Supporting Savio House

Savio House achieves its important mission through the generosity of its donors and supporters. In recent months with increasing costs for everyday items the team at Savio are asking supporters to buy something from their newly created Amazon wishlist.  The wishlist is everyday items the team need or items that need to be upgraded or replaced.  

Giving has never been so easy.  Simply click on the icon below, select an item you wish to purchase for the Savio team, proceed to the checkout to pay in the normal way and your generous gift will be delivered directly to Savio House. 

Thank you for your support.

Here are the second group of children who made their first communion last weekend.

There were 2 first communion groups this year. Thank you to the catechists, parents and to Fr Martin for guiding the children through the programme.

Here is a summary of the answers parishioners gave to the synod questions. Many thanks to those involved in gathering the information and reporting to the diocese and parish on this important topic.

OUR VISION is of : A Lifetime of Faith Development, reaching out to encourage and attract adults and children.

ONGOING FORMATION. A range of opportunities for expression and nurturing of Catholics, alongside Mass and Church sacraments. Formal and informal gatherings, involving, although not necessarily including clergy. Vocal and in shared silence. Sharing and discovering one’s faith within a more democratic, inclusive and circular model.

A Catholic church that bravely embraces change and does not retreat to old, misunderstood certainties and habits. Its leadership adapts to current need and evolves procedures for our times. It doesn’t assume knowledge and understanding. We wish for a forward-looking, hopeful Catholic Church that will craft “New Vessels For Old/Treasured Wine”, reflecting and enabling its people.

Essential truths of the Catholic faith are expressed in the regular, everyday language of C21st.

WHAT TO STOP

Cease archaic and academic language because this alienates many and does not make sense to most. Most people have not been raised in a tradition familiar with Latin and Catholic terms like The Real Presence. Introducing terms like “consubstantial” is not helpful in the pews. LANGUAGE usage is really influential and hints at attitude; it can convey hostility and superiority, instead of love and encouragement. Church representatives should avoid anachronistic and unpopular school-masterly or patronising tones. Diocesan letters /messages can come across as a telling-off or lecture.

We suggest an increased emphasis on the meaning and responsibilities of contemporary faith rather than listing points of doctrine. Lay people cannot leave catechesis and youthwork, for example, “to Father”.

Stop leaving the responsibility to Junior School RE teachers alone to kit out Catholics for a lifetime practice of their faith.  We need a shared, guided journey of Fuller Understanding throughout our life, enlightened by many exemplars and teachers, clergy and lay people.

Sadly, the leadership of the Diocese can feel distant, inflexible and not cognisant of regular daily life, its routines, its timetables and demands.

GATHER IN

Who

The practising/ the lapsed/ the marginalised/ the seekers. Also, those officially excluded by catholic doctrine contravening teaching e.g., divorced, partners in civil partnerships, same-sex marriages, LGBTQ community

In particular reach out to help the vulnerable: the homeless, the abused, the poor, dysfunctional families, lone parents, refugees, victims of all forms of violence including domestic, the sick and the ageing.

Can possibilities of married and female clergy and the deaconate be reconsidered? There exists both a desperate need for more clergy and a significant sense of exclusion of and hostility towards lay and especially female inclusion in leading Catholic roles.

How?

Develop and foster a missionary attitude among all our parishioners. Encourage us all to look outwards, aiming to be less insular and defensive.

Work, play and pray together with other Christian denominations. Engage in charitable enterprises, short-term and longer-term projects, supporting physical and financial action. “By their deeds you shall know them” Christian social action.

Genuine and non-competitive consideration with other Faith Groups of the meaning/implications of Faith

The Church, regionally and even internationally by shared language, can now share best practice via new social technologies like Zoom and texting and so make available sermons/lectures/courses/Masses. There are now high expectations of “professional” presentation and special-interest Catholic publications, and papers are limited in reach and appeal.

FREE THE HOLY SPIRIT

Sharing, discovering; more democratic, circular models of “Church” and “communion”.

Provide opportunities to listen to the Holy Spirit & bear witness to our faith, beyond church walls & services.

Trust the Spirit to speak and act, that He will save and show us God’s Truth.

Last year our parish was very generous in raising money and donating many Christmas gifts to ROAR - Reach Out And Recover - in Macclesfield.

