Asked to bring a friend, she brought three generations

It began, for one family, with a single invitation.

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Rosemary had been asked to bring a friend. So she brought Shelly, and her mother, Elizabeth, and her daughter as well. Her daughter isn't Catholic, but she came because it mattered to her mother and grandmother, and she felt welcome.

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The parish had made a simple request of its people: “Invite one of your friends or relatives to come and attend the Mass with us.” Rosemary, who worships at Mother of God Church in Leicester, took it as a privilege. Her friend Shelly, who belongs to St Patrick’s Church in Beaumont Leys, came. As the priests processed in and the flags went up, three generations of one family stood together, a guest beside them.

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This was the parish’s International Mass, and nobody wanted to miss it. Cars sat up on the pavement and the carpark was full. Inside, people wore the traditional dress of the countries they had come from. The songs were sung in several languages, and the prayers of intercession in five: English, Portuguese, Malayalam, Konkani and Shona. The children danced. Everyone was asked to play a part.

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For the parish priest, Fr Hans Puthiakulangara, who is from India and marking his 37th year as a priest, that mix is the whole point. “People from different countries, different cultures, different costumes,” he said. “Wonderful. Wonderful, really.” Different languages, he added, need not divide: “they are one in God, in faith, because they are sons and daughters of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

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Bishop Patrick McKinney, who had come to celebrate the Mass, put it this way: “The person, perhaps two rows in front of you, whose name you may not know and whose accent you may find hard to follow, is your brother, is your sister.” What binds a room of many nations, he suggested, is not a shared passport but a shared love: “it’s our love of the Lord and His love for each one of us that binds us all together.” From that love, he said, people are “sent out by Christ to love and serve Him in those we meet each day.”

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None of this happens by accident. Michelle, who sits on the parish council, said the planning for International Sunday takes the best part of a year. It is made possible, she said, by meetings and phone calls and WhatsApp conversations. “We’ve all really experienced a little part of everybody else’s culture,” she said, “and that’s what International Sunday’s all about.” To gather so many communities at one altar, she added, is “really quite precious.”

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Afterwards, everyone moved to the hall, where the tables were loaded with food from every country in the room. Rosemary was there with Shelly and her family, plates full, in no hurry to leave.

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You don’t have to wait to be asked the way Rosemary’s friend was; there is a place for you at a Mass near you. You can find your nearest parish at dioceseofnottingham.uk, and the welcome Rosemary was given is the one waiting for you.