SAINT BRIDGET'S - BAILLIESTON

Please look at our page dedicated to the 1982 Papal visit (click here)

PAPAL VISIT TO THE UK (SCOTLAND)
Instructions for Pilgrims

1 You must write in your address on the lists at the back of the church if you have not already done so.

2       Please let us know if any pilgrim will need help/special transport because of disability of any sort: better to hand in a written note with details.

3       There is a charge of £20 per person. The parish will cover half of the cost for adults and the whole cost for school-age children. Adult pilgrims should put £10 (or more if they wish) in an envelope marked ‘Papal Visit’ and hand this in to the parish House.

4       The Papal Visit Booklet (‘Magnificat’) will be made available at the back of the Church, and pilgrims should take their copy as soon as possible. This is essential for participation in the Bellahouston Liturgy. The parish will cover this expense also.

5       We would encourage as many people as possible to attend one of the rehearsals for the music at Bellahouston which will be held at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 31^st August and Tuesday 7^th September in Motherwell Cathedral.

6       Umbrellas are not allowed. It would be sensible to come prepared for poor weather as well as for sun. Folding chairs are allowed. Bring packed lunches – plastic drink-bottles only. Toilet & First- aid facilities will be available.

7       Mr Willie Taggart has agreed to be parish co-ordinator. We await details about buses, but since our final lists will be alphabetical by surname it may be that friends & relatives will be on separate buses and will have to rendezvous on arrival at Bellahouston.

8       Further details will be supplied when available.

We have requested 300 tickets for the Papal Mass taking place on Thursday 16^th September in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow. In order to cover costs of transport towards the pilgrim pack and an administration fee, the Diocese is asking us a contribution of £20 per person. We suggest that people who have asked for tickets to pay £10 per ticket, and the other 50% will be covered by the parish. Information in regard to travel arrangements will be made known to you nearer to the time. Please note that the parish group will be travelling together under the direction of a pilgrim leader, as private transport will not be allowed on that day for security reasons.

Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The feast of the birthday of our Blessed Mother Mary is celebrated each year on the eighth of September. Usually it is the custom of the Church to celebrate the feast day of a saint on the date of their death as this is truly their “die natalis”, the day remembered as their birth into everlasting happiness. Mary, however, entered this world sinless through the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and is the first born of the redeemed. Her birth therefore is a cause for great joy as it is considered the ‘dawn of our salvation’. Her nativity is a salvific event because she was inseparably associated with the birth of the Saviour – Emmanuel, God with us.

There is no reference in the Sacred Scripture to the birth of Mary. Except what is given in some spurious writings like the Protoevangelium of St James, which has been dated by historians prior to 200 AD. This work has no historical value, but it does reflect the development of Christian piety. According to this account, Joachim and Anna, the parents of Mary, were beyond the years of child-bearing, but they prayed for a child and they received the promise of a child that will advance God’s plan of salvation. Such a story (like many other biblical counterparts) stresses the special presence of God in Mary’s life from the beginning.

Mary was born for a great purpose: God had chosen her to be the Mother of the Saviour. She had the unique privilege of the Immaculate Conception. From all eternity God chose her to be the Virgin Mother of his Son, and by a special dispensation preserved her from the stain of Original Sin.

Mary’s birth, therefore, is a prelude of the realisation of the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God for the salvation of humanity. Her motherhood is the beginning of our salvation. She is the woman whose offspring crushed the head of the evil serpent, according to the word of God (Gen 3:15). From her was born Christ our God and Lord, who defeated death and gave us eternal life.

The traditional date of the feast, September 8, falls exactly nine months after the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Perhaps because of its close proximity to the feast of the Assumption, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not celebrated today with the same solemnity as the Immaculate Conception. It is nonetheless, a very important feast, because it prepares the way for the birth of Christ.

Christians have always compared Mary’s birthday to the dawn that precedes the rising of the sun. No matter how often we have witnessed it, we are always taken up by the beauty of dawn; our heart is filled with joy at the thought that soon the rising sun will bring back to life everything on earth with its light and warmth. So also, the birth of Mary was for the whole world the sign that the Messiah, the Giver of life, whose coming the world awaited for thousands of years, was about to appear. People therefore had good reason to rejoice at Mary’s birth; at long last they were about to be saved. This is the reason why even after two thousand years we continue to celebrate this great event of the birth of Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer. No human creature ever brought so much good into the world. Truly, Mary is blessed among all women (Lk 1:42).