So also faith of itself, if it does not
have works, is dead.   James 2:17

Welcome to All Saints.

We invite you to join us for Holy Mass on Sundays at 10 am, followed by a lively coffee hour in our community hall.

The All Saints Catholic Community is a fully integrated, multicultural community with English as its unifying language. It is an open, warm, welcoming, inclusive community that prays together and celebrates its unity in diversity. Our congregation is composed of faithful people committed to worship in English in Germany’s capital. We welcome new Eucharistic ministers, servers, lectors, hospitality providers, greeters, choir members – those who make our religious life active and colorful and our worship fitting to its purpose. Our community is based on the principle that we, the community, willingly take on responsibilities of funding our community and supporting our Celebrants.

Situated in one of Berlin’s most picturesque districts, Dahlem, our facility includes a modern church, a Blessed Sacrament Chapel, offices, meeting rooms, a community hall with a kitchen and outdoor facilities where many of our social events take place, weather permitting. We are a member of the English-speaking Mission of the Archdiocese Berlin-Brandenburg whose members include St. Bernhard's (Dahlem Dorf), St. Albertus Magnus' (Charlottenburg) and the Filipino Community at the Heiliger Geist Church (Charlottenburg). The Rector Ecclesiae of the English-speaking Mission is Father Herbert Gillessen.

We look forward to meeting you at All Saints.

Holy Father’s Prayer Intentions for May 2012

General Intention: The Family. That initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society.

Missionary Intention: Mary, Guide of Missionaries. That Mary, Queen of the World and Star of Evangelization, may accompany all missionaries in proclaiming her Son Jesus.

“… and with your spirit” -

a partnership between priest and people

From the first Sunday of Advent 2011, all English-speaking Mass-goers will be using the text of the revised translation of the Missal. One revision in particular, to one of the most familiar people’s responses, has caused some confusion. Many of you will find the new translation of the response, Et cum spiritu tuo in the revised English version of the Missal difficult to understand, certainly compared with the translation, ‘And also with you’ to which English speakers have become accustomed since nearly 40 years. The new translation appears, conversely, rather traditional.

The reasons and meaning behind the introduction of the words ‘your spirit’ are unclear to many members of English-speaking congregations. Some people try to explain the introduction of ‘And with your spirit’ by claiming that it refers to the effect of the Holy Spirit in the priest, so it becomes a prayer that the Lord will increase the grace of his priestly ordination.

I see a different explanation: When I greet you “The Lord be with you”, your answer is from today on “and with your spirit”. This phrase is to be understood fully as “And the Lord be with your spirit”.

The really important point here is not the word ‘spirit’, but the word “with”. When we say “God is with someone”, we mean that God gives a task to someone who protests that he or she are inadequate to fulfill it. It is a promise of God to be with someone – God thus guarantees that with his help he or she can fulfill the commission God has given them. If God is with them, they manage.

The Lord be with you – and the Lord be also with you.

So here we have a partnership between priest and people, a partnership with a purpose: each praying that the Lord will be “with” the other in their shared act of worship. This Eucharistic act is something they would not dare to consider themselves adequate to undertake, had they not received the Lord’s commission that his disciples “do this in memory of me” (Lk 22:19); and it can be undertaken now only because the risen Christ himself promised to be “with” his Church until the end of the age (Mt 28:20). That is the main point underlying the phrase “…and with your spirit”

Cf: www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20111116_1.htm

Blessed John Paul II, pray for us!

On the day of the beatification of Pope John Paul II (May 1st 2011), we prayed before the Lord for our Church by remembering the five key inspirations of the Vatican II Council:

• “Aggiornamento”, the spirit of change and tolerance;
  
• Collegiality, the sharing of responsibilities by all bishops, along with the Pope, for the governance and pastoral care of the Church;
  
• “Apertura”, the openess of the Church to the modern world;
  
• Dialogue, the increase in communication between the Church and its members, the science fields and global philosophies;
  
• Ecumenism, the promotion of cooperation and unity between different Christian denominations.

Let us pray for the continued fostering of our faith and the renewal of our Church.

All Saints Community after the 2011 Easter Sunday Mass

May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands...

At the Catholic Academy...

So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Prayer from the beginning of the 20th century –
but attributed to Thomas More.

A Prayer (Chester Cathedral Refectory)

Give me a good digestion, Lord,
And also something to digest;
But when and how that something comes
I leave to Thee, Who knowest best.

Give me a healthy body, Lord;
Give me the sense to keep it so;
Also a heart that is not bored
Whatever work I have to do.

Give me a healthy mind, Good Lord,
That finds the good that dodges sight;
And, seeing sin, is not appalled,
But seeks a way to put it right.

Give me a point of view, Good Lord,
Let me know what it is, and why.
Don’t let me worry overmuch
About the thing that’s known as »I«.
Give me a sense of humour, Lord,
Give me the power to see a joke,
To get some happiness from life
And pass it on to other folk.

Thomas H. B. Webb

Centesimus Annus No. 58.

Love for others, and in the first place love for the poor,
in whom the Church sees Christ himself,
is made concrete in the promotion of justice.

It is not merely a matter of "giving from one's surplus",
but of helping entire peoples
which are presently excluded or marginalized
to enter into the sphere of economic and human development.

For this to happen, it is not enough to draw on the surplus goods
which in fact our world abundantly produces;

it requires above all a change
- of life-styles,
- of models of production and consumption, and
- of the established structures of power
which today govern societies.

Pope John Paul the Second, Centesimus Annus in 1991

Rector Ecclesiae
Father Herbert Gillessen,
English Speaking Mission (www.english-mission-berlin.de),
Johann-Georg-Str. 8, 10709 Berlin, Tel: 8132026
Catechism, baptism, marriage, confirmation, first communion and funerals