You will remember that ROAR is a not-for-profit, support in the community organisation, which offers people who face addiction, homelessness and other issues a safe, secure and stable environment in which they can start to tackle their addictions and personal issues. It is a housing project, and those who access the service are given help to take control of their lives and to develop practical skills whilst working in the community. Of course, in these stricken times, things are very difficult for them. I am in regular contact with Jill from ROAR (who wrote to thank us last year) and I’m informed that they are coping well, but the outlook is a bit bleak.

As fundraising is not an option just now, I’m hoping that I might encourage parishioners to put aside some Christmas gifts for them, as we did last year. Things like hats, scarves, gloves, socks, slippers, chocs, biscuits, so that they can have a gift at Christmas, and some of which they can share with local homeless or elderly people living alone nearby who they usually provide a Christmas lunch for at the United Reformed Church.

I was hoping to have a box in the Barn for items or to collect them myself or have them delivered to my front porch, but this will have to wait until after lockdown. It’s something to think about during lockdown. Please contact me for further information. Thank you.

Do you have a favourite apple recipe that you can donate to the St Gregory's School apple recipe book? 

It can be sweet or savoury, easy peasy or fussy and fancy, an olde english favourite or from a far flung corner of the world!  The book will be produced by the children, filled with their apple art and will be on sale in time for Christmas in order to raise some much needed funds. 

If you would like to sponsor the book's printing costs and have your business advertised, then do get in touch. 

Please send your recipes and/or sponsorship queries to by Friday 16th October. 

Thank-you!

An amazing £67 bags of food and a cash donation for the Macclesfield foodbank Silklife were collected from our school and Parish.  Given the current circumstances, this is an amazing achievement.

Thanks to all who donated, organised, collected, sorted....or helped in any way.

Here is the letter of thanks from the foodbank.

St Gregorys Catholic Church - Harvest Collection Thank you letter Oct 2020.docx

This year we have decided to collect food for the Silklife Foodbank in Macclesfield which was established in December 2010 in response to Macclesfield's growing need for on-the-spot emergency food boxes. During the lockdown, they provided 16000 meals and helped 1300 people in the Macclesfield area.

Silklife Foodbank is run and supported by Silklife Church and is stocked mainly by regular food and financial donations from church members and increasingly through the local community. All boxes are given freely.

What food is needed?  Any of the following is perfect...

Milk (UHT or powdered), tinned meat/fish, sugar, fruit juice (carton), pasta sauces, sponge pudding (tinned), tomatoes (tinned), cereals, rice pudding (tinned), tea bags / instant coffee, instant mashed potato, rice / pasta, tinned fruit, jam / honey, biscuits/snack bars, Fray Bentos tinned pies, Ham, Meatballs, Bolognese, tinned potatoes, carrots. 

Where do I take my gifts?

You can drop off your gifts at St Gregory’s school ON 2 OCTOBER ONLY in between 9 am and 12 noon.  The gifts will NOT be able to be taken into school and will be collected by the foodbank that day.

Otherwise at anytime you can drop your gifts off at Cynthia’s house Thatched House, Broad Walk Prestbury SK10 4BR or Paul Leff’s house 29 Walton Heath Drive, Tytherington, SK10 2QN.  

To have your gifts collected please phone

Helen Bassirat (07726 903685) or Oonagh Wray (574019) for Bollington Cynthia Crewe (07711 570161) for Prestbury or Paul Leff (614275) for Tytherington.

Can I make a donation instead?

You can also donate by writing a cheque to Silklife Church (marked for Foodbank on reverse) and send it to Silklife Centre Church, George Street, Macclesfield SK11 6HS.      THANK YOU TO ALL!

This last week we have said 'Goodbye' to Fr Tony as our Parish administrator.  We owe him a huge debt of thanks for his tireless work in the Parish. He enthusiastically helped us form the vibrant Parish community we are today and we will miss him.

When it is safe to do so he will return for our celebration with us all.

We say 'Hello' to the familiar face of Fr Martin (Rector at Savio House) who takes over from Fr Tony.  We thank Fr Martin for his 'Yes' to our Parish and we look forward to working with him to carry on building our community.

Several parishioners travelled to Thornleigh College last Wednesday to attend a ceremony of rededication conducted by The Rector Major Don Angel Fernandez Artime. 

After the service everyone enjoyed a buffet lunch.

The pancake party last Sunday after mass was a great success and so well attended!

We had 4 frying pans going, 2 professional chefs, we got through a dozen eggs and 1.5lbs of flour and made 72 pancakes!

It was great fun and we raised £65.48 (+ gift aid) for ’Christians against Poverty’.

