Parish Profile - Highbury
Westminster Record October 2012
Highbury: the parish with best parishioners Fr Gerard has been parish priest for six years at Highbury parish in Islington. Originally from Luton he has been parish priest in Hatfield, and Isleworth. I went to meet him and the parish sister, Sr Patricia on a late summer sunny day in September. 23 September 2012 saw the 50th anniversary of the present Church building, although the parish has been in the area since 1920. Archbishop Vincent Nichols celebrated the 11am Mass which was attended by parishoners as well as the local MP, the local Mayor and Deputy Lieutenant for Islington. This could not be a more typical parish. The doorbell rings more than once during my conversation with Fr Gerard and Sr Patricia and I took away the impression that this was a busy, vibrant active parish. As well as the Church, St Joan of Arc has a community centre, which is built on the site of the old Church. It was renovated about six years ago according to Fr Gerard. He said: “We use it for all sorts of things Parish celebrations, confirmation classes, First Holy Communion classes, but it is also used by Senior Citizens, Irish dancing and AA groups, it is also regualrly used for birthday parties.” Sr Patricia a Sister of Mercy who has been working in the parish for the last 15 years. As parish sister she visits the sick and elderly a lot and helps with the liturgy and flowers and crucially feeds the parish cat, Fudge! She says: “If there are people who are ill in the parish, we try and make a visit to them, at home and in hospital and anyone in a hospice.”
Fr Gerard King
Interior of St Joan of Arc Church, Highbury
The congregation Fr Gerard tells me that the congregation over a weekend is about 750. “Although it does vary. I expect that it will get busy in September as people return from their holidays. On a Sunday afternoon the Congolese chaplaincy is based here. They have Mass on a Sunday afternoon in Lingala. There’s about 200-300 of them every Sunday, it does depend on the celebration. They come from all over. Last Saturday we had a wedding. When they have a wedding everyone in the whole Church is invited, not just family and friends.”
However, the parish is not just restricted to Mass attendance over the weekend. There are some very active parish groups. At this point the doorbell goes and as Fr Gerard goes to answer it, Sr Patricia tells me about some of the groups: “ We have a very active CAFOD group and Sr Patricia says there are dedicated people, but also always new people coming in and taking over things when other people cannot do them anymore. It is lovely to see.” Fr Gerard returns and tells me that CAFOD is not the only group that attracts his parishoners. “We also have a very active SVP group. We have a very good parent led youth group, mothers and toddlers and we have small communities that meet for faith sharing in autumn and Lent which is good. We have three different music groups covering the Masses.” I’m impressed. That’s a lot of groups. Fr Gerard also is the first priest I’ve met that uses and i-pod for music at Mass. “On Saturday evening we have an i-pod that we plug into the system. But at Sunday morning we have live music.” As well as the groups, Sr Patricia also describes the prayer life of the parish: “We have the rosary every morning and adoration every Friday with a Novena to Our Lady on Saturday. They are some of the more traditional devotions, but it is good to have these things.” The doorbell rings again and Fr Gerard has to step outside. Sr Patricia tells me about the primary school next door. “The children come to Mass every term and are so well behaved in
Church. It is a very over subscribed school as it is a good school, but has its disadvanatage as we can’t offer places to all the Catholic children.” Sr Patricia also tells me that there are also the Sisters of St Paul of Chartres associated with the parish, not just the Sisters of Mercy. It is certainly a thorough parish with everything from groups to religious sisters in it!
Sacramental preparation
The parish cat Fudge
FOR MORE INFORMATION Address: 60 Highbury Park, N5 2XH Phone : 020 7226 0257 www.stjoanofarc.co.uk Sunday Mass: (Sat 6.30pm), 9, 11, 2pm (Congolese Community)
As is to be expected with such a busy parish, the sacramental preparation for First Holy Comunion and Confirmation is done every year. Fr Gerard says: “For the last two years we have done a joint confirmation retreat day with other parishes, but the catechesis we do on our own.” I am also lucky whilst at the parish to meet the parish cat Fudge. Fr Gerard says: “I was looking after a cat that needed fostering for a while and when the family got better I gave the cat back, and Fudge arrived from a family in the parish who were having kittens. He’s great company.”
renowned sculptor Arthur Fleishmann. He used the then new translucent material, Perspex to convey St Joan in armour that shines in daylight and glows when illuminated from within. The parish has recently refurbished the front entrance to the Church which is now more spacious and will in time provide space for a new repository and a coffee bar for people to gather after Mass.
The building
The good and the bad
Fr Gerard takes me to look around the Church and I get to see the newly refurbished entrance. Built in 1962, Joan of Arc doesn’t have a typical 60s feel. The church is designed to seat 750 and has a feeling of lightness and space, the long, narrow shape of the plot dictating its unusual proportions. In the words of the architect, Stanley Kerr Bate, he hoped to build ‘a happy church’. The statue of St Joan of Arc located by the steps down into the nave was commissioned from
With such a busy parish, I expect Fr Gerard to talk about having too much to do or always being short of time when I ask what are the challenges are of working in parish like Higbury. However, he said: “The only thing that’s difficult is getting to meet everyone, that’s always hard when you don’t know everyone.” And the best thing for Fr Gerard? “The best thing about the parish, is the people, they are very nice parishoners, but that has always been my experience.”