English Mass Utrecht

Upcoming Thursday, April 18, the doors of the Ki Tov chapel will be open for the 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.

For more information, you can also visit the Facebook event.

Be welcome in the beautiful and modest chapel of Ki Tov (Grave van Solmsstraat 4).

In addition, we’d like to inform you about the following:

• The organization is looking for new musicians (preferably piano) and people to strengthen the team! Though the team is always present with much enthusiasm, they need to expand the 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 this enthusiastic team and support them once a month with the Taizé prayer preparations, to sing during the prayer or to support with the website/promotions. Please let them know via mail or reach out to them before or after the prayer!
• Related to the ‘Church night’ in Utrecht event, the prayer in June will be held on Saturday June 22 in the Gertrudiscathedral. Note, this is both a different date and location! (Stay up-to-date via the Facebook event).

We hope to see you Thursday evening!

On behalf of Reinier van den Assum, the organization of the Taizé meetings in Utrecht.

Easter is approaching and there will many festivities in Utrecht. Unfortunately most of them will be in Dutch. In English we will celebrate the Easter Sunday, 21st April, at 12:30 in St. Catherine Cathedral, as usual.

Below is the rest of the schedule, in case you are interested in participating:

17th April, Holy Wednesday
21:00 – (Dutch) Tenebrae with the Gregorian choir of Utrecht

18th April, Maundy Thursday
19:30 – (Dutch) Mass celebration with cardinal Eijk
21:30 – (Dutch) Tenebrae with the Gregorian choir of Utrecht

19th March, Good Friday
15:00 – (Dutch) Celebration of the stations of the cross, with veneration of the cross (please bring a flower for the veneration)
19:30 – (Dutch) Memorial of the suffering and death of the Lord, with veneration of the cross (please bring a flower for the veneration)
21:30 – (Dutch) Tenebrae with the Gregorian choir of Utrecht

20th April, Holy Saturday
16:00-17:00 – Confession oportunity
21:00 – (Dutch) Pascal vigil with cardinal Eijk and the Cathedral’s Choir

21st April, Easter Sunday
10:30 – (Dutch) Holy mass with cardinal Eijk
12:30 – English Mass

Since September 2016 the St. Augustine church suddenly closed it’s doors due to renovation of the church. The costs for renovation had been paid by collections within the community and the subsidy of Foundation Erfgoedparels. The renovation has been put on hold for a considerable time now and the future of the St. Augustine is uncertain. The community of st. Augustine likes to restart and finish the renovations, so that the church can be re-opened and kept to regain it’s church and social functions. The St. Augustine still has a closely knit and active community in which many volunteers organize different activities. Also the choir Cantemus Domino has it’s basis in the St. Augustine. The church also has a social function for the inner city.

If you are interested in signing, you can find the petition in cathedral next to the other leaflets.

The organization is working on putting the petition online, we will let you know when it is available.

Don’t let the St. Augustine church close it’s doors permanently and let an important monument be lost to the highest bidder!

Keep the st. Augustine for Utrecht and Holland. Sign the petition!

Displaced Dishes is a cookbook that has its origin at the Samos Refugee camp, in Greece.

This book was born from the acknowledgement that food brings people together. Furthermore, some of our nicest memories are attached to the meals we share, thus carried in people’s hearts wherever they go.

The aim of the book extends beyond just providing the reader with exciting and authentic food ideas. It is also a snapshot of the complexity and ongoing tragedy of the European refugee crisis. On the macro level, the wide array of countries from which our contributors were forced to leave, and the sheer distance they travelled to reach Samos, demonstrates the scale of modern displacement. Whilst on the human level, these donated recipes provide an insight into the very personal loss displacement brings. Painful separation from one’s culture, homeland and family, are all tied up with the celebration of food from home. We’re extremely grateful to the contributors for sharing these meaningful recipes.

This book has been brought together by a group of people that volunteered in Samos with Samos Volunteers. But what is Samos Volunteers?

We are volunteers. Our amazing volunteers come from all ages, nationalities and backgrounds. People living in the camp also volunteer their time and skills.

We support some of the world’s most vulnerable people, offering safe spaces for women and men, recreational activities for children and adults, and emergency laundry services.

