St.

Mary's Church

40 Park Lane
Rothwell
Leeds
LS26 0ES
Clergy Father Éamon McGeough
Web site https://october18th.wixsite.com/stmarysrothwell

Registered Charity no. 249404 Telephone 0113 2824453

Mass Times
Monday 7th Jan 10.00 a.m Mass (Dorothy Collins)

Tuesday 8th Jan 10.00 a.m Mass (Rev Barrie Senior)

Wednesday 9th Jan 10.00 a.m Mass (Mary Coleman)

Thursday 10th Jan 10.00 a.m Eucharistic Service

Friday 11th Jan 10.00 a.m Mass (Kathleen Clarke)

Saturday 12th Jan 6.00 p.m Vigil Mass (Justine Butterfield)

Sunday 13th Jan 9.30 a.m Mass (Thomas Collins)

11.00 a.m Mass (D’d Members McDermott

& McElroy Families)

Collection £943 Many Thanks

HALL HIRE Our hall is available for parishioners to use for their social events should you
wish. Please contact the hall manager (Steph Power) for details on 07729761340.

FOOD BANK We are still receiving much needed supplies which are delivered to the food
bank in Rothwell every Thursday. If you haven’t yet been able to donate, could you perhaps add
an extra item to your weekly shopping for those who are experiencing the great poverty of hun-
ger in our community.
QUIZ NIGHT 19th January. £5 tickets on sale now. Please bring your own
alcohol. Thanks. (Only 30 tickets left!).

SVP COFFEE MORNING will be held after both masses today.

WHY CHANCE IT?

If I were inclined to be agnostic I’ve always thought I’d be tempted to take a punt
on Pascal’s wager. Blaise Pascal, as you know, was a theologian/mathematician
back in the days when it was still respectable for Frenchmen to be clever AND re-
ligious. His musings on probability theory and the human condition led him to a
formulation that belief in God and the afterlife was the only prudent, intellectual
course of action.

The calculation is simple, if you believe in God and live a God-fearing life, and it
turns out there is a God, then, when the time comes, you’ll be rewarded with a
place in paradise forever.

If there isn’t one, and you’ve lived the religious life, then you’ll end up, infinitely
speaking, the same as everyone else, and no worse off than the atheist who
spent his life deriding religious belief as superstitious nonsense.

But if you don’t believe in God and lead a generally irreligious life, you’re taking
one Hell of a gamble. If it turns out you were right all along, and there’s no God
and no afterlife, so what? You won’t even have the pleasure of a nanosecond of
gloating at the ineffable stupidity of your God-bothering fellow ex human beings.

The very moment of your intellectual triumph and extinguished vindication is

also the precise moment at which its significance collapses into literal nothing-
ness. – That will be it, lights out for ever.

But if it turns out there is a God and you’ve spent your earthly span denying His
existence and generally poking fun at believers - you’re going to feel a bit sick
when St Peter shows up, ledger in one hand and a one way ticket to Hell in the
other!

‘Therefore,’ Pascal said, ‘the sensible thing to do is to resist the atheist tempta-
tion. The best on offer is a life-long sense of smug superiority in this world. The
worst is eternal damnation.’

The costs of being wrong are so high that they would require a level of confi-
dence in your unbelief that is humanly impossible. Why chance it?