LOOKING FORWARD:

New Years bring fresh hope and offer us the opportunity to reassess and get things back into perspective. For us as Christians that perspective has to be the Lord’s perspective, as far as we are able to discern it. At St Mary’s, in addition to negotiating successfully with the Archdiocese for admin cover while our administrator has been on sick leave, recently I was faced with the illness of one of our key volunteers.

Accordingly, I appealed for more volunteers to help ensure the continuing smooth running of the parish. The response was more than encouraging, but now the challenge is to forge a unified team and resolve the inevitable tensions that can arise in such circumstances. Down the years, over and over again, you have heard me quote St Paul pleading with the early Christian communities to avoid divisions which cause disharmony. I am certain that this is always the work of the evil spirit. Our response is simply to allow the Spirit of God into our hearts, enabling us to heal and forgive so that we can reveal the compassion of Christ to one another and the wider world.