“Christmas is coming”
A very fading memory from Christmas in my “childhood”.
Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t a penny half penny will do, and if you haven’t half a penny, well God bless you. When I was a child there were people who didn’t have a penny and the poem applied to them. The focus was upon the crib in the stable; very sincere and very much the heart of Christmas. Since last Christmas the focus on Palestine and the people of Palestine highlights the message of the children who lost their lives during the time of the flight of the Holy family into Egypt. This was brought about by the forces of Herod. The truth is the same today as the forces of evil always seek the opportunity to inflict death and destruction upon the innocent. Our constant need remains for God’s salvation, otherwise the constant power of evil continues to prevail.
In our preparation for Christmas, so we are presented with the challenge that is bringing upheaval to our parishes. Bishop Richard has been preparing a plan for our Diocese, which is a work in progress. A lot of progress has been made and now it is our time to respond to this situation. We need to adapt. Our present situation has been impacted by the limited number of priests. This is not likely to change, so the priests will cover the different church communities. Each community will have much more responsibility to develop and grow.
For ourselves I think we are as prepared and ready, so it is time to implement this. The challenge presented to us is that we are expected to provide the results of an audit this coming Friday, so priority must be given to this. Jackie is ready to work to provide this audit, but we need to have names and contact details (email & phone number).