A message from Fr John

Dear Friends

Good morning

A number of people have said how much they have enjoyed some of the morning poems. And so ..

Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest (1844 - 1889) is one of my favourite poets, even though he’s not always the easiest to get one’s tongue around. I have copied As Kingfishers Catch Fire this morning; it speaks to me not simply of ’to thine own self be true’ but ‘become the creature that God always intended you to be’ and know that in it all Christ is living within us in ways we don’t always recognise.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

And in celebration of that joy and intimacy, today we have the feast of St Mary Magdalene

Please pray for William Ashton whose funeral we celebrate today at Wardley

St Joseph, pray for us

Every blessing

Fr John