English Mass Utrecht

Upcoming Thursday, February 21, the doors of the Joseph church will be open for our monthly Taizé youth prayer in Utrecht! Note, this is a different location than usual! You are welcome (as usual) from 20:00 on. There will be the possibility for silence, before the prayer starts at 20:15.

The meeting will take place in the Sint-Josephkerk: Draaiweg 44, 3151 EM Utrecht.

In addition, we’d like to inform you about the following: we’re looking for new musicians (preferably piano) and people to strengthen our team! Though the team is always present with much enthusiasm, we do need to expand our team as no one is going to stay in the team till eternity. It would be a pity when the prayers would end. Would you like to join our enthusiastic team and support us once a month with the Taizé prayer preparations, to sing during the prayer or to support with the website/promotions. Please reach out to us before or after the prayer! We hope to see you Thursday evening!

The English Mass community will celebrate its 16th birthday on the 10th of March!

After mass we’d like to celebrate this together by sharing our food and friendship together. We ask you to bring a dish or cake from your home country, so we can celebrate our diversity and our shared Christian Faith.

After eating we can enjoy each other’s company by playing board games. Please bring your favourite one!

This Monday, the 18th February, there will be another information session about the intentions to sell the St. Catherine Cathedral.

In this session the parish board will give further details about the current process. The session will have an informative nature. There will be an opportunity for express opinions and stand points in a future hearing, to be announced later.

This meeting will take place in the coffee and tea room of the Cathedral – the Bonifaciushuis, Nieuwegracht 61 – at 20:00.

Last Thursday, the 7th February, the parish of Utrecht board announced their plans to sell the Cathedral to the Catharijne convent for a symbolic amount of 1 EUR. After which they intent to restart the renovation of the St. Augustine church. Their goal is to keep one church open in the city center where all activities will be centered. Their planned timeline is within 2-3 years. These plans are in line with the plans of the Diocese. The board uses arguments of vitality as main reason, financial reasons as secondary arguments. They will start up the official procedures starting with a hearing on the 18th of February. During this hearing well founded objections can be made by the parishioners, these objections will need to be considered and addressed in further decision-making. Therefore we need to hear your voice now.

The English Mass coordination team would like to hear the opinion of our community. Therefore we invite you tomorrow(!), the 10th February, after mass at 14:00 in the coffee and tea room of the Cathedral, Nieuwegracht 61 to share your thoughts with us.

Thursday February 7th at 19:00 a Tridentine Mass, also known as Latin mass, will be celebrated.

It will take place in the St. Catharine Cathedral with a Gregorian choir.

It will be the votive Mass of the Presentation of the Lord.

After the Mass there is also a little candle procession to the Mary chapel.

The union of collaborators of the parishes of the Utrecht invite all the parishioners for a meeting about the St. Catherine Cathedral.

This meeting follows up on previous announcements about the intention of selling the cathedral.

The meeting will take place on the 7th February at 20:00 in the coffee and tea room of the cathedral – the Bonifatiushuis, Nieuwegracht 61.

In this meeting the board of the parish will give some more explanation about the process on how the board will take a decision regarding the cathedral.

The meeting concerning the merge to one Utrecht parish, announced for the 22nd January will be postponed.

The reason is due to the concerns around the announced measures regarding paid musicians from July 2019. Also the specific situation about the Salvator parish requires more clarity, concerning the plans for the St. Catherine cathedral and the future of the Catholic faith in Utrecht.

The parish board considers that is best to first discuss the matter internally.

A new date, in the second half of February, will be announced later, once the board has more concrete answers.

We will let the community know whenever we have more information.

It has been announced before that the diocese has plans to sell the cathedral due to the current financial situation.

A group of parishioners with a vision of growth and vitality for the St. Catherine Cathedral created a petition to halt these plans and keep the cathedral for the parish.
If you share their opinion, you can sign the petition on this website:

https://catharinakathedraal.petities.nl

And then fill in your name, email address and place of residence.
The website is in Dutch, you can find a Google translated version here:

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fcatharinakathedraal.petities.nl%2F%3Flocale%3Den

The petition will be handed over on the 22nd of January, during the information session about the topic announced before.

2019-01-16 UPDATE: The meeting on the 22nd of January was postponed. Please read more about it in a more recent post here.

On the 22nd of January at 20:00 there is a meeting concerning the merger to one Utrecht parish. The meeting takes place where we have the coffee and tea after the mass in the cathedral, the Bonifaciushuis – Nieuwegracht 61. Topic of discussion will among others be the financial situation and the plans of selling the Cathedral and the uncertainties surrounding the future of the st. Augustine. At the meeting you can learn more of the plans and express your concerns and ask questions you might have. We hope to see many of you there that evening.

Related to this topic, there is a group of (Dutch) parishioners that gather to pray for the future of the catholic church in (the centre of) Utrecht. Every Sunday at 18:00 you can join them in the sacristy of the St. Catherine Cathedral. You can ring the bell of the red door on the left side of the cathedral halfway the alley.

Would be great if you can join!

The Christmas festivities are approaching and although there will be many celebrations in Utrecht, for the English Community we will only have one extra Christmas celebration, on Christmas day:

Tue 25th December, 12:30, St. Catherine Cathedral: Christmas mass in English

If you are interested in the Dutch celebrations please check the Tussentijds magazine, December edition: https://portal.parochiemagazin.nl/digital/2221/109/4190