home page

From Fr Bruce

Church bells have played a prominent position in the life of the Church and in the life of literature. I can think of many books which have in their title a bell: For whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway; The Bell by Iris Murdoch and Summoned by Bells, by John Betjeman, to name but three. (It might be a good competition to see who can find the most with "Bell" or "Bells" in the title — Ed.)

Sacred Heart Church is rare in the Catholic tradition in England by having its own ring of bells. The Reformation and subsequent anti-Catholic laws put paid to Catholic churches being allowed to summon people to worship by bells. Now we are free to ring our bells and I think I would speak on behalf of all of us when I say how grateful I am to those who ring the bells each Sunday and on special occasions, and how welcome the Bell-Ringers are at Mass on this Sunday – the 5^th of February – to celebrate their Patron Saint, S. Agatha. The story of how Agatha became the Patron of Bell-Ringers is a rather unusual one and one which I shall not go into here. However, it is the tradition that Bells are christened with the name of a Saint, and I like to think how special it is that when the bells ring, the Saints that they represent are calling out a summons to come and pray at Mass.