A NEW CHURCH FOR A NEW CITY

This new Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, with its priests, is a welcome from the Diocese of Northampton to you who have come to live among us at Milton Keynes. It will, I hope, be a sign of, and a centre for, the true Church, of which you are the living stones: a people united in faith in Jesus Christ, and in following His teaching and example.

Here in this Church you will come to pray, to offer yourselves through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, to the Father whom Christ revealed, and from this Church will radiate out your Christ - like work for the wider community in which you live.

I send my blessings to you all,
Your devoted father in Christ

Charles Grant,
Bishop of Northampton

The Church in Milton Keynes

We are not the first
newcomers here, any more
than we are the first
Christians. The history of this
area tells of the tides of
humanity which have flowed
over the land since recorded
history began - and
doubtless well before that.
The Saxons and the Danes
followed the Romans, who
fortified the area and built
the famous Watling Street
which runs through Milton
Keynes to this day.

Early Christian communities
are known to have existed here
from about the fifth or sixth centuries.
When the Romans left, their
successors kept few records.
But it is known from the time of
the Norman Domesday Book
that not a single abbey or priory
existed.

But the Conquest assured the
presence of Christianity from
the 11th century onwards.
Less than a hundred years
after the Normans came,
Bradwell and Tickford Abbeys
were flourishing. By the
13th century there was a
church in almost every one of
the villages - Stony Stratford,
Wolverton, Willen and Loughton
among them. To this day the
churches tell a noble story of
witness and worship down the
ages.

We are but the latest wave of
newcomers. Since the building
of the new city began in late 1970
Catholics have been drawn from
all parts of the British Isles to
worship here and to contribute to
the making of Milton Keynes.