Month: October 2023

Last Saturday, we had our Parish Thinking Day. There were about 40 people in attendance and I was delighted to see that there was a good cross-section from both churches. I know more would have been present if they were able. Speaking for myself, it was a strong, inspiring day and I am excited about my future ministry in this neck of the woods.

The meeting was asked if they wished me to press ahead with a letter to the Bishop asking him to formally amalgamate the 2 parishes. After some discussion and reminder of the salient points which I outlined to you at Mass and in the bulletin back in early September, I was instructed to write the letter to Bishop Stock. It went off on Thursday to await his return from Rome. I’d like to thank all those people who took the time to make their thoughts known; the comments were all positive. This has inspired me because it shows me I am ministering in a community that honours the past, is naturally sad about the way things have tumbled in recent years but is still looking towards its future mission in the district. I shall keep you posted when I hear something from the Bishop.

I also asked the meeting to consider what I should do in respect of the Saturday Vigil Masses. I am confident that Mass attendance will increase, but even were it to double it would not justify 4 Sunday Masses for a parish this size, especially when every parish we border on to has a vigil Mass. We need to be realistic. My first responsibility is to our parish, but with the shortage of priests I need to be available to provide emergency cover for priests who are ill or away. I can’t do that on a Saturday evening or Sunday morning. I know why we have the set-up currently in operation and I would have set-up something of the same some years ago. But now, it’s simply not sustainable. The Sunday morning Mass attendances are relatively strong and I don’t want to fiddle around with them but one of the vigil Masses will have to go. So, I’m asking you, what would you do if you were in my position? I haven’t made any decisions as yet and I’m asking because you might see a way of approaching this that I’ve missed. Obviously, I will have to make the final decision (which will need the Bishop’s approval) but I want all the help I can get to make that decision. Email me, write to me, talk to me. (I’m interested to hear YOUR opinions, not ‘what other people are saying’. If they can’t address me themselves, I’m not interested.) Remember, this isn’t the end of the world; it’s not a disaster. Those adjectives are real and applicable to families across the Holy Land and elsewhere. Our situation is an inconvenience and ‘a bit sad’. Let’s keep discussion mature, befitting of our Christianity and in its proper context, please. We’ll take the month of November to chew this over. We could do a lot worse than to pray to the great heroes of Faith who have had to make much tougher decisions before us.

Last laugh: Michael Parkinson: What does your doctor think about you smoking and drinking at your great age? George Burns: My doctor? My doctor’s dead!

All this week I’ve been thinking of Grandad Lodge and his consistent phrases at this time of year “Ey up! Night’s are drawing in! Winter draws on (and very nice they are too!); not many shopping days to Christmas”. I think he did it as much to wind Grandma Lodge up as anything else. She was an eternal optimist and had no time for her husband’s doom-laden phrases. As we come to the end of October, we’re likely to be wondering where the time has gone; this year is almost over. It is true that as we get older we become aware that life is truly a ‘fleeting’ experience. The psalmist says that our life is like grass: In the morning it springs up and flowers, by evening it withers and fades. And the writer prays to God that He Make us know the shortness of our lives that we may gain wisdom of heart.

This isn’t a bad meditation for me, to be honest. I flourish in the sun (and get burnt, too) but I’m learning that I flourish even more when I am confronted with autumn and winter. In the past I have done anything I can to avoid the ‘dying seasons’ but as I get older, I realise that a sense of mortality has as much to teach me as does the zest for life. In fact, a proper, non-morbid, sense of mortality thrusts me back into a deeper appreciation of life and its ceaseless glories. Having watched the flowers of summer blossom and flourish I am learning to take satisfaction and comfort in the stillness of the autumn garden which has ceased to grow and now quietly prepares itself for death and later, resurrection.

