Author: Parish Office

On Wednesdays at 7pm we have sessions on catechesis, prayer life and the precepts and traditions of the church. These are particularly designed for those receiving instruction to be baptised, received into the church or confirmed, but also for those who were baptised, received or came to back to the practice of the faith in the last five years. The topics are as follows:

4th February: Human Language and God’s Word

11th February: The Creation of the World

Break for Ash Wednesday

25th February: Is God Responsible for Evil?

4th March: Only One Life

11th March: Jesus Christ is our history

18th March: Christ’s Death and Resurrection

25th March: Speaking about the Holy Spirit 

Break for Holy Week and Easter Week

15th April: Does Faith Need the Church?

22nd April: The Question of Infallibility

29th April: Power or Service in the Church

6th May: Mary in God’s plan

13th May: Being Born a Christian and Becoming One

20th May: Why the Sacraments?

27th May: Liturgy: More than Ritual

3rd June: The Divided Self

Summer Break

5th August: Christian Morality, Human Morality

12th August: Can the Virtuous Save Themselves?

19th August: Seeing My Brother and Sister in Everyone

26th August: The Challenge of the Church’s Social Teaching

2nd September: Talking about Sexuality

9th September: Is Prayer an Obligation or a Grace?

Join with us in praying to St John Henry Newman in the three days leading up to his feast:

On his feast day, Thursday 9th October, we will have an extra, Solemn Mass at 17:45.

Here at Saint Patrick’s, we are blessed to have the tomb of the beloved Venerable Margaret Sinclair in our midst. Let’s not take it for granted.

The Centenary Pilgrimage to pray for the Beatification of the Venerable Margaret Sinclair will take place on Sunday 21 September from 12:30-6:00pm at our church.

12.30pm-1.30pm Refreshments & sale of candles/goods; 

1:30pm-2:30pm Holy Hour;

3:00pm-4:00pm Reflection on Venerable Margaret;

4:30pm: Sung Holy Mass with his Grace, Archbishop Leo Cushley.

Confessions available all day.

Please see the below posters for details about the Forty Hours of Adoration and the Corpus Christi Procession.

Novena in Preparation for the Feast of St Philip.
Begins Saturday 17th May.

Daily Prayer

COME, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of thy love.
℣. Send forth thy Spirit and they shall be created:
℟. And thou shalt renew the face of the Earth.

Let us pray.
O GOD, who has taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that by the gift of the same Spirit, we may always be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation. Through Christ our Lord. ℟.Amen.

There follows a reading from the life of St Philip

LOOK DOWN from heaven, Holy Father, from the loftiness of that moun- tain to the lowliness of this valley, from that harbour of quietness and tran- quillity to this calamitous sea. And now that the darkness of this world hinders no more those benignant eyes of thine from looking clearly into all things, look down and visit, O most diligent keeper, this vineyard which thy right hand planted with so much labour, anxiety, and peril. To thee then we fly, from thee we seek for aid: to thee we give our whole selves unreservedly. Thee we adopt for our patron and defender: undertake the cause of our salvation, protect thy clients. To thee we appeal as our leader, rule thine army fighting against the assaults of the devil. To thee, kindest of pilots, we give up the rudder of our lives; steer this little ship of thine, and placed as thou art on high, keep us off all the rocks of evil desires, that with thee for our pilot and our guide we may safely come to the port of eternal bliss. ℟. Amen.

Then is said three times:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
℣. Holy Father, Saint Philip:
℟. Pray for us.

O FAMOUS leader and loving Father, Saint Philip, be a true Father to us. Protect and govern always those who have been given to thee. Make us good and, being made good, reconcile us to God; and after this time of exile joyfully present us to the beloved Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour; may whose honour, praise and glory, unspeakable joy and perpetual bliss with the glorious Virgin Mary and the whole court of heavenly citizens remain without end for ever and ever.
℟.Amen.

