A message from Fr John

Dear Friends

Good morning

Today is the Feast of St Bonaventure - one of the great spiritual writers from the early days of the Franciscan Order.

During these ‘strange times’ we have been thinking about our own prayer lives and how we might grow in the spirit of contemplation, particularly because we can’t gather for public worship.

St Bonaventure says:
'Return to yourself; enter into your heart; ponder what you were, are, should have been, called to be ….. meditate in your heart; let your spirit brood. Plough this field, work on yourself; strive for freedom within, the freedom that leads to relationship with God, realising hat God will never force us to love him …. If you are not able to understand (and accept) your own self, you will not be able to understand (or accept) what is beyond you.’

To complement this, St Augustine says:
'You were within me Lord, but I was outside myself’.

It is that acceptance of God’s living, loving, presence in all people which gives us a deep sense of communion with the Body of Christ, broken that we might have life and know love.

Please pray for Frances Hamilton whose funeral we celebrate today.

St Joseph, pray for us

Every blessing

Fr John