A message from Fr John

Dear Friends

Good morning - let’s hope it stays a little warmer today

I was sent the following two quotes. The first one is new but the second is from St Oscar Romero and more familiar. He was an extraordinary character who came to a point in his life when he realised that he could not be a bystander; he had to do something, say something in the midst of an oppressive and corrupt regime in which the victims were the poor. He paid the ultimate price for his faith.

Arundhati Roy is a remarkable woman. After her first novel, ’The God of Small Things’, which was highly acclaimed, she became a political activist - again, speaking up for the poor and for the environment.

Both quotes gives us much to mull over as we too think our way through this pandemic.

Arundhati Roy April 2020
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us.
Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world.
And ready to fight for it.

Oscar Romero
We cannot do everything,
And there is a sense of liberation in realising that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it well
It may be incomplete, but it is the beginning, a step along the way.
An opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest, we may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers not master builders, Ministers not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own

Can we please remember in our prayers all our parish family, especially those who are part of the frontline, essential workers of all kinds:

Joseph, Lisa, Patrick, Chris, Catherine, Anne, Terry, Mark, Theo, Clare, Richard, Anthony, Jane, James, Andrew, Mary, Francis, Ruth, Tony, Sue, Dan, Fiona, Katy. Ian & Bethany - and of course all our teachers who are already preparing for the changed circumstances of September

As you know we have opened Christ the King church three times a week for private prayer. About twenty people per week have been visiting. It seems as though, as much as people are missing Mass and the community, we are not yet ready to gather in larger numbers. As soon as we can safely resume public worship we will.

Please stay safe - wear a mask where necessary

St Joseph, guardian of the parish through these times, pray for us

Every blessing

Fr John

PS Rosary and Benediction at 3.00pm today - on Zoom