“It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
Not my brother, not my sister. But it’s me, O Lord,
Standing in the need of prayer.
Many years ago in the earlier days of my ministry, we were invited by the diocese to embark on a journey, the focus for the journey being “renew”. For the Jubilee Celebration Mass at St Wilfrid’s, just before the commencement of mass, an old photograph of my mum and dad was followed by a photograph of an oak tree with me standing under it. When the renew programme was introduced I had not long been at the parish, but I had planted potatoes which produced a very good crop that was quickly taken up by customers. Not so fortunate for the renew process. Some parishioners embraced it, and some put in a large amount of work to produce fruit for the harvest, and I have not seen any oak tress in the diocese like the one at St Pauls.
We are now on a new journey, very important to our lives and our communities. Fr Kevin has given us a very important introduction to attach to our newsletter this week, which has a most important bearing on our future. We must give it our very best effort. Here at St George’s and St Wilfrid’s a lot of preliminary work has taken place. At St George’s, Martin Falkner, over the Sundays of August will present us with early offshoots and I will follow them at St Wilfrid’s, which we pray will develop and grow. The welcome introduction prepared by Stephen is a very tangible, purposeful development that will, with the help of God, bear fruit; fruit that will last.