Fr Tony writes.....

My dear friends,

Bishop Kieran speaks to us this weekend in a pastoral letter to mark the beginning of this new year of 2012. He points out that January 1st has not always been the start of a new calendar year. In England for many centuries March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation, known as “Lady Day”, was New Year’s Day. In many ways perhaps it was more sensible to associate a new year with the coming of spring, and from a Christian point of view with the Incarnation of Christ, the moment when “The Word was made flesh.” It was only in 1752 that England adopted the first day of January as the beginning of the year.

Within the Church January 1st has been marked in different ways over the years. At one time it was kept as the “Feast of the Circumcision.” For a while it was rather more prosaically the “Octave Day of Christmas”, meaning the eighth day after the birth of Our Lord. In 1969 Pope Paul VI decided that it should be the “Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.” In this way Pope Paul encouraged us to enter the New Year under the patronage of Our Lady.

We begin this year at a time of great anxiety for many people in view of the economic situation that faces not only Britain but the whole of Europe. If we want to make a resolution at the start of a new year, I would suggest that we turn in prayer to Our Lady, asking her to be close to us as we set out into an unknown future. As a very young woman chosen to be the mother of Jesus, she faced a very uncertain future. She could not know what saying “yes” to God might mean for her. We ask her to help us to face the future trusting in God’s undying love for us.

Wishing you every blessing for the coming year, and with my love and prayers for each of you.

“Come away and rest awhile”

Sadly so few churches are open during the week for people who wish to come in and spend time with God. That is not the case here in Bognor. Our church is in the centre of town and remains open each day from about 8am until dusk. I think that we are probably the only Bognor church to do so. During the course of each week many people come in and pray. They are not all Catholics, and they each have their own reason for coming. The church provides an oasis of calm in a busy world, a place where people can just kneel or sit and be still, alone with their thoughts and alone with God.

There is, of course, an element of risk in leaving the church open and unguarded all day, in that from time to time people come either to steal or to commit acts of vandalism. Such people rely on finding the church empty. They are deterred by those who have come to pray.

Perhaps we can turn this problem into an opportunity. We need to re-discover the practice of “Visits to the Blessed Sacrament.” When you are in town, make a point of calling into the church for a brief prayer. It will give you a few moments of peace. It will encourage you to draw close to Our Lord in the midst of your busy days. It will be a chance to pray for those dearest to you, and for your parish.
It is also true that the sight of people popping in and out of the church is itself a witness to the Faith, and an invitation to others to find meaning in their lives in Christ.

This weekend the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King. It is the last Sunday of the Church’s year. Next Sunday we begin once again the season of Advent. The Church lives in the world, and this year we keep the feast of Christ’s Kingship in a world full of anxiety caused by the economic crisis that is affecting so many people’s lives. The Church is not competent to offer detailed policies to promote an economic revival, but we do have the right and the duty to speak out for people when they are increasingly the victims of a society that has lost its way. It is clear enough that when people feel that they are at the mercy of supra-national organisations and huge financial institutions where they have no voice, they are likely to react very badly.

I would like to suggest that if you are looking for something to read during Advent, you would do well to read again the speeches and homilies given by Pope Benedict during his visit to England and Scotland last year. In particular I recommend the address he gave in Westminster Hall in London on September 18th. He spoke then about the values that underpin our society. He called for a dialogue between believers and non-believers on the great issues of public life. Many of the questions he posed then were questions that came to the fore a year later in the August riots. The Pope does not want a society governed by the Church, but he does press the case for us to have a voice in public debate. The Church is called to be a leaven in society; and how badly needed it is in Britain in 2011.

In our Catholic tradition the month of November is a time of special prayer for the dead. Inevitably as the years go by we find that our list of loved ones who have died grows longer. Our faith does not make it any easier to say “goodbye”. Faith does not make our sense of loss any the less, but where there is faith there is hope. When you take part in a Funeral Liturgy where the faith is very evident it can help us to look beyond our own immediate loss, and glimpse something of the promise of Eternal Life.

In his second encyclical letter, “Spe Salvi” Pope Benedict writes very movingly about hope and about Eternal Life. Living as we do in this world, we have no picture in our minds of what the life to come might be like. The Pope remarks that the idea of “living for ever” might well sound rather tedious or even depressing. He suggests that it is more like falling in love, a moment when, as we say, “time stands still”. We are caught up in a timeless moment of pure joy and wonder in the presence of God. God created us in love, and love is our eternal destiny. It is the love of Christ that unites us beyond the grave with those who have gone before us. The Church teaches that we can help them with our prayers and that they can help us with theirs. This is what we mean by the Communion of Saints.

May this month of November be a time of real prayer as we remember our loved ones with affection and with real Christian Hope founded on Faith.

“The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance.”

Those words were spoken by Pope Benedict at the Mass to mark the beginning of his service as Pope. Last week he has announced his intention to celebrate a “Year of Faith”. This will start next year on October 11th, which is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the 2nd Vatican Council in 1962. It will end in November 2013 on the Feast of Christ the King.

“What the world particularly needs today is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the word of the Lord”.

For many people the world today is a desert, and it needs men and women to point the way to Christ who can give life, and life in abundance. Faith must express itself in action. Jesus sums up the whole of the commandments in these two commandments: to love God with all our heart and mind and strength, and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. Being a Christian in today’s world is certainly not easy. It goes right against the grain of modern culture. It involves being different, but that will only happen if our faith is rooted and strong. And that requires us to deepen our relationship with God. It is a real challenge for each of us.