There has been a regular Mass for many years on the first Monday of the month at St. Michael’s Rivelin, offered for the souls of those buried there and in the Catholic section of Crookes Cemetery.
The Chapel and the cemetery are beautiful, in lovely wooded surroundings that reach up the valleyside through the trees to join Walkley Cemetery. This September the date for the Mass fell on the first day of the Season of Creation, and it seemed a fitting opportunity both to offer prayers for those gone before, and to celebrate the beauty of the natural world around their resting place.
A new Mass for the Care of Creation was instituted by the Vatican this summer, and offered by Pope Leo in the Borgo Laudato Si’, Castel Gandolfo, in July. Fr Paddy Walsh used the new Liturgy for his last Mass at St. Michael’s as parish priest, to celebrate the Season of Creation.
Afterwards, a group of us from Sacred Heart, St. William of York, St. Vincent’s and the Cathedral, walked along the Rivelin Valley Trail to Malin Bridge, with prayer stops along the way dedicated to the industry carried out along the river in years gone by, and to conservation work undertaken now to maintain its heritage and biodiversity, for today and for generations to come. At Malin Bridge we remembered the death and destruction caused by the Great Sheffield Flood of 1864, and we prayed for those caught in terrible floods today and those threatened by rising sea levels due to climate change. From there we walked on to Sacred Heart, Hillsborough, where Father Michael Umameh said a final prayer with us in the Memorial Garden. A Little Pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year. Columba Timmins. St. Vincent’s parish.
