Over 1,500 parishioners packed out Peterborough’s Anglican Cathedral on Saturday evening (June 15) for the biennial Catholic One Mass.

Parishioners from all of Peterborough’s Catholic churches including St Peter & All Souls with the community of Our Lady of Loudes, St Luke’s, Sacred Heart & St Oswald, the Polish Mission, St Olga’s Ukrainian church and the Syro-Malabar community all gathered in the cathedral by kind permission of Cathedral Dean the Very Rev Chris Dalliston.

Over 70 nationalities were represented with their national flags and costumes in a colourful opening procession, along with all Peterborough priests and deacons, at the Mass, held once every two years.

Also present were the Catholic Mayor of Peterborough Cllr Marco Cereste and his wife Maddelena Cereste and former MP (now Parliamentary candidate) for Peterborough Paul Bristow and pupils from the local Catholic primary and high schools.

During his homily, Bishop Peter said: “We all work for the sake of the Kingdom, day after day. There are days when we will see some progress, but there are days when we must have patience to wait for the fruits of our labours.

“It is our privilege to be in this place in communion with our brothers and sisters from the Church of England. We must share as much as we can in our common faith bearing common witness in our world to the Kingdom of God.”

Prayers in many different languages were said and there was a wonderful multi-cultural feast afterwards in the cathedral and a First Communion cake was cut by Bishop Peter.

Chief organiser of the Mass was Fr Adam Sowa MS from All Souls with the help of many dedicated parishioners who worked hard and volunteered a lot of their time to put the event together and to make the celebration a very special one.  

At the end of the mass, diocesan medals were presented by Bishop Peter to Deacon John Bedford, Angelo Cuenca, Jude Antony, Mary Jane Ahearn, Tomas Ahearn and Henrietta Conmy.