We empower, offering informal educational courses, particularly in languages and arts. Our community volunteers and community council ensure our work is led by the people it benefits.

We facilitate, working collaboratively with other NGOs as they bring their expertise to help the island’s refugee population.

If you would like to know more about the situation in Samos, about Samos Volunteers or simply to get your own copy of the wonderful Dislaced Dishes book you can’t miss this event!

On the 13th April, between 15:30 and 18:00, in the Bonifaciushuis (the cathedral coffee and tea room) there will be some bites and drinks, thus the event will have a cost of 10 euros per person!

Invite your friends, families and come to find out a bit more about this wonderful organisation while getting the chance to buy one of the amazing cookbooks for a minimum price of also 10 euros!

For all children that were baptized in the parishes of Utrecht in 2017 and 2018 there will be a short celebration in Saint Nicolaas – Monica church, Boerhaaveplein 199, 3552CT Utrecht on Sunday March 31 , 2019 at 15:00.

We invite all the children that were baptized with their parents and God parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters to come and experience the unity of the Catholic community.

We will sing and play around the story of The Creation. The choir of the St. Joseph church will sing.

An initiative to have a mass on Sunday late afternoon is starting to form. This initiative comes from one of our concerned parishioners – Humberto Consolo Holanda – which at the time of the information meetings about the future of the Catholic Church in Utrecht, was afraid of the future of the church in Utrecht.

After meditating and thinking on potential initiatives to give some new life and spirit for the Church, he came up with this idea to have a mass scheduled on Sunday late afternoon. This would specially be targeted at the young people who go out on Saturday and sleep over during Sunday morning, missing the Holy Mass normal schedule.

For the sake of understanding the potential viability of this late Sunday Mass, he made a questionnaire to understand the opinions of the community and parishioners.

For the ones interested in such an initiative, could you answer the questionnaire here: https://nl.surveymonkey.com/r/28ZWKKH ? It will only take 2 minutes of your time to answer the questions, and it will be much appreciated.

To the Salvator parishioners: With the recent decision not to
sell the St. Catherine’s church from worship (and with it, remains cathedral), the St. Catherine’s Cathedral is once again offered future prospects.

That still does not apply to the Augustine Church in the center of Utrecht, which is also part of the Salvator parish. The Augustine church has been closed for two and a half years and now for a long time no information has been provided about the future of this church. It is now really necessary that this uncertainty comes to an end!

The Augustine community has remained vital over the past two and a half years and wants to stay that way! That is why an information meeting is going to be organized on the 6th of April during the monthly meeting in the parish center of the St. Augustine church (immediately after the Eucharistic celebration) at around 13:00.

The parish board has been invited to inform our religious community and – where possible – to answer the numerous questions that have been raised by everyone about the restoration and future plans of the St. Augustine Church.

You are all cordially invited to be present! You can also email your questions earlier to h.w.kanters@gmail.com. Your questions can then be shared in advance with the members of the parish board, so that they can prepare as well as possible for this information afternoon. Don’t miss this opportunity to answer your questions!

Cafe Damiano is a free event. It’s a place where people between the age 18 and 39 can discuss their faith. The next edition is about:

How can you find God in daily life?

And how can youtube help you? Jesuit Nikolaas Sintobin will explore new methods of prayer with us. After the meeting we can further meet each other with a drink and bite.

Time: 20:00

Location: Werfkelder (basement) Nieuwegracht 61, Utrecht

On Friday the 29th and Saturday the 30th of March there will be a 24 hours of adoration for the Lord event in the St. Catherine cathedral.

The schedule is as follows:

29th March, 19:00 in the St. Catherine Cathedral: Way of the cross;
29th March, 20:00 in the Peace Chapel: Adoration and reconciliation;
30th March, 10:00 in the St. Catherine Cathedral: Worship and reconciliation;
30th March, 18:30 in the Peace Chapel: Evening mass.
Please come and take part in this celebration of praying and reflection during this Lent periode.

On the 10th of March, the English Mass Utrecht community celebrated its 16th anniversary. We had a nice potluck lunch with food brought from everyone from the community and we played some board games after the lunch.

Check out the photos in our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/englishmassutrecht/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2189471027798280