A message from Fr John

Dear Friends

Good morning - well, we’re really in the middle of winter: very cold, very wet, very gloomy - but we can still manage a smile!

There was a lovely piece in Monday’s Office of Readings (the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul) by St John Chrysostom. He said:

‘It was St Paul more than anyone else who showed what man is and how great is the nobility of our nature, as well as what capacity for virtue this human animal has. Every day he advanced in stature, every day he fought with ever-renewed keenness against the dangers threatening him; he showed this when he said: ‘I forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead’.
‘He was rich with the love of Christ which was the greatest of all things to him. While he had this, he reckoned himself the most blessed of all men.
‘This to him was life, it was the whole world, his angel, things present, things to come, the kingdom and the promise.’

In these times of darkness - at so many levels, in so many ways - we too need need that same beacon of hope, that same confidence that the love of God never, ever leaves us. We too can strain forward to the future with all it brings - especially, even in the midst of all our struggles, the love of God and the love of those close to us.

St Joseph, model of patient love, pray for us

Every blessing

Fr John