Considering Adoption? The St Margaret’s Children and Family Care Society is hosting an adoption week on the 16-23 November for interested couples. Please see www.stmargaretsadoption.org.uk for more details.

Scottish Catholic Medical Association’s AGM Will be held in Turnbull Hall, on 26^thOctober. If you would like to attend, please email scottishcma@gmail.com. 

Together with the Cambodia Project, the Cathedral is raising funds to help support the poorest people of Cambodia by organizing a Quiz Night. So please brush up your general knowledge, message all your family and friends, put a team together (or join up with others) and come along for a fun evening for a worthy cause.

Tickets are £10 per adult, including pizza, email Kate on togetherwithcambodia.twc@gmail.com or 07590378426.

To raise more funds to reduce homelessness in Scotland, Social Bite, the Edinburgh-based charity, have organised a Sleep Out in Princes Street Gardens (Sleep in the Park) during the night of Saturday 7th December. The Parish is planning to have its own team – please speak to James Walker if you would like to join in or email him at cathedralhouse@stmaryscathedral.co.uk  

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ;

The police station is next to my church. I sat with a patient in complete distress and could smell the blood caked on her. She had hallucinated God’s voice and killed her child with a kitchen knife. In my career as a forensic psychiatrist I have assessed many people who have killed. Some are ill, some are not, but most acts of violence are unplanned and utilise a weapon which is to hand.

One of the most successful life saving measures in the UK had nothing to do with medicine or government strategy. It was the unintended consequence of an apparently unconnected change. 60 years ago our domestic gas supply was changing from coal gas, rich in carbon monoxide, to natural gas. A means of taking one’s own life – effective and to hand – was removed and there was a profound drop in the rate of suicide – not just the rate of carbonmonoxide poisoning but suicide overall.

A key observation is that a seemingly trivial intervention can interrupt a life ending course of action. What more important life decision can there be but to end your life? Surely you would simply plan alternative means? And some suicide and some homicides are carefully planned and determined. Yet for the most part human beings even at the most extreme moments in life are acting in not such a thought through way. Barriers to ending ones life – making the means less lethal and not immediately to hand – can interrupt the course of events. An apparently trivial barrier to a life ending course of action was effective in changing behaviour.

We are familiar that sharp instruments are used most commonly in homicides in the UK but which sharp objects are most common? In Edinburgh over 5 years they were used in 70% of deaths. 94% of sharp instruments in this sample were identified as kitchen knives. Limiting the availability of a lethal weapon immediately to hand outside the home is associated with a dramatic decline in homicide and serious injury in Scotland where the culture of knife carrying has had an effect – a 60% fall in homicide – a 60% fall in weapon carrying a 60% fall in hospital admissions following knife assault..

So how can the success of reducing knife violence outside the home be replicated inside the home? Safe alternative kitchen knife designs for use at home exist. As part of its patent application the Newpoint design was tested by the Home Office who found it as effective as a police stab vest in preventing penetration. The Assure range of safe knives from Viner will be appearing in our supermarkets from January 2020.

In an initiative from the Anglican Diocese of Rochester a petition calling on Parliament to promote the sale of safe knife designs and restrict those with pointed tips has been launched.

Could I invite you to pray for the success of this initiative, to share this letter amongst your church communities and support the petition.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/274802

Yours in Christ

Professor John Crichton

Catholic young people in Scotland! A festival atmosphere with music, liturgy and guest speakers.
This year’s event will take place at Motherwell Concert Hall on Monday 7th October from 10am-2.30pm.
S1 – S6 Students & Youth Groups welcome, please sign up for tickets now! (Teachers please input SCHOOL NAME next to your SURNAME when booking tickets). Tickets available via Eventbrite.

Thank you for your generous support of Mary’s Meals last Sunday! They raised £920.96 at the Cathedral and £481.12 in Ravelston. In addition, they got £200 for the textile collection from both churches. Since £13.90 is all it costs to feed a child for a whole school year, this means that our parish has been able to help 115 children. 

There will be a Dementia Awareness session at the Cathedral on 19^thJune. It is open to anyone who would like to learn more about the issues experienced by people living with dementia – but places are limited. For more information contact Elizabeth on 553 1510 or Elizabeth@rhandrews.plus.com

If you have been collecting for SCIAF in a Wee Box this year, you can either send the money directly to SCIAF (using the details on the box) or bring it to Mass for us to count and send in for you. 

If you would like the parish to send in your monies for you, please leave your Wee Box at the back of the church on or before the 12th May 2019. Don’t forget to fill in the gift aid details on the base of the Wee Box to maximise your donation!

After Mass on Sunday the 19^th May, Robbie Clarke, Mairi-Angela Foster and Kate Jones are organising a bacon rolls morning (vegetarian option available) to raise money for the AHC Foundation (Alternative Hemiplegia of Childhood). This is a charity run organization to support the development of effective treatments, research and support for the families and affected children. In our parish community we have a child, Anya Behl, who has this illness. We hope you will come along and support this. Further information can be obtained at the AHC Foundation website or by contacting one of the organisers.

 The annual charity book sale is one in the largest in the world and is held in George Street Church in May. For information www.standrewsandstgeorgeswest.org.uk

During the remaining weeks of Lent there is an opportunity to donate an item of food and/or a small Easter treat for one of our food banks who look after and feed the homeless and disadvantaged in Edinburgh. The appropriate boxes are located at the back of our church  

 The annual charity book sale is one in the largest in the world and is held in George Street Church in May. For information www.standrewsandstgeorgeswest.org.uk

 As in previous years, one of our faithful parishioners has been knitting all year and will be selling her hand knitted goods with a seasonal theme (all proceeds going towards the Cathedral) after all Masses on Palm Sunday. 

Would those of you already registered for Gift Aid please pick up your new sets of weekly gift aid envelopes from the back of the Church after mass. And if you are a UK taxpayer and have notalready signed up for gift aid in the parish, now would be a very opportune moment to do so!  Over the next two weeks, we will have registration forms, new envelope sets and standing order sign-up sheets available after mass. If you are expecting a set of gift aid envelopes for 2019/20 but are unable to find them in the box at the back of the church, please contact our finance officer, Caroline Reid, by email on finance@stmaryscathedral.co.uk  so that she can make sure you receive them. 

During the remaining weeks of Lent there is an opportunity to donate an item of food and/or a small Easter treat for one of our food banks who look after and feed the homeless and disadvantaged in Edinburgh. The appropriate boxes are located at the back of our church