Welcome to the webpage of the Olton Friary Flower Group. We are a group of volunteers who work behind the scenes to add beauty and dignity to the church every week.
We use flowers in church to draw people closer to God. God's Glory and beauty is reflected in the beautiful things that he made. The Jesuit poet Gerald Manley Hopkins once wrote ‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God', and at the beginning of our Altar Missal it says that flowers add to the prayerfulness of the mass. They help to lift our minds and our hearts to God.
So we use flowers to decorate the church and make God's house beautiful, and encourage people to pray and to give thanks to God. In practice we decorate the church with flowers every week for normal use. Then we add flowers for special seasons like Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. We also decorate for special occasions: weddings, baptisms, funerals, Confirmations and First Holy Communions. The colours and the style of our decoration always try to enhance the prayer of the day, the mood of the season, and the special occasion we celebrate.
We have 14 volunteers who work in groups of three giving 2 or 3 hours a week on a rota basis. We are led by Shirley Fernando a retired professional florist.
The volunteers take a pride and joy in decorating the church for the 30 weddings we have annually as well as for the great feasts of Easter and Christmas, when the church becomes a glorious riot of colour.
The Power of Flower
We are always on the lookout for more helpers, and we welcome new volunteers. If you are interested please contact our Parish Office. New volunteers will be given help, support and training, so no previous experience is necessary.
Flower Arrangers
May God grant that our hearts, our eyes and our hands,
May receive his inspiration enabling us to glorify,
His House with the beauty of the leaves and blossoms,
Which he has created.
Amen