent we are running our Christmas Surprise at the back of church. Good quality books are available in festive wrapping to give to a loved one at Christmas and all proceeds will go to The People’s Kitchen in the city centre. Please support this if you can. Items cost £1.00 or a donation of your choice. Why not take one to give to your guests after Christmas dinner? Adult and children’s titles are available. Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the bookstall this year. ~ Lynn Dresser

Personal Gifts – Please do not offer me any personal gifts for Christmas. If you are thinking of doing so, please make a donation instead to the Diocesan Justice and Peace Refugee Project.  Details of its bank account (DHN Justice & Peace Refugee Project) can be found here. Or contact the parish office ~ Fr Campion


Refugee Support – The next collection of items is on Saturday 3 January from 9 to 10am in the hall. If you can, please donate any of the following: cooking oil, sugar, instant coffee, long life milk, dry red lentils, jars of peanut butter, plain white flour, washing up liquid, evaporated milk, unopened toiletries and nappies size 5 and 6. Any spare plastic carrier bags would be welcome also. 

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it … his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated … He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst. They cannot identify with the power structure of a crowded humanity which seeks to project itself outward, anywhere, in a centrifugal flight into the void, to get out there where there is no God, no man, no name, no identity, no weight, no self, nothing but the bright, self-directed, perfectly obedient and infinitely expensive machine. ~ Thomas Merton, ‘Raids on the Unspeakable’ (1966)

CITIZENS UK – I share with you the following press release highlighting the excellent work achieved by Tyne and Wear Citizens. ‘People will listen’: turning anger into community pride in North Shields | Communities Our Diocese is a long-standing strategic partner of Tyne and Wear Citizens and the article highlights some of our coordinated social outreach work. We give thanks for everybody involved. ~ Bishop Stephen Wright

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. It’s officially the first day of winter and one of the oldest-known holidays in human history. Anthropologists believe that solstice celebrations go back at least 30,000 years, before humans even began farming on a large scale. Many of the most ancient stone structures made by human beings were designed to pinpoint the precise date of the solstice. The stone circles of Stonehenge were arranged to receive the first rays of midwinter sun. Some ancient peoples believed that because daylight was waning, it might go away forever, so they lit huge bonfires to tempt the sun to come back. The tradition of decorating our houses and our trees with lights at this time of year is passed down from those ancient bonfires. In ancient Egypt and Syria, people celebrated the winter solstice as the sun’s birthday. In ancient Rome, the winter solstice was celebrated with the festival of Saturnalia, during which all business transactions and even wars were suspended, and slaves were waited upon by their masters. ~ Garrison Keillor

Future for Women – The Vatican pronouncement on women deacons is disappointing, but indicative of the serious underlying issue of widespread (and mostly unselfconscious) misogyny in the Church. The reduction of the argument to mere physical characteristics – i.e. that a woman simply by being female cannot represent the image of Christ, who is male – is bad theology and is refuted in scripture (Galatians 3.28). Nevertheless, women have for centuries been routinely cast as “occasions of sin”, ensnaring an otherwise saintly band of clerics. Simultaneously women’s labour – both as child bearers and as workers providing the elbow grease for so much of the Church’s ministry – has been not so much taken for granted as totally ignored. A new and positive theology of women could open unimagined prospects for fulfilling the joy of the Gospel in the lives and ministry of the faithful – both men and women. But until we have such a sea change, it is difficult to see why any woman would want to be ordained in this profoundly dysfunctional climate. ~ Andrea Kelly, London N1, in The Tablet 18 December

Tuesday is the birthday of poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, born 1955, in Glasgow, but grew up in Staffordshire. She began writing poetry when she was 11 years old, and it was her greatest passion as a teenager. “I’d be in my leather miniskirt and boots up to here,” she once said. “I’d finish work, get paid and would buy 10 cigarettes, a bottle of Hirondelle rosé and a new poetry book, and that would be the rest of my Saturday.” She’s known for treating complicated subjects in an accessible way. “I’m not interested, as a poet, in words like ‘plash’ — Seamus Heaney words, interesting words,” she said. “I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.”

This poem is from Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife, which is a collection of poems that are written from the perspectives of the wives of various famous and fictional men. (…Mrs Midas, Mrs Icarus and ‘Queen
Kong’ all make appearances.) It’s written in the style of a diary entry that has been penned by Charles Darwin’s wife. It offers an alternative origin (see what I did there!) for Darwin’s ground-breaking scientific discoveries. 

