Dear friends in Christ

During the coming weeks the pace of life for many families and individuals slows down; our Schools have completed their examinations, families prepare to take holidays and many of us look forward to a relaxed Summer season. All this is good and part of God’s plan: we need to take rest and recover our energies so that we can return to undertake our normal work in the family or in our professions, with greater enthusiasm. This time apart from the normal activities of the year, should make us more aware of our need for God and the Church. It could be a time for us to undertake some serious reading and reflection on our Faith; a time for prayer, and above all never forgetting the duty we have to God, and each other, by participation in the weekly Mass. Last Sunday, for example, I spoke about the recent Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis on the good use of the created world. I hope that many of us will find some time to read what he is writing to us on the importance of our stewardship of nature. Leaving aside any polemics associated with the future of our planet, Pope Francis is asking us to recover a sense of how the world and everything in it, cannot be possessed by us as though we are the sole masters. Everything in nature is given to us for a purpose and must not be manipulated in any selfish manner. His inspiration is clearly from the Bible, the Church Fathers and Medieval Saints and of course, St Francis of Assisi, who by his profound immersion in the created world shows us how to praise God in everything that surrounds us.

I hope many of you will be able to attend the Annual Parish Meeting this Sunday evening and Garden Party. God bless you all during this week.

Msgr Kevin Hale