Welcome to the first blog post of our newly launched parish website. I am grateful to those who have made this enterprise possible. At last our parish has a place on the world wide web.

This year we celebrate the 125th anniversary of a Polish Franciscan Friar – St Maximilian Kolbe. He is perhaps best remembered as the priest who gave his life for a fellow prisoner in the German Concentration Camp – Auschwitz. But there is more to his life than that heroic act.

As a student for the priesthood in Rome Maximilian founded the Knights of the Immaculate” (“MILITIA IMMACULATAE” or “M.I.”). Along with six other friars, he consecrated himself totally to the Immaculate and drafted the simple M.I. Statutes of this Marian-Franciscan movement. Even to this very day, its goal continues to be the sanctification of as many souls as possible under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Part of the work of the Militia was to spread devotion to Our Blessed Lady and to this end he started a printing press to disseminate devotional materials and articles about the faith.

Maximilian believed in using every possible means to spread devotion to Our Lady and to make the Catholic Faith more widely known. Had he been around in our own times I am sure that he would be making full use of all the avenues of social media now open to us as tools of evangelisation.

Do please come and visit our website from time to time. Here you will find a snapshot of our parish life. But do not simply be a ‘website believer.’ Come and visit us in person and share in our community celebrations of Mass. It will be great to see you!!!