Thanks to everyone who helped. Especially Nick, Sharon, Oonagh and Anna and Mike for all the washing up!

Thank you to everyone who kindly contributed to the Mary's meals backpack project.

We collected 27 backpacks including stationary, towels, shoes, toothbrushes etc.

The backpacks were collected by Mary's meals and taken to Scotland then they will be shipped to Malawi. This will be the first gift the children will have received and will give them the basic tools for learning.

Thank you to everyone.

Congratulations to Fr Martin who celebrates is 25 anniversary of priesthood and to Fr Tony who celebrates 50 years of being a Salesian.

We thank them for their ministries and we pray that God will bless them both.

Is anyone who enjoys craft or art interested in getting together to discuss creating some new decorations for our lovely building, for example banners, hangings, or focal points to reflect the seasons of the church and feast days?  We could start small! Our next meeting is on Wednesday 4th July at approximately 10am (after mass). Contact the .

The bishops of England and Wales are holding a National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and Congress in Liverpool from the 79 September 2018. Entitled ‘Adoremus’ this is a unique opportunity for the church to gather and reflect on the central place of the Eucharist in the life and mission of the Church. We are invited to attend any part of this three day historic event.

Friday 7 September: Symposium Day. Exploring the place of Eucharistic Adoration. Focus especially for catechists, teachers, RE Coordinators, Musicians, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.

Saturday 8 September: Congress Day. Reflecting on the centrality of the Eucharist with Keynote speaker Bishop Robert Barron.

Sunday 9 September: Pilgrimage Day. Masses, Eucharistic Procession, Benediction with Archbishop Malcolm McMahon.

Details of the programme (there’s some great stuff) can be found on www.dioceseofshrewsbury.org but will be posted on a flipchart at the back of church next week. Please indicate there if you are interested, then the Faith Development Group will look at organising transport etc.

Thank you to all who came to the French evening last week and all who contributed—helping on the night, bringing food etc.

The evening was a lovely family event and raised £195 for our Parish funds.

 A BIG thank you to Mandy and Dermot Rafferty for organising this event.

Fr Tony would like to thank everyone for filling out the census for Our Mission Together over the last two weekends.

You will be hearing more about Our Mission Together in our Parish after Easter.

Last week we saw some of younger parishioners take part in the mass as part of the first communion programme.

Thank you to parents and catechists for supporting the children through this programme.

Well we had a lovely lunch together with a choice of 6 delicious soups and a selection of wonderful loaves of bread donated by the coop. 

The soup went down very well with many people going for seconds.  Cynthia’s leek and potato was in particularly high demand!  Afterwards we watched the very inspiring film Generation Hope all about Mary’s meals. 

On the day we raised £124.10 with an additional donation from someone in the parish bringing the total to £224.10!  That’s another 16 children who will be fed for an entire year! 

Thank you to all who attended and made it such a huge success and to the big team of helpers.

Thank you to all parishioners, and especially to our enthusiastic school children, for joining together to make our celebration of the feast of St John Bosco such a special occasion. Many thanks to those who made the splendid sandwiches and cakes and helped out on the day.

On Sunday 7 January there was a parish meeting to collate all our ideas for future activities in the parish under the headings:

·        Faith: liturgy, workshop and spiritual development

·        Community: parish, schools, Savio House

·        Parish administration: Maintenance, policy and communication

The Parish Council has drafted key aims for our Parish under each of the above headings (please see sheet below or the website) but HOW we achieve these aims and WHAT we do is up to everyone.

SO WHAT CAN I DO?

1.   Please add to the ideas for Parish activities by emailing the

The Parish Council would like to create subcommittees representing our three key themes of Faith, Community and Parish administration.  These committees will meet a few times a year to discuss, plan, action our parish activities. 

Whether you have 1 hour spare a month or are retired please consider putting yourself forward for one (or more) of these committees.

Thank you!

Paul Kerryson (Chair of Parish Council)

PS  Have a look at our full mission and aims by clicking here

Notes from a parishioner who attended the support group...

“The bereavement support group meeting was lovely. After coffee and homemade biscuits, Fr Tony gently led us, enabling us to share our own stories of grief and loss. We learned from one another and supported each other as we listened. At the close of the meeting we lit candles for our loved ones and Fr read a passage of scripture and gave us some reflection notes to take home.

We will meet again in May.”

A BIG thank you to all those who made our first joint St Gregory's church and school Christmas Fair an enormous success. Well done to Father Tony and school Head, Mr Daley for bringing us all together. 

