A message from Fr John

Good morning - I hope you’re well. Please stay safe

Have you had chance to watch some of this season’s Springwatch on television. I find the presenters a little too ‘enthusiastic’ (I’m getting old!) but what a message they offer particularly through the use of some startling images. They present a challenge to us; firstly to open our eyes, our ears and our minds to the world around us; and secondly, to take ever greater care of what we are custodians.

Without wanting to be a Malcolm Muggeridge - ‘an anguished prophet of disease, doom and decay’ - I would like to offer the following little paragraph from Laudato si 

"It is significant that the harmony which Saint Francis of Assisi experienced with all creatures was seen as healing the rupture between human beings and nature, Saint Bonaventure held that, through universal reconciliation with every creature, Saint Francis in some way returned to the state of original innocence. This is a far cry from our situation today, where sin is manifest in all its destructive power in wars, the various forms of violence and abuse, the abandonment of the most vulnerable, and attacks on nature.”

Of course, Pope Francis is challenging us to go even further than Springwatch - he wants us to see and accept responsibility not only for being custodians but for being sharers in God’s own creative will for the whole of nature.

Let’s pray for the grace and hearts and strength to do so - even cheerfully.