It is all too easy for me to succumb to the negative press ‘associated’ with autumn/winter and start buying into a phraseology of despondence. Jesus teaches us that the signs of the Kingdom can be found in the flowers of the fields and the birds of the air, but it can also be found in the darker side of life such as physical suffering, crushed seeds in the ground etc. The key for Jesus is that God is ever creative; He is not bound by times and seasons nor even death. God is constantly making all things new and that includes me. And you.

True wisdom is found in the one who knows s/he is passing through and who doesn’t want to waste any time being dragged down by despondency and negativity. True, there are times and situations where we feel like our heart is breaking and our lives are fracturing before our very eyes and it is hard to feel anything other than despondency or negativity. It is then that the Church comes into Her own as a body of people gathered to nurture and support the weak and those who are struggling. It’s not a matter of covering somebody’s pain with cheap platitudes but rather being there with practical support so that the weak and suffering will know that God’s mercies do not come to an end. Dame Julian of Norwich said We rise and we fall and both are the mercy of God. The key is to see the mercy of God in everything and to rejoice that He is most certainly with us, encouraging us now to rest awhile before He recreates us ever-new.

Last laugh: I get up every morning and read the obituary column. If my name’s not there, I eat breakfast. George Burns.

The events of last weekend in Our Lord’s earthly homeland have deeply troubled many, if not all of us. For me, it has been a double ‘punch in the guts’. Firstly, like many of you, I find it hard to process the barbarity of this action especially where it has involved the elderly and children. The savagery is utterly overwhelming. Secondly – and I suspect I’m not alone in this – I am disturbed to have found myself easily moved to something of the same kind of vengeful language that trips so easily (and well calibrated) from the lips of politicians and pundits across the world, whilst at the same time feeling deeply uneasy about that language. We know it’s an understandable response, an acceptable response; but we also know from experience that vengeful rhetoric and action is not going to solve long-standing problems for reasons that are as much to do with temperament as they are politics. If anything, it’s only going to make it worse, much worse.

That second ‘punch in the guts’ is, personally speaking, the more disturbing. It has shown me how very far from the mind of Jesus I actually am. In the mind of Jesus, which is what we should all be aiming to attain according to St Paul, there is no room for vengeance and violence. In His teaching, Our Blessed Lord, doesn’t suggest for one minute that we should roll over and let the savagery of our enemies have free reign (contrary to popular opinion, that is emphatically NOT what the teaching on ‘turn the other cheek’ means). Our Blessed Lord knows that we have been hardwired for violence and vengeance and that it’s deeply ingrained in our societies with very few exceptions. Only a completely ‘new way’ is going to change the status quo which brings so much misery and suffering. This is why he prefaces his teaching on nonviolence in St Matthew’s Gospel again and again with the phrase, “You have heard how it was said…But I say to you….” Jesus has little, if anything, to say about the ‘hot sins’ of homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia (except via that which is implicit) but He DOES make it crystal clear what he thinks about my notions of retribution and violence.

So where does this leave me? Floundering, for want of a better word. How can I preach that message on the streets of this country, never mind in Israel and Gaza? How can I be faithful to Jesus’ teaching and not look like I’m playing fast and loose with the reality of abducted mothers and children, slaughtered Holocaust survivors, butchered families, innocent Gazan children and civilians who are being used as human shields? The answer is simple: I don’t know. But I do know that to jump on either bandwagon is to betray the heart of Jesus which is already sore-wounded by the horrors of these last days. I do believe that the very First Responder at the scene of a massacred family in Israel or a bombed street in Gaza was the God of Jesus Christ, bending down to enfold His beloved children in His arms and to wash away their pain with His tears. The only way I can be more like that, rather than the faux righteousness of outraged politicians and pundits, is to pray. This war erupted on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Again, I urge you, pick up your beads and ask Our Lady to make us more like her Son in our responses to evil. We shall make that our very special intention at Rosary & Benediction this weekend (Sunday, St Paul’s 3:30pm)

A WORD OF WISDOM: An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind. Ghandi.