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Loving God
Living Faithfully
Building Community
Week commencing 31st January
at St Michael's Tonge
and All Saints Rhodes
Sunday: 8am: Holy Communion (said) at St Michael's
9.30am: Holy Communion (sung) at St Michael's
11am: Holy Communion (sung) at All Saints
Tuesday: 10am: Morning Eucharist (said) at All Saints
6pm: Nursery Rhyme Mass at St Michael's
Our Vision
Prayer is at the heart of everything we do at St Michael's Middleton and All Saints Rhodes, as we follow our calling to respond to God who in Christ reached out to find us.
Our parish churches are rooted in the lives of the communities in which they are placed and have adapted to the needs of the community as it has changed and developed from a Lancashire mill town, to a suburb of Manchester.
We rejoice in the diversity of people God calls each and every day and we take our calling to Love God, Live Faithfully and Build Community seriously and we look forward to welcoming you to join us in this journey.
![23 January - Mary Ward (1585-1645)
Born in Yorkshire on 23 January 1585, Mary Ward grew up in a Catholic recusant family during the harsh Elizabethan persecution of the faith. By her early teens, she had discerned a vocation to an active religious life modelled on the Jesuits: women religious who would teach, evangelise and serve the Church without cloister, vows or veiling.
In 1609, with companions, she founded her Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (later known as Loreto Sisters) at St‑Omer in Flanders, establishing schools and missions across Europe and sending sisters covertly to England. Her vision ‘There is no such difference between men and women that women may not do great things […] And I hope in God it will be seen that women in time to come will do much’ provoked fierce opposition from clergy, Jesuits and the Roman Curia, who saw it as a dangerous innovation for the post‑Tridentine Church. In 1631, Pope Urban VIII suppressed the Institute by papal bull, and Mary herself was imprisoned by the Inquisition in Munich.
Yet she submitted in obedience, never abandoning her vision. Through the loyalty of her companions, the Institute revived, receiving provisional approval in 1703 and full recognition in 1877; Mary Ward was declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. She died in Heworth in 1645 and is buried at Osbaldwick and Murton Churches near York. Her global network of schools and sisters now numbers thousands, a testament to how one woman’s fidelity to her vocation can outlast even papal suppression.
#ayearofholywomen #maryward #loreto #dioceseofmanchester
You can sign the petition to make Mary Ward a saint here https://www.change.org/.../help-our-cause-to-have-mary...](https://scontent-lhr8-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/621447022_17893332429404392_8192073479554797856_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiRkVFRC5iZXN0X2ltYWdlX3VybGdlbi5DMyJ9&_nc_ohc=mk9t2aiPsXMQ7kNvwFfBunx&_nc_oc=AdnnZg0evT4fEcgDj9t14Si31f9WOJHHsucBx0YY6s15aJXaNCr-Hm3cLaV54dCIigE&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr8-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=71eCwuhjfzaoX6xfrzH54Q&oh=00_AftSyjdTVE9SIcnhEkyoHBFPmdoV8dxbsMb0VBLIJRmzoA&oe=698AE1C6)
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