St John of The Cross Catholic Church, Aylsham

St John of The Cross Catholic Church, Aylsham The Catholic parish of the Sacred Heart covers a sizeable area of rural east Norfolk. It is made up of three churches.

Each of them has its own history and an active community. The church of St John of the Cross covers the town of Aylsham and the surrounding villages, the church of St Helen is situated at Hoveton and is sometimes referred to as ‘the chapel of the Broads’. At the centre is the Church of the Sacred Heart in North Walsham where the parish priest, Fr Peter Raj, lives.

06/09/2026

Our Lady of Peñafrancia:
Our joint celebration of Our Lady of Peńafrancia and the jubilee celebrations take place with Bishop Peter on September the 20th at 1pm. We have been joyfully invited by the Norwich Filipino Community to celebrate this beautiful feast together and to celebrate our Jubilee Mass with Bishop Peter. Let us all come together as one community and make this a celebration to remember. We hope to make a display of three boards in the Narthex of St Helen’s for this event with pictures of our three churches depicting our life over the last 50 years (or beyond). If you do have pictures that we can use, then please bring them to Mass so we can use them on the displays.

The Programme for September 20th looks like this: 12:30 – gather at Broad Tours, Wroxham (just over the bridge after Roys) 13:00 – procession from Broad Tours to St Helen’s 14:00 – Mass with Bishop Peter 15:30 – Feast and celebration kindly provided by the Filipinos

30/08/2026

FROM THE PARISH PRIEST
A Huge Thank You: Thank you to the generous sponsors who have donated towards the Sacred Heart sound system. We had a bumper week last week where over £1200 was raised through the SumUp machine and through envelopes. Thank you for your generosity (you know who you are!) and I thank those who used the GiftAid option as this increases your donation by 25% at no additional cost to you. The good news is that I feel comfortable enough to proceed with the upgrade to the system and have booked this in for mid-September. The members of our choir will be able to hear more clearly and, hopefully, the whole system will sound crisper and clearer. If you still wish to donate towards the system, then please feel free to do so.

25/08/2026

FROM THE PARISH PRIEST
Peñafrancia and the Diocesan Jubilee celebration: A date for your diary. For our parish celebrations for the Diocesan Jubilee, we are combining forces with the Filipino Community at St Helen’s on the 20th of September. Bishop Peter will be celebrating Mass for the feast of Peñfrancia followed by a fiesta of epic proportions. The fiesta will be a selection of food and drinks with plenty of laughter and chats.

Spain Roots: The devotion began in the 15th century when a French man named Simón Vela discovered a hidden statue of the Virgin Mary on the Peña de Francia mountain in Salamanca, Spain.

Bicol Tradition: In the 18th century, a seminarian from Manila named Miguel Robles de Covarrubias was cured from a severe illness after praying with a holy card of the Virgin of Peñafrancia. When he became a priest in Naga City, he built a shrine and had a local replica carved, sparking a massive centuries-old devotion. The Filipino community has graciously invited us to this Mass so we can celebrate the Jubilee with our bishop. The statue of Peñafrancia will be taken by flotilla along The Broads and then land in Wroxham where a street procession will take place to St Helen’s. We are expecting in excess of 600 people to attend the procession and Mass. Parking will be at Roy’s coach park just down the road from St Helen’s.

Further details of timings will be available over the next few weeks. We hope to contribute to the celebrations by creating boards for our three churches to be displayed in the narthex of St Helen’s on the day. If you have ANY photos, memorabilia or articles that we can use for the boards, please bring them to Mass over the next three weeks – thank you.

20/08/2026

To donate to our Women & Girls Fundraising Campaign, please click here. As part of the charity’s increasing focus on Education, during August this year Support Cambodia is running a week-long f…

19/08/2026

Adoration, Benediction and Confession will be taking place at St John of the Cross, Aylsham at 6pm this evening.

This will be held regularly on Wednesday evenings when Fr Alan available to lead the service – please keep an eye on the weekly newsletter.

16/08/2026

FROM THE PARISH PRIEST

Counters needed:
At Sacred Heart church we are in need of people who are willing to volunteer to help with counting the collection after Mass. New instructions have been given to us by the diocese, and we now have to count the collection immediately after Mass, record the amount on the correct forms so that it can be banked as soon as is practicable the following week. The whole process only takes around 15 – 20 minutes to complete and full training will be provided. The more volunteers we have, then the fewer times you will be rostered. Thank you for your generosity in serving.

