YoM Planner for Our Families

NOTE: feel free to download and adapt - this one is from 2015/2016 and every academic year we will be creating a new one so simply contact us and we'll send you it :)

Why Are We Doing This?

Pope Frances announced this year to be a ‘Jubilee Year of Mercy’ (YOM). This is a special period for the church across the whole world, allowing us ALL to focus on forgiveness and healing in a special way. The YoM is an invitation to love and to show kindness and generosity – in a word ‘mercy’.

Encountering mercy means encountering God. It can transform our relationships, our work and our ability to embrace and experience all of life. During this special jubilee year, Pope Francis has asked the world’s young people to rediscover the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and demonstrate acts of mercy though a practical service.

(Click on the above to download YOUR Planner :)

At St. John’s, we see this as an opportunity to continue our aim of outreaching to ALL in our community - especially those with families - who find it difficult to come to church or think church is not for them for whatever reason. This outreaching echoes and complements your own Diocesan Department of Education initiative that has provided a programme for schools entitled “Who is my Neighbour?

How We Intend to Do This?

We can’t do it alone – we need YOUR help ... really, we do ... without you, we can’t do anything ...

So, to that end, we have created a programme of activities and events which we hope provides your family with an easy way to feel part of our community. We hope it inspires our young people and allows them a way to demonstrate some of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in our parish and in the wider community. We would very much like to bring families together – “... the youth and also those slightly ahead of the youth ...” – All parishioners working together, strengthening our parish relationships and building stronger friendships, whilst having fun and showing compassion to all we meet.

... Our major activity in outreaching to families is the creation of St. John’s allotment within the church grounds ...

We need your help to grow things either on the church allotment or on your window still. Any produce we manage to harvest will be used to make soup and jam etc. for our Harvest Festival event near the end of the Year of Mercy. We hope this activity will teach our young people the importance of growing food and sharing this food with those in need (corporal act of ‘feed the hungry’).

Our Hope ...

So our hope of growing from small seeds our community produce for our harvest festival is also a hope of encouraging and nurturing the small seed of growth of a families faith within the loving surroundings of our parish – fostered by the love and guidance of the Holy Spirit, allowing missionary disciples to grow and lead us into a future with confidence, love and above all else - mercy.

Further Resources For You:

• Please see our posts below – especially the ‘YoM Planner for ALL Our Family’ we have specially created to easily allow families to get involved in our activities

• For further information regarding the school initiative of ‘Who is my Neighbour’ please see ‘http://www.rcdhn.org.uk/yearofmercy/yomresources.php’

• To follow the progress of St. John’s Allotment, check out our website & social media – simply search for ‘st johns annitsford’ in your web browser.

Questions? Ideas?

If you have any questions or ideas you would like to share or would like any other information please contact us on the numbers/emails below.

Kathryn Maggs (07540065414) (kjmaggs40@gmail.com) or Jerry Laidler (07801452372) (Jerrylaidler@sky.com)

Love from ALL @StJohns xxx