Mrs. Darwin

7 April 1852

Went to the zoo.
I said to him—
Something about that chimpanzee over there reminds
me of you.

Poetry Club – We next meet on 18 January 2026 for poems on the theme of ‘Mystery’.  All are welcome to join our merry group.

First Holy Communion – The next preparation programme will begin on Sunday 18 January 2026 from 2pm to 3pm in the Church Hall on Towers Avenue. Children should be seven years old or older and must attend all the sessions with at least one parent or guardian. Parents should contact Fr Campion no later than 20 December.

A Good Home Needed – To make it more comfortable for parents and children, we are in the process of revamping the children’s area at the back of church. We have a children’s chalkboard that needs a good home as well as a child’s safety gate (for across a staircase). If anyone wishes to take away either of these items, please do so.  A small donation would be welcome.

Walking Group – Fourteen of us recently completed a leisurely, pleasant walk from Holy Name down to the Quayside. We stopped off for a very convivial break at the Biscuit Factory where we enjoyed refreshments and great conversation. We are taking a break in January so will meet again on Thursday February 12th – venue to be decided. The walking group started about 18 months ago and has been a great success . However for it to continue we do need some volunteers to lead the occasional walk, and we would love to hear from you ! If you are interested in joining us and have not yet registered please contact Barbara Cooper, Parish Secretary.

Nature Notes – A strange silence hangs over the urban River Tyne. The kittiwakes are no longer filling the Quayside with their stirring cries. Having bred on the banks of the river, they are spending winter far out in the wilds of the North Atlantic. However, one very distinctive bird can still be heard here. Walk over the Gateshead Millennium Bridge towards the Glasshouse, the elegant home of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and you may well hear the far-carrying call of a redshank as it feeds on the small shore of mud revealed at low tide. This ringing, haunting cry is the classic sound of our wildest estuaries. To hear it in the vibrant heart of Geordieland is to feel a rush of hope. Jonathan Tulloch in The Times

 

Holy Name Book Club – All are welcome to join our Book Group for our next meeting on Wednesday 24 January to discuss His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet. Using fictional historical documents, it tells the story of a 17-year-old boy named Roderick “Roddy” Macrae, who commits a triple homicide in the village of Culduie, on the Applecross peninsula, in 1869.  Future selections are Persuasion by Jane Austen, Horse Under Water by Len Deighton, Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn and Between Two Worlds by Olivier Norek.

On Christmas Eve in 1906, the first radio program was broadcast. Canadian-born Professor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden sent his signals from the 420-foot radio tower of the National Electric Signalling Company, at Brant Rock on the Massachusetts seacoast of the USA. Fessenden opened the program by playing “O Holy Night” on the violin. Later he recited verses from the Gospel of St. Luke, then broadcast a gramophone version of Handel’s “Largo.” His signal was received up to five miles away.


Amnesty Write for Rights – This month we are invited to write messages of support to people around the world who have suffered injustice. It’s one Christmas card that is definitely worth the price of the stamp! Just click here to get started.  

Holy Name Cookery Book – I thought we might write a cookbook together and use it to raise funds in 2026 for Holy Name. This is a first call to ask if anyone is interested. If you have a great recipe that you are willing to share (not copied out of a published book), or you wouldn’t mind testing recipes, or you could be part of a working group on this, please email welcome@holynamejesmond.co.uk with the subject line COOKBOOK and we will draw up a list to see if it is viable.

You’re welcome to include: 
Your own favourite recipes
Recipes inspired by published sources
An ingredients list (ingredients themselves aren’t protected by copyright)
A method written in your own words, based on how you cook the dish at home

Please avoid:
Copying the method or wording directly from a cookbook, website, or magazine
Using any introductory notes or stories from a published source
Including photographs taken from books or online sources
If a recipe was inspired by a particular cook or book, please do feel free to mention that.
Attribution is lovely, but it doesn’t replace the need to rewrite the method yourself.

These steps help ensure our parish can print and share the cookbook with confidence. Thank you again for taking part. Your contributions will make this a really special project. ~ Katherine Vero

Parish Social Events – Our Book Club, Wine Club, Bridge Club, Poetry Club, Walking Club, Film Club and other social activities are open to all members of the community. You don’t have to be a Catholic or a member of the parish to join. All are welcome.

