Priest's Letter

Dear Friends,
As I was (late as usual) thinking about my magazine article, I was pondering so much.

The funeral of a young man in church today. He was killed, aged 22 in a motoring accident. The heart-wrenching sight and sound of his mother reading a simple poem and another piece she had found on an old birthday card, will stay with me for a very long time. The real laughter that sprang from her and everyone else at the crematorium as, when balloons were released they nearly all got stuck in a nearby tree.

The image of a knife wielding killer who had just murdered a soldier on the streets of London. The sickening response of so many people blaming practically the whole of the Islamic population.

The sight of a young man just sitting and crying on the prom as I drove by and did nothing. Should I have stopped? I think I should have. I have become the Priest who passed by on the other side.

Then I read a Facebook post from Laura Catlow-Morris (daughter of Jo & Allan) who has been on work trip / holiday in New York. I just couldn’t do anything else but reproduce it here. I hope she won’t mind.

So we're heading back home this morning! We've covered a lot of ground and are absolutely knackered. It's been amazing, I've met some awesome people, playing a few gigs here has been ace, and I feel we've seen the real New York because of the way we've done it. Staying in someone's house in Queens, getting the subway everywhere and discovering so many different places other than just the usual stuff. I've found it to be quite an emotional and pretty heartbreaking city really. A lot of the places we went have been quite poor and run down and around Time Square and a couple of blocks either side, I've never seen so many homeless people in any city. And so many people who have clearly just completely lost their minds, I saw a few different women on different occasions just standing crying and wailing on the street as hundreds of people walked past not even glancing up, and the sight of a homeless woman sitting on the floor crying a few feet from Trump Tower as it just started raining will stick with me for a while. And there're so many people asking for your money, if you help them you feel like you're some naive tourist being conned. I'm not saying who's wrong or right or who's to blame, I would just find it a difficult place to live in every day. Another thing I noticed, I have never seen so many people singing out loud with their headphones in. Literally one in 5 people (probably more) who are listening to their music were singing or rapping out loud or dancing, actually dancing, just on their own, and no one finds this weird. Also, the thing about New Yorkers being rude, I don't know if they've all had some kind of customer service meeting since those observations were last made, but pretty much everyone we met was totally friendly and helpful, even people on the street who we asked for directions went really out of their way to make sure we got to where we were going. I got barged into on the street pretty hard about 3 times, definitely on purpose, so I think those guys missed the meeting. Oh and you know when I have a gig and I mumble about rubbish and you guys laugh? Well that didn't happen here, they looked at me dead serious when I was trying to be funny and it was a bit awkward. Apart from in Queens, they laughed in Queens. What else.. I found the sight of white business men sitting on those big throne type chairs having their shoes shined by black guys a little disturbing. And so many places we went are just full of people who clearly came there to be a broadway star and it's not worked out, like this singing restaurant place, the staff had the most amazing musical theatre voices I have ever heard and every one of them thinks they'll be the one who makes it but they're clearing tables 'til 5am you can feel all the thousands of broken dreams in the air. There's so much more that got me thinking but I've written far too much already and I need to finish packing. It's an amazing city but it's so much more than those 5 or 6 blocks around Time Square. We've been to the Bronx, Harlem, Queens, Brooklyn, all over Manhattan, China Town, Soho, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, Long Beach, Coney Island, probably more I can't think of right now and every place is literally completely different, the people, the atmosphere, everything. A truly amazing experience to see so much. We're heading back home in a couple of hours where I understand life and the taps turn the right way.

What a good writer Laura is.

This just reminds me what a crazy, sad, happy, confusing world we live in. ‘Twas ever so.

This is the world God loved so much he sent his only Son to be a part of it. He saw good and bad. He saw and experienced love and hate, tenderness and violence. And he loved the world so much he was willing to die for it – for us.

And we must try to do the same, not die we hope, but love.

Love until it hurts.

I will try to stop next time.

Fr Andrew

May letter

Dear Friends in Christ,

Over the last few weeks I have had the privilege of leading three members of our church family in their preparation for Confirmation in May. Now this preparation is very different from that which I experienced when I was confirmed 40 years ago. Then it was a case of meeting at the Rectory every week for about six weeks. To be honest I can remember very little of what we did. It certainly impacted upon me very little! After the Confirmation, which was along with about a hundred (yes 100!) others in Bath Abbey, we did nothing. There was no follow up, no discussion about how we lived out those promises that we had made, the spiritual gift we had been given as it were. I remember that there were about half a dozen from my own parish. Three of them I had never met! Within a couple of months there were only two of us worshipping regularly. My experience was in accord with a common description of Confirmation as ‘Far from being a sacrament of initiation is was rather the sacrament of leaving.’
The way we do things now is very different. To begin with, the preparation is firmly linked with Holy Week and Easter. Attendance at the rites of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil are regarded as compulsory. This is in accord with the ancient tradition of the Church. For a very long time, new Christians were Baptised and Confirmed only at Easter. Lent and especially Holy Week was the core of their preparation.
Another big difference is that the course, if it can be called that, will not end at the Confirmation. The group will continue meet for some time after the event itself. This emphasises that this is not about preparing for some kind of exam like a driving test. It is much more about learning what it is to be a disciple of Jesus. The word disciple means literally someone who believes in and follows the teachings of leader. In this case of course it means learning what it is to be a follower of Jesus. To put it another way, Confirmation means committing one’s self to Christ. Discipleship means learning what that entails. It is a lifelong process, not one which ends with the end of a course of preparation. At school it is common to hear the phrase that children learn above all to be leaners. This is just the same. The aim of the course is to instil a discipline for constantly training to follow Jesus. But what do the disciples learn? One answer is that they learn to live out the promises they will make at their Confirmation. I prefer to put it the other way round. The disciples will learn what God has promised them! God has given and promised each one of us so much. God is the source of all life. Through our parents he has given us life. He is the source of all love. He is the originator of everything good that we are and everything good that we have. As we say sometimes at the Mass, ‘Everything comes from you and of your own do we give you.’ Further, God has promised us that he will love us forever, unconditionally. No matter where we are no matter what we do, God will NEVER give up on us. So much does God love us that he sent his son to show us the way and eventually to die on the Cross. At his Resurrection Jesus continued to love us so much that he invites all of us to share his life for ever. All we have to do is obey him and follow him. And that takes us back to where our Confirmation Candidates began With Holy Week and Easter. They are On the Way. When was the last time YOU took a little exercise and responded a little more to Jesus’ invitation, Follow Me?

Do please remember to pray regularly for Louise, Maisie and Melissa as they prepare for Confirmation on 26th May.