“Our Homeland is in Heaven”
St Paul to the Philippians 3:20-21
Last Sunday we had a special celebration here at St Wilfrid’s in remembrance of all our treasured memories, the souls of our departed who contributed so much to our parish. Now they leave us with important challenges to continue to develop and to grow in our lives of faith. Like each parish we have particular riches of memories to be treasured from the many who had contributed to our parish community.
On Sunday 5th November it will be the turn of St George’s. They have also lost some very special people recently and please God, we will do justice to the occasion with a commemoration that reflects their achievements and underpins our work to build upon this, so that our church has a definite future.
As we commence this years preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Holy Communion and Confirmation, this needs to reflect upon the sure foundations of our faith. After the resurrection, Jesus gave a mandate to His disciples to go out to proclaim good news; Gods salvation. In our time at the seminary we received two most important emphasises. Life is a journey, it has a beginning and an end, whether we like it or not. The second is story telling. To tell our story, but above all to listen to God’s story as He intervened through the ages. The old Testament prepared us for this when Jesus highlighted special moments on that journey. He referred to “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ” John 3:14-16. Prefiguring when Christ would be raised up upon the cross and all who would call upon Him would receive Gods salvation beginning with the forgiveness of sin.