Our parish life centres on the Eucharist in which we celebrate the presence of the Risen Lord among us.
We will strive to make everyone welcome and will support one another through liturgy, prayer, education, service, social events and the simple enjoyment of being together.
At the service of the ―New Evangelisation‖ proposed by Pope Saint John Paul II and his sucessors, each of us will strive to nurture our personal friendship with Jesus Christ and witness to this by proclaiming His Gospel and being His Church in this part of Glasgow. We will have a particular care for our young people, helping them take their rightful place at the heart of our community.
The devotion of our Patroness, Saint Helen, to the Cross reminds us of the suffering of Christ and prompts us to support one another not only in our joys and hopes but also in our griefs and anxieties. We will respond with compassion to the spiritual and practical needs of those around us and those in other parts of the world. We will care for the many gifts we have been given and seek to use them wisely.
We are also committed to deepening the bonds of friendship with our brothers and sisters who are members of other Christian communities and those who profess different faiths.
We do all of this as members of the larger Catholic community within the Archdiocese of Glasgow and the universal Church
Saint Helen was a British princess, born c.250 AD. She was badly treated by her husband, Constantinius Chlorus, who was an officer in the Roman army and later became Emperor. Their son, Constantine, was the first Christian Roman Emperor.
Constantine became master of the East and planned to build a great church on Mount Calvary. Helen herself went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to supervise the building. When demolition of secular building and excavations on Mount Calvary laid bare three crosses buried in a ditch, everything indicated that one of them was our Lord's Cross. But which?
The Bishop of Jerusalem led prayers with Saint Helen asking God for a miracle. A dying woman laid on the third cross, was restored to health, and thus was Our Lord's Cross identified.
Saint Helen died c.330 and was buried in Rome. Though celebrated for her kindness and charity to the poor and down-trodden, her real fame rests in her having been chosen by God as the instrument of revealing the Cross to mankind.
If we go far enough back in history, we can discover that the land on which Saint Helen's church stands was once the property of the Abbot of Dumfermline. However, the story of Saint Helen's parish begins, like that of all other post-Reformation Glasgow parishes, in the year after Waterloo when the trickle if Irish immigration was beginning to grow to a flood.
In 1816, thanks to the efforts of Bishop Alexander Cameron and Father Andrew Scott, and to the generosity of humble folk with little to spare, the £20,000 Gothic structure of Saint Andrew's was raised on Clydeside.
"We ourselves will remember the time," writes James Walsh in his history of the Catholic Church in Scotland, "when Saint Andrew's was the only Catholic Church in Glasgow and for several miles around the city.
“In those days, not less than 2,000 Catholic children assembled regularly at 7.00 am every Sunday morning, in the different districts of the city, and marched in procession to 8.00 am Mass in Saint Andrew's.
"Catholics from Hamilton, Airdrie, Coatbridge and other districts assembled round the temple of God every Sunday."
A chapel of ease was opened in Gorbals in 1826. In 1829, the year of Catholic emancipation, Mass was being celebrated in Pollokshaws every 6 weeks.
The parishes of Saint Mary's, Saint John's and Saint Alphonsus' were established between 1842 and 1846 and in 1849 the parish of Saint Mary Immaculate came into being in Pollokshaws.
An important step in the development of the south side of Glasgow was taken in 1857 when the Corporation bought the lands of Pathead farm near the village of Langside for £3,000
Councillors suffered a good deal of censure for deciding to open a park so far out of the city. Criticism was stilled, however, when the opening of the new park, named "Queen's" because of Mary Queen of Scots sad association with the area, was followed by rapid building activity in the surrounding district.
The vast area from Kinning Park to Cathkin Braes was served by two new parishes opened respectively in 1847 and 1882 - Our Lady and Saint Margaret's and Holy Cross. They sufficied because there was no great influx of Catholics in those days into the villas, terraces and flats of Crossmyloof, Startbungo, Langside and Pollokshields.
However, this state of affairs gradually changed, and a growing Catholic population was housed in what was sometimes referred to as the "no-man's-land" between Holy Cross and Saint Mary's, Pollokshaws.
It came to the knowledge of the parish priest of Saint Mary's (Rev. Joseph Daniel) that the Church of Scotland premises in Langside Avenue were likely to fall vacant as the congregation contemplated union with Shawlands Old.
He was most impressed by the building itself as well as by its suitability for the Catholics of Langside and Shawlands.
Negotiations for the purchase of the property were characterised by courtesy and kindness on the part of the Church of Scotland authorities and the spirit of ecumenism was exempified when Langside Avenue Church of Scotland became Saint Helen's Roman Catholic Church.
Though the building which is now Saint Helen's was Langside Avenue Church of Scotland when it came into the posession of the Archdiocese, it was Langside Road United Presbyterian Church when it opened on 21st May 1897.
Father Desmond Gunning was appointed to take charge of the new parish, the name of which was an obvious link with the adjoining parish of Holy Cross. The first service was held on Sunday 2nd October 1966 when the principal Mass was celebrated Canon Daniel, parish priest of Saint Mary's, Pollokshaws.
It was a coincidence that the solemn opening of Saint Helen's took place within weeks of the 400th anniversary of the Battle of Langside. Records gives us a fairly detailed knowledge of the events of that May morning in 1568 when the religious future of Scotland was settled. Though the numbers engaged in the 45 minute skirmish hardly justified the title of battle, the impact has lasted for four centuries.
At the time, Mary was 25 - much of her adulthood was passed in France, where she had been sent to escape the "rough wooing" of Henry XVIII, who wished to betroth her to the young Prince Edward and so effect by matrimony what he had been unable to bring about by force - the subjugation of Scotland.
When the Queen returned from France it wa to a country oficially Protestant. With the birth of James VI on 19th June 1566, the pace of events dramatically quickened. There followed in quick sucession the murder of Darnley, the entanglement with Bothwell, the Battle of Carberry Hill and Mary's imprisonment in Lochleven Castle.
On 2nd May 1658, Mary made her escape and succeeded in reaching the safety of Hamilton, where she was joined by a number of the Scottish lords faithful to her cause. Her aim was to withdraw to Dumbarton Castle and attempt to regain, little by little, the allegiance of her people.
Moray, her half-brother, Regent of Scotland for the infant king, was meanwhile in Glasgow. The news of her escape reached him on 3rd May. He issued immediate orders to the Government forces to join him at Glasgow. On 13th May came the news that the Queen's army had started for Dumbarton.
Mary's supportes followed a route south of the Clyde. This would take them by Rutherglen to Govan or Renfrew through the villages of Langside and Strathbungo, eventually allowing them to cross to the north side by one of the fords.
Moray's army at Glasgow was thus in a fine position to bar the Queen's route and cut her off from the roads leading to Govan. Moray marched through Gorbals and along an old road to Langside. The best strategic position to intercept the Queen's army was Langside Hill, upon which the monument now stands. In order to seize posession of this hill, Moray had sent ahead 200 cavalry and 200 hagbutters or infantrymen armed with the primitive hand gun of the period firing ball shot.
The Queen's forces eventually came to rest on Clincart Hill, through which now runs Prospecthill Road, thus taking advantage of the only other hill in the neighbourhood.
The battle began clasically with an artillery duel, the Queen's cannon opening fire on the village of Langside upon which Moray's right wing rested. The battle was soon over. Moray, taking advantage of a tactical error, outflanked and routed the Queen's army. Within three quarters of an hour the field was lost and the religious fate of Scotland sealed.