Welcome to the website for the Parish of Saint Bridget's, Baillieston in the City of Glasgow. Saint Bridget's is a Roman Catholic Parish in the Diocese of Motherwell.  LATEST UPDATE- SATURDAY 20th FEBRUARY Number of visitors to our site up to 13 February - 54,851 Number of visitors to our site in 2009 - 394,798
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Bulletin for the First Sunday of Lent On Fasting... We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You...
On Fasting
Lent invites us to turn from our own selves, from our sin, to come together in community. Self-denial is the way we express our repentance. Self-denial, according to the Gospel is three-fold: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Through these we spring-clean our moral lives, sharpen our sense of what is really necessary, put tomorrow in its place and treasure the graces of the day at hand.
Fasting is the one most open to misinterpretation. In political antiquity, only religious fasting was known; today it can be a statement (hunger-striking), or an expression of ideology or the pursuit of well-being (vegetarianism); there can be pathological fasting, (anorexia) or fasting for aesthetic reasons – the cult of the body. And there is the fast imposed by necessity – that of millions who lack the indispensable minimum of food.
But its religious value is long proven, as an expression of reverence towards God, acknowledgment of our sins, solidarity with the poor; though of course there is the danger of self and pride entering in – remember the Pharisee in the parable saying ‘I fast twice in the week’!
In his message for Lent 2009, Benedict XVI writes: fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, St John warns us – ‘ If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother or sister in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from them – how does the love of God abide in him?’ Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother.
‘By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make our statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger… I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From earliest times this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which collections were taken up and the faithful invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast. This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent. (Based on A Biblical Reflection for Ash Wednesday By Fr Thomas Rosica CSB)
WE ADORE YOU, O CHRIST, AND WE PRAISE YOU...
The Stations of the Cross are amongst the most popular of all Catholic devotions, and are to be found displayed in almost every Church. What is their origin?
With the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312AD, Christians, who until then had been subjected to persecution, enjoyed many new freedoms: not only could they celebrate the liturgy in public, but they were also able to move from place to place without fear of arrest. As the number of converts grew, so did the desire to see the places associated with Our Lord’s life and death. By the end of the IV century, despite primitive means of transportation and often dangerous conditions, considerable numbers of people were going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Amongst the first to travel there was the Spanish woman Egeria. Her Intinerarium, an ancient travelogue which survives to this day, recounts her visits to the various holy sites.
When Jerusalem was captured by the Turks in the XII century, pilgrimage to the Holy Land became impossible. Never to be outdone, the Franciscans during the XIII century promoted a new devotion known as the Via Crucis which would bring Jerusalem to the people, and so allow them to make a spiritual pilgrimage to the scene of Christ’s death. The devotion has remained popular to this day. Today, every Friday afternoon, the Franciscans, who are known as the Custodians of the Holy Land, lead a solemn Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa in the narrow cobbled streets of the Old City of Jerusalem.
It is interesting to note that while some of the Stations are based on Scripture, others are based simply on popular tradition. The Gospels contain no mention of Veronica, but tradition says she was one of the holy women who accompanied Christ, and that she gave him her veil on which an imprint of his face was left. Her name is made-up of two words vera and icon meaning “true image”. However, that other popular figure, Simon, is mentioned by the evangelists: he was visiting from Cyrene (in modern day Libya). He and his sons, Alexander and Rufus, became well-known members of the Christian community of Jerusalem.
Fr. McGachey
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Address Saint Bridget's Parish 15 Swinton Road Baillieston Glasgow G69 6DT 0141 771 1058
Parish Priest Monsignor John McIntyre Email johnmcintyre@stbridgetsparish.fsnet.co.uk
Assistant Priest Our new assistant Priest will be joining us in October
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