Parish Newsletter
Publishedon Thursday 22nd January 2026
A Few Words from Fr Joe…………………..
Every year the Diocesan offices send us a form to record the numbers of baptisms, weddings, first Holy Communions and Confirmations which took place during the year. I was filling in this form for Mount Merrion during the week, we had a lot of baptisms, over 80, fewer funerals, less than 50, and over a hundred young people for Communion and Confirmation and zero weddings. It really hadn’t struck me that we had none at all until I wrote that ‘0’ on the form. Definitely during the year, we had a number of couples who came to us here to have their paperwork completed for weddings that took place in smaller churches, near popular wedding venues and it was a pleasure to meet them and chat through their hopes and expectations for marriage and family life. Yet not to have a single celebration of the sacrament of marriage in a parish church, that was something new for me. I guess it reflects a trend that we are all aware of, couples marry a bit later in life than before, organise their wedding themselves, rather than it being something the parents host, and they choose what is appealing to themselves and suitable for the circle of family and friends. Often the convenience of a single venue wedding, with a civil celebrant, informs their choice. If perhaps they have left the practice of faith slip away from their ordinary life then the effort of engaging with the parish, a priest, preparing a liturgy and resourcing it with music and flowers, is all a bit too much to ask. The sacraments of the church exist only to bring God’s powerful blessing into the lives of the followers of Jesus Christ. They remind us that God is present in the significant moments of life, with grace and hope, to support, guide and affirm our life choices. The sacraments bind us to God’s purpose and design for his family on earth, he has made a covenant with us, and in marriage we make a covenant with the one person we want to share our whole life with. I hope and pray that there will be sacramental celebrations of marriage in the year to come.