WELCOME TO THE PARISH CHURCH
OF ST MARY THE VIRGIN, SWANLEY
01322 662201
Coronavirus Covid-19
The Sunday obligation is presently suspended and no-one should feel under any pressure to attend any worship whatsoever!
Of course, faithful Christians should be seeking to ensure they have a prayer life which routinely engages them in saying sorry for their sins, adoring our Creator, giving thanks for our Saviour and kindling the fire of the Holy Spirit within us all. This prayer life may be nourished by joining online acts of worship or through attending less 'busy' services during the week.
Public worship is slightly different from usual as congregational singing remains against the law, social distancing is required and personal details are recorded to assist in any Test, Track and Trace procedure.
The Mass Book for the 7th Sunday of Easter is available here as single pages.
May's Newsletter is available here as a booklet and here as single pages. April's Newsletter is available here as a booklet and here as single pages.
We are not currently offering the facility to light candles.
The Church Hall remains closed and there is no access to the kitchen or the toilets at all. The closure of the toilets is because there is a problem with the pipework: we do not expect this to be resolved before July.
At St Mary's, we are offering three Masses for Sundays:
The first Mass of Sunday is aimed at our Junior Church and is at 4.30pm on Saturday afternoons.
On Sundays, we offer an 11am Mass and a 4.30pm Mass (as opposed to our usual 10am and 5pm services.)
To attend the Saturday afternoon Mass or either of the Masses on Sunday, you will need to pre-book with Father Dane. From Wednesday each week you can message him or telephone and he will come back to you to confirm that there's space.
The weekday Masses are celebrated at their usual times:
Tuesday, 7pm
Wednesday, 11.30am
Thursday, 10am
Friday, 11am
Saturday, 10am
No pre-booking is required for weekday Masses.
From 17 May a limit of 39 attendees applies to funerals (whether in the church or only in the churchyard.) The Mass limit is also 39; at burials of ashes, the maximum is 30. These are absolute limits and cannot be varied.
Serving Swanley since 1901
St Mary the Virgin Swanley serves the town of Swanley, building up the Kingdom of God through Word, Sacrament and service. It is firmly anchored in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England and is a Forward in Faith parish, under the Episcopal care of the Bishop of Richborough.
Safeguarding
Making sure the whole Church family is safe is an important part of what we do here. Full details can be found here.
Daily Prayers
A useful rule of life can involve the saying of prayers each day when we wake and before we go to sleep. These prayers don't have to be long, in a set form or use big words. Some people find a daily routine helps them and others do prefer having a set of prayers which they know other Christians throughout the world are using. One such resource is called Universalis and on this site you'll find prayers for the whole day - along with the readings used at Mass - which are shared by Christians throughout the world.
We are a family of faith
We live & work
and grow & pray
together
Our faith is centred on Jesus Christ
and his sacrifice for us.
We seek to live the love of God which is given to us in the Lord.
Thank you to our supporters
St Mary's gets no money from the government,
no money from local councils
and no money from the central church.
Every penny we spend has to come from people and businesses
who dig deep to support our work - and we're grateful to them all.