℣. Fulfil thy words, O Father:
℟. Help us by thy prayers.
℣. Behold and come to thy vineyard:
℟. Which thy strong hand has planted.
℣. May the Holy Spirit inflame us with that fire:
℟. Which wonderfully penetrated the heart of Blessed Philip.
℣. Remember thy Congregation:
℟. Which thou hast possessed from the beginning.
℣. Grant, O Lord, that what we cannot achieve by our merits:
℟. We may gain by the patronage of Saint Philip.

Let us pray.
O GOD, who did marvellously penetrate the heart of Blessed Philip with the fire of thy love, grant that the same fire of the Holy Spirit may inflame us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son, who lives and reigns with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. ℟.Amen.

NOVENA TO ST PHILIP

DAILY READINGS

By Divine Providence God has led us to the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh as a place to establish the Oratory of St Philip Neri, by being given the care of Saint Patrick’s; to make here our Domus (home) with the Oratorian vocation, apostolate, and rule of life.

Oratorians are not members of a Religious Order with vows; where they live is not a monastery: the Home of an Oratory is important as the Fathers live as a family, in one permanent place, being governed by fraternal charity. Together as a community, yet with space for private prayer and penance, both elements help aid the zeal necessary for the apostolate here in the parish, and beyond.

The House in Edinburgh helps us to be both eremitic and missionary: as Rome was simultaneously St Philip’s desert and his India. We are very grateful to Archbishop Leo Cushley for his invitation to come to the Archdiocese; for warmly welcoming and encouraging us throughout.

On the 25th of March 2025, the Feast of the Annunciation, by formal Decree we were established as a Community, granted the status and title of Oratory in Formation by the Procurator General in Rome. He has appointed Father Ninian Doohan as the Moderator (Superior) of the Oratory-in-Formation, and Father Richard Duffield Cong.Orat., the Provost of the York Oratory, as the Delegate of the Procurator General, who liaises between Edinburgh and Rome, directing the ongoing formation of the House, until – God willing – it is erected as a Pontifical Oratory (the definitive foundation of an independent permanent Community created by the Pope). This process can last the good part of a decade, so we are just at the beginning. Fr Duffield has been with us from the start, from the first letter he received from us in March 2021; though he had prayed for a long time before for a Scottish Project.

St Philip Neri was the founder of the Congregation from which the Oratory is both established and constituted, and while it was not in his mind to form a federation of Congregations outside Rome, the initiative of priests who had come into contact with the Roman Oratory and were fascinated by the new method of evangelization, fanned the flame of apostolic desire in Father Philip to see the Oratory spread, and with it the Congregation that was to serve it.

St John Henry Cardinal Newman brought the Oratory to the English-speaking world with his premier foundation in Birmingham, followed soon thereafter with London. He had desires for further foundations, and Edinburgh was very much on his mind and visits: we hope and pray to bring his desire to fulfilment.

Read the official announcement (with translation) here.

We are delighted that Father Serafino M. Lanzetta of the Marian Franciscans in Dundee, is launching his new book, The Glorious Sacrifice of the Lamb: The Mass and Christian Life, at our Church on Saturday 26th April. Details in the below poster:

Do join us for the Sacred Liturgies in order to prepare for the Lord’s Resurrection:

Beginning Saturday 8th of March

Daily Prayer

O glorious Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland!
I praise, bless, and glorify God for thy sanctity, thy zeal, thy charity, thy labours,
and the success of thy labours.
I thank thee, O great Saint Patrick,
for watching over and preserving the faith of the Irish people.

O dearest Saint Patrick!
heed not the unworthiness of thy children;
but continue, in the future as in the past,
to pray for them.

(here mention your petitions)

(remember this Parish also)

(be united with all those at prayer)

O glorious Apostle, Saint Patrick, guard and preserve, to the Day of Judgment,
the purity of the faith and morals of thy people in every land and in every clime.

O beloved Saint Patrick! obtain from God that Erin, and also our dear country of Alba,
may become again what they formerly were, “The lands of Saints and Scholars.” Amen.