History of the church of Saint Edward the Confessor
When housing estates started to spring up on the west flank of Milton Keynes the newly-arriving Catholics were looked after by priests from Bletchley. Then, in the mid-1980's
Fr. John Murphy SS.CC arrived and began to gather a community. Fr. John lived in Great Holm and weekday Masses and Baptisms were celebrated there. At weekends he used community centres.
In September 1990 Fr. Paul Hardy arrived to replace him. It was a time of transition. Work had already begun on St. Edward's church, with a presbytery adjacent. On 14th October, the day after the feast of St. Edward The Confessor, Bishop Leo McCartie laid the foundation stone of the new church. The signatures of parishioners were sealed in a transparent air-tight box and placed behind the stone.
On Christmas Night 1990, Fr. Paul celebrated the first Mass in the new church. During the next six months the finishing touches were added to church and presbytery; the car park was surfaced and landscaping planted. Bishop Leo, in consultation with the Diocesan Council of Priests, formally established St. Edward's as a constituent parish of the Diocese of Northampton. Then, on 7th June 1991, Bishop Leo consecrated the church.
With the church built, the next few years were spent laying foundations for the community of people who would gather there. The Sisters of the Holy Family established a convent, and for some years Sisters offered a pastoral ministry within the parish. It is to people like Sister Martina Murray that we owe the foundations of the preparation courses for the sacraments.
The children became teenagers, and turned out to be very talented indeed. We built a very thriving music group for Sunday Mass. Word spread, and on July 2, 2000 our main Mass was broadcast live by ITV.
The same year saw the start of two regular features of parish life. In a Covenant for the Poor to mark the Christian millennium we raised almost £3,000 for a poor Brazilian parish, Since then the teenagers of St. Edward’s have run a project each Lent to benefit other young people. We have supported young homeless in London; educated a set of brothers in Haiti; helped a penniless Peruvian orphanage. In 2009, the Year of St. Paul, we raised an outstanding £8,000 to help the Archbishop of Damascus equip a student hostel. Not content with that we sent seven parishioners, from two families, to run an English-speaking school for Catholic children in Damascus during the summer holiday.
To mark the start of the third Christian millennium 22 teenagers and 5 adults set off on Rome 2000, a two-week camping trip to Tuscany and Rome. Since then we have taken a group every two years!
Twenty years have passed, and St. Edward’s is changing. We have an astonishing mix of nationalities in our congregation. In one count we had people from 28 different countries. We’re also into a new generation. Our teenagers have grown up, graduated and followed work around the country. Now we wait for children of African and Asian background to take their turn in teenage, and we offer service to a first generation of mature, retired parishioners. May the next twenty years be as blessed as the first.
So, that's the story of our first twenty years. Watch this space!