Thank you to Liz and Loraine and the team whose hard work ensured that the new look, new time and new ideas all worked so well. The stalls, interactive games, wonderful catering of mulled wine, cakes and the ‘Xavier special’ turkey and cranberry rolls all brought a fresh appeal to the occasion.  It was great to see Fr Bob Coupe open the event.

Lastly a big thank you to all the parishioners, parents, teachers, stall holders, those who donated the many items and indeed everyone who supported this important event- the Fair was packed out for the entire two hours and we raised over £4000 for our parish and school communities!

Paul Kerryson (Parish Council Chair)

From November we will be emailing a daily ‘prayer to share’ to all parishioners who gave their email contact details earlier in the year.

The prayers have been written by members of the congregation—old and young.

If you do not have an email address you will be able to pick up paper copies of the daily ‘prayers to share’ at the back of church.  If you would like to write some short prayers please see Fr Tony. 

If you don’t want to receive our ‘prayer to share’ please leave a message with Pat.

Dear Parishioners

After a year of hard work and uncertainty in the Parish about whether we would have our own priest, our prayers have been answered and we are truly blessed that Father Tony is taking on the role of ministering to us here at St Gregory’s. 

His hard-work, inspiring homilies, good humour and endless enthusiasm have been present for the past year together with the backup of all the Salesians at Savio House.

We owe Father Tony, Father Roman, Father Cyril, and all the Salesians a huge debt of gratitude and we pray for Father Tony and for our communities of St Gregory's and Savio House as we start a new journey together.

Paul Kerryson (Chair of Parish Council)

Dear all our friends at St Gregorys Church,

From all of us at Barnabus, a huge thank you for your recent clothes and food donation. 

This is a very welcome donation at a time when we really need it. Every week, we see more and more new people at the Beacon, our drop in centre in Manchester, all seeking our help with food, clothing, accommodation as well as health and addiction problems.  The rise in homelessness and poverty means that your gift will go a long way in helping us to help them.

Your support allows us to continue our vital work with the homeless of Manchester, which may include many other aspects, such as help with mental health and addictions, as well as help in trying to organise benefits or emergency accommodation.

We are also currently running ReNu, a furniture 'up-cycle' project that allows homeless people to acquire new skills in restoring old furniture.  As well as this project, we also run an allotment project.

We have a lot of very exciting fundraising opportunities coming up for anyone who wishes to get involved and help to raise some money for us.  Barnabus relies on our great team of volunteers who are vital to how we can achieve our goals. If you ever find yourself looking to volunteer to get a firsthand experience of the work we do and of the projects we run, please email

Thank you again from all of us here at Barnabus and we wish you every success in all that you undertake.

Barnabus

45 Bloom Street, Manchester, M1 3LY; Tel: 0161 237 3223; Email:  

On Wednesday 12 July a number of parishioners shared conversation and cake at Jose’s house. 

It was a lovely afternoon, full of smiles and laughter. 

Thank you to everyone who came along to our parish celebrations and to all those who helped to make this such a special occasion. We hope you enjoy looking at some photographs from the day: 60th anniversary photos

As you can see our church has been decorated and is looking beautiful.  Take a moment to look around you when you are at mass and give thanks. Perhaps you will notice the wonderful stained glass windows above the altar for the first time (see photo left).

You will also hear our new sound system-so no more straining to hear what is being said!

A huge thank you to all the workmen involved in the decorating, stonework and installing the sound system.  They worked so hard to ensure we are in church this weekend.

A big job like this doesn’t just happen so thanks to ALL those involved in the organisation of this work.  But special thanks to Alistair McNulty who has managed the entire project magnificently.

And finally, thanks to all those who prepared the church to be ready for our weekend masses.

Well done to our confirmation group who held a cake sale last weekend and raised nearly £300 for East Cheshire Hospice.

Thank you for your generosity in supporting our young people and thanks to Francesca and those who helped organise the event.

On Thursday we were entertained by the Thomas Cranmer Choir conducted by Mr Keith Yearsley MBE.

The evening was a wonderful feast of singing, music, and drama all performed by the multi-talented choir.  We were treated to some old favourites like Panis Angelicus alongside a wonderful flute solo of 'Danny Boy' and then some folk guitar.

Thank you to June for organising the evening, to the choir who performed so beautifully, to the audience who supported the event and to all those who make cakes which were enjoyed after the concert.