The Church’s Jubilee Year 2025 – The Holy Year has involved acts of pilgrimage, both physical and spiritual, to seek reconciliation, unity, forgiveness, and a renewed relationship with God and others. Celebrated every 25 years, it is a year of prayer, penance, and charitable acts. Many of you will have heard of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a 500 mile ancient pilgrimage across northern Spain. In fact, there are many recognised routes, all culminating in Santiago de Compostela, and I have been fortunate enough to have walked two of them. I invite you on Tuesday 20 January 2026 at 7pm in the church hall to join me in sharing reflections and stories from my experiences through a visual presentation; and also to bring your thoughts and experiences to share at an informal gathering to talk about  what the theme of ‘Pilgrims of Hope‘ means to us. ~ Kerry Clegg 


Diocesan Vacancy: Administrator Youth Ministry Trust – Supporting the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and our small, dedicated team, we are looking for an Administrator to cover a period of Maternity Leave. Responsibilities include:

  • Providing efficient administrative and operational support to the YMT team.
  • Managing correspondence, records, and calendars.
  • Coordinating bookings, logistics, projects and event administration.
  • Handling financial tasks including invoicing, payment tracking, and reporting.

 Please note this role is subject to an Enhanced DBS check and YMT cannot accept CVs.  You must complete our Application Form, available as part of the Applicant Pack.  If you are interested, please get in touch to request an Applicant Pack by emailing Annie Leaver, Head of Human Resources at annie.leaver@diocesehn.org.uk

Diocesan Safeguarding Administrator – Supporting the Safeguarding team, the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle is looking for a consummate administrative professional who handles sensitive information with the utmost discretion and confidentiality. Similarly, you’ll be a person who has an eye for detail recognising the need for accuracy and precision. Salary scale – £26,000 to £27,768.  If you are interested in applying for this 12 month Fixed Term Contracted Safeguarding position, please get in touch to request an Applicant Pack by emailing Bernadette Aquino HR Business Partner at  Bernadette.aquino@diocesehn.org.uk. Please note the Diocese cannot accept CV’s and as such to be considered for the position you must request our Applicant Pack and then complete and return our Application Form. The closing date for applications is 09:00am Friday 9th January 2026 although we reserve the right to close the position early.

Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes – Bookings are now open for the next pilgrimage from Friday 31st July to Friday 7th August 2026. It’s is the 100th anniversary since the first Diocesan Pilgrimage took place, led by Bishop Joseph Thorman. If you wish to book, or for further information, please contact Tangney Tours, our Tour Operator, by going to their website https://www.tangney-tours.com/tours-and-pilgrimages/diocese-hexham-newcastle/ or by telephoning 01732 886 666.


Abortion Recovery Care & Helpline (ARCH) supports anyone struggling after an abortion. Its Befriender Helpline is available every evening and its confidential service offers a compassionate listening ear to women, men, family members, friends and healthcare professionals. It also offers a free one-to-one counselling via telephone, video or in-person, offering a safe, non-judgemental space for healing. Visit www.archtrust.org.uk for details.

Used Stamps, Medals and Jewellery – Used postage stamps (any country or period), foreign currency (notes and coins from any country), broken or unwanted pieces of gold/silver jewellery, military medals from any conflict and any old stamp albums may be left at the back of church in a marked envelope or dropped off at the presbytery for Barbara, our parish secretary, to deliver them to David and Theresa O’Neill. David can be contacted on telephone 0191 264 5771 or email david-oneill3@sky.com 

Mary’s Place Homeless Café – Located at St Mary’s Cathedral (opposite Central Station) the Centre desperately needs sleeping bags, socks, men’s and women’s underwear (new) and deodorants. Contact Ged Downey on 07740 336459 if you can help. If you’d be willing to be a volunteer, email marys.place@outlook.com if you can help.

Gift Aid – If you pay tax and make donations to our parish, we can claim back from HM Revenue & Customs – and at no extra cost to you – 25p for every £1 you donate. This is a valuable source of income for the parish – it supports the work of our parish as well as helps to pay for the maintenance of our near 100 year old church. I am most grateful to everyone who supports Holy Name in this way. If you have not done so already, and you pay tax, please sign up for our Gift Aid scheme by completing this Gift Aid Declaration HN 2025 and returning it to the parish office.

Dissatisfied? Taking part in Mass at Holy Name should be a prayerful and uplifting experience. If you are dissatisfied with the service you receive or with any aspect of parish life, including its management, please let Fr Campion know. Our members’ satisfaction is paramount. ‘The Christian faithful have the right and even at times, the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters that obtain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known’. (Code of Canon Law 212.3)