I have just noticed the beautiful flowers while sitting in the church saying my prayers. All of a sudden it came to my attention how lovely the flowers are, and then I remembered that I was told that they were all from our garden. Thank you Lulu. I have often noticed the flowers with St George’s Church, where over the years they have done a wonderful job on the flowers. Unfortunately the sadness is that the church has to be locked because it is so isolated and as such a vulnerable place.
I went to sit in the church to reflect upon our situation in light of the government statements this evening on the current situation concerning the virus. Our hopes of returning to normal life are as important as ever and coming to terms with the effect that lockdown had on us and also on me as parish priest has been severe. The implications of visiting someone with such age and health issues is always on my mind. Christmas time was particularly difficult, especially in the end when it was not possible to celebrate our Masses. Please God, we can eventually put all this to rest.
Now we need to restore and please God, develop the life of our parish for our future. We will have a parish finance meeting this Wednesday, just for an initial reflection and establishing priorities and preparing ourselves ready to be fit for purpose for our future. We will be able to address this in the weeks to come.
Our celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation last Saturday was a big step in the right direction. I was especially pleased because of the parents that joined their children to receive the sacrament. It became noticeable years ago to me that most parents sent their children to confession, but did not give the example of doing so themselves. Then it was equally clear that parents were beginning to want to have their children baptised in order to get into our Catholic schools, but seldom or ever would go themselves to church. As the years have rolled on the gap between our catholic schools and their parish gets wider, and catholic teachers have become extremely scarce.