Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
Darlington Mission
20 September 2026 – Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity
Mass today is offered for Mark, Julia, & Rose
Group Pastor – Fr. Thomas Mason – thomas.mason@ordinariate.org.uk – 01833 631457 – 07876 308657
Assistant Priest – Fr. Ian Westby Deacon – the Rev’d Carl Watson
Web: https://www.ordinariate-darlington.co.uk
Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/OrdDarlFacebook
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OrdDarlington
Services this week:
Monday 21, 6.15pm, Barnard Castle (Latin) – S. Matthew
Tuesday 22, 10am, Gainford – Votive
Thursday 24, 10am, Barnard Castle – Our Lady of Walsingham (family Mass with S. Mary’s School)
Thursday 24, 7pm, Barnard Castle (Ordinariate) – OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM
Friday 25, 12noon, Barnard Castle (Ordinariate) – Votive (preceded by Sext at 11.45am)
Friday 25, 6-7pm, Barnard Castle – Holy Hour
Confessions (at Barnard Castle): Monday 5.30-6pm, Thursday 5.30-6pm, Saturday 10-11am
Prayer List
Of your charity please pray for all the sick, especially: Morag, Ethel, George Gwilliam, Andrew Gwilliam, Fay Jackson, Dennis Walburn, Elaine Robertson, Barbara Ugoletti, Andrea Matthews, Bridget Wright, Graham Pegley, Calvert Hardy, James Hardy, Keith McAllister, Elizabeth Rawling, Pauline McAllister, Paul Laughlin, Garth Redvers Harris, Geraldine Dobson, Pat MacGregor, Ann Griffiths, Ruth Park, Lily Berepiki.
As also for all the faithful departed, particularly the recently departed, including Harald V, Peter Hanks, and Charlie Camileri, as well as those whose years-mind falls at this time, including Ronald Pennock, Ann Flynn, George Wiper. Requiescant in pace.
Our Lady of Walsingham. This Thursday is the solemnity of our great patroness. There will be a sung Mass at 7pm, followed by food in the Garden Room. Lady of Walsingham be as thou hast been, England’s protectress, our mother and our queen.
Blessed Fulton Sheen
So often the Saints seem like super heroes from another age, but in each age God raises up new Saints to work as the times need. This Thursday, Archbishop Fulton Sheen is to be beatified, the step before being canonised as a Saint; a man widely recognised and admired, and unquestionably one quick to embrace the new media which were emerging to spread the Gospel.
Born in Illinois in 1895, he was baptised Peter John; however, he came to use his mother’s maiden name of Fulton. His academic abilities were quickly recognised and immediately after he was ordained to the priesthood he was sent to Europe for further studies. He also taught for a time in Hertfordshire at S. Edmund’s College, which combined a seminary with a boys’ school; at the same time working closely with S. Patrick’s Soho (still a centre of evangelistic work). He returned home to the U.S. in 1928, and quickly began the media ministry which would make him famous.
In 1930 he began a weekly radio broadcast, The Catholic Hour, which regularly gained a few million listeners. The gentle tone of his voice was widely acknowledged, but this didn’t mean that his message was toned-down, he referred to Hitler as an example of the anti-Christ, for example. In 1940 there was one of the first television broadcasts of Mass, and Sheen was the natural choice for a commentator; in at the beginning he recognised the potential for television to be used as a tool of the Faith.
He was appointed as an auxiliary Bishop for New York, and ordained in 1951; however, this was not at the expense of his media work. In 1952 he started a weekly show ‘Life is worth living’ in which he was would reflect on current moral issues; when the show became surprisingly popular, the host of the main competition broadcast at the same time on a different channel joked “If I’m going to be eased off the top by anyone, it’s better that I lose to the One for whom Bishop Sheen is speaking.”
Even those with apparently successful ministries in the Church do not find life easy, and there were clear tensions with the Archbishop of New York; it seems likely that the Archbishop pushed for Sheen to be appointed Bishop of Rochester so that he would be at a distance, and unable to continue to run his main evangelistic work ‘the Society for the Propagation of the Faith’. Whatever the truth of the tension or quarrels, in his autobiography, Sheen took the time to praise Cardinal Spellman and never hinted at problems.
At the age of 74 he resigned as Bishop of Rochester; however, this was no retirement. He was given a personal title of Archbishop in recognition of his work, but he continued to speak and writing extensively. A mere two months before his death, Pope John Paul II happened to be visiting New York, and at S. Patrick’s Cathedral embraced Sheen saying :you have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are a loyal son of the Church.”
Sheen’s style was to speak clearly and straightforwardly and often with humour, but never at the expense of the truth he was preaching. At a time when there was still a large amount of suspicion of Catholicism in the U.S., he was a popular figure on all sides, winning people over with charm and openness, without sacrificing any truth. But all of this flowed from a profound personal faith; he remarked several times that the key to all of his work was that he began every day with an hour’s silent prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament. May we take his example, to draw on the ancient truth of the Faith and proclaim it to the whole world. – Fr. Thomas.
Safeguarding The Group operates in accordance with Statutory Safeguarding Guidance and Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) and Diocese’s policies and procedures at all times. Our Group Safeguarding Representative is Jos Thompson or alternatively the Diocesan Safeguarding Team can be contacted on 0191 2433305 or at safeguarding@diocesehn.org.uk