Dear Parishioners,
Once more it is good to be able to greet you in the sending of the Newsletter and Readings for Holy Mass. Not least as we arrive at the Third Sunday of Advent this weekend – or Gaudete Sunday as it is often referred to, due to the fact that the first antiphon of the Mass begins with the word “Rejoice”. This sense of joy is highlighted in the colour of the Advent Candle lit this weekend: Rose.
Stoked by a media filled with much joyless news, and often negativity, the call to be joy-filled can seem quite a challenge at the moment. Yet joy is an abiding gift within Christianity stemming from the belief that what seems to be lifeless can indeed bear green shoots and fruit. Together with hope for better days, joy in life’s simple things was a companion in the isolated days of a couple of years ago. Looking around both presbytery gardens the green shoots of spring bulbs are beginning to make their appearance … they will come to life and colour at some time in the future not ours to decide, but nature’s. Let us have the joyful hope that those days will herald a new springtime of better and brighter times for one and all.
In the meantime I hope to see good numbers coming together for the Christmas Fayre at Holy Spirit later today. Perhaps hesitancy to make the effort will be erased by remembrance of times when all we sought was a return to what we dare call ‘normality’ !
With prayerful remembrance, kindest thought and affection.
As ever, Fr. Nicholas