Readers needed:
We also need readers at Sacred Heart. If you would like to proclaim the Scriptures and to participate in the Mass through this important and valuable ministry, then please let me know. All you will be required to do is prepare the reading(s) before Mass and then let the MC or sacristan know that you have arrived at Mass and that you are ready to read. I hope to have an away day for all readers later in the year as well as a day for the Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist. Details to follow. For both roles, please send Fr Alan an email expressing your interest so that I can get you started – thank you

Sound System for Sacred Heart:
Thank you to the people from all three churches who have, so far, donated toward the new sound system. I will put a running total in the newsletter every week so that you will be able to see how close we are to our target of c£2600. I hope to install the system sometime in September. Thank you, once again, for your generosity.

09/08/2026

THE PARISH PRIEST
Hearing the Mass: Being able to hear the Mass is vital for people and very frustrating if a person can only partially hear or if the sound does not travel throughout the church. We are in a happy position at Sacred Heart where people often have to stand in the narthex of the church as the church is getting to be too crowded to comfortably seat everyone for some of the Masses. Also, with the glass balcony in the choir loft, the choir cannot hear the Mass properly as the glass barrier shuts out the sound. I have asked our regular sound engineer to look at our system – he is familiar with our system as he installed it over 30 years ago (we have had our money’s worth) -and it has served us very well indeed. The good news is that the speakers are all fine and still fit for purpose, but the mixer/amplifier we have is way past its ‘sell-by’ date and does need replacing…it is also an analogue system and we need to go digital. Our current system does not allow us to add additional speakers (for the narthex and choir-loft) as it just does not have the capacity to cope with the extra workload. I would also like to upgrade two of our microphones – especially the one on the ambo. The finance committee and I agreed at the last meeting that it is important that we keep the bulk of our funds for building projects and, especially, the work that will soon need to be done on the roof at Sacred Heart which will be expensive. We are tightening the purse strings wherever we can and making savings in many areas. However, we decided that for, ‘mini-projects’, like the sound-system and other one-off expenditures in the future, we would ask for financial help and assistance from the parish community. If you are able to help by paying a small amount toward the new sound system it would be greatly appreciated – either through cash envelopes marked ‘sound system’, bank transfer or the SumUp machine that is now available at all three churches.

Thank you, as always, for your generosity, kindness and love for the parish.

05/08/2026

Food bank donations: Families come under increasing pressure during the summer holidays without the support of Free school Meals and Breakfast clubs. Please be generous in your donations for the food banks in Norwich and North Norfolk. The priorities, at the moment, are: Tinned vegetables and fruit; pasta, tomato-based pasta sauces; Biscuits- wrapped e.g. Penguins, Club etc.; individual cereal including porridge pots; long life fruit juice; jam and peanut butter; toiletry items including shower gel, shampoo and deodorants.

Thank you to all who contribute.

03/08/2026

FROM THE PARISH PRIEST
Choosing a patron saint:
Do you have a patron saint in your life, a hero to whom you turn when you are in need of help or guidance? A friend and companion who is close to Christ and can intercede for you? As Catholics we believe in the intercession and communion of saints (we pray about this every Sunday in the Nicene Creed). Are you, perhaps, missing out on this joy of Catholic life? When I was a teenager, I was very stuck by the life and work of St Alphonsus Ligouri (he worked and preached in the area of Naples in the 18th century). St Alphonsus founded the order of the Most Holy Redeemer (The Redemptorists) as well as being a strong teacher of moral theology.

Today, the Redemptorists are one of the largest religious orders in the world and they are still well known for teaching moral theology to students and seminarians. I chose St Alphonsus as my saint’s name for my Confirmation and I still mark his feast day (01 September) every year, either through the celebration of the Mass, renewing my relationship with him through prayer or by enjoying a special meal. Try to find a saint who ‘speaks’ to you and one that you can mark annually in a significant way…find one who interests you because of the life they led, the area of life for which they may be a patron, or simply because they attract you by some trait they exhibited.

28/07/2026

Adoration, Benediction and Confession:
From Wednesday the 12th of August, every Wednesday evening there will be Adoration, Benediction and Confession celebrated at St John of the Cross, Aylsham at 6pm. This will be held regularly on Wednesday evenings when I am available to lead the service – please keep an eye on the weekly newsletter.

Address

White Hart Street
Aylsham
NR116HG

Telephone

+441692403258

Website

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