‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow...’

Three days ago it was our parish priest Fr. Kevin’s 50^th birthday. He became aware that some of the parishioners were arranging a hush-hush party for him in the Parish Room and – a little embarrassed - agreed to attend, but requested that there be no gifts.

The expression ‘blind bit of notice’ describes well what followed. On Saturday evening the tables were laden with a huge variety of food, there were streamers and balloons galore, the wine flowed - and he was presented with a very generous gift, the result of stealthy collections organised by a ‘well known lady of the parish.’

This morning, when our little team of counters arrived at the presbytery to count and bank the weekend’s collections, the dining room table that we normally use was somewhat occupied...

 

So, it's Happy Birthday to Fr. Kevin.  

We Have a Bishop!



(www.catholicnews.org.uk)

We have a bishop! Yes, less than six months after the former bishop resigned, Pope Francis yesterday named the Right Reverend Richard Moth as the fifth Bishop of Arundel & Brighton Diocese.

Bishop Moth is currently Bishop of the Forces. He was ordained a priest in 1982 and served  in parishes of the Archdiocese of Southwark, where he was also Vicar General and Chancellor, before being appointed Bishop of the Forces six years ago by Pope Benedict.

Born in Zambia - then Northern Rhodesia - fifty-six years ago, Bishop Moth obtained a Masters degree in Canon Law from Ottowa, and has since held a variety of roles. These include Liaison Bishop for Prisons, Episcopal Advisor to the National Catholic Scout Fellowship, lead Bishop for the Bishops’ Conference Mental Health Project and Chair of Governors at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham.

Bishop Moth will be installed at the Cathedral Church of Our Lady & St. Philip Howard, Arundel, on Thursday 28^th May, the 50^th anniversary of the foundation of A&B diocese (which was originally part of the Archdiocese of Southwark). He will then preside at the Jubilee Mass of Thanksgiving at the Amex Stadium here in Brighton on Sunday 5^th July.

The Bishop has been a Benedictine Oblate for over 30 years and is a member of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. For relaxation, he enjoys walking and horse riding (which I suspect he will find more relaxing in the verdant Sussex countryside then in urban Southwark!).

A huge welcome to Bishop Moth, pray for him.

No Longer Holy (or Holey)

The saga of the arm is finally over....

Nine months ago I slipped on my garage floor and broke my right arm in several places; the point of the elbow was particularly badly damaged, shattering into five or six separate pieces.

The following day, in a three-hour operation, surgeons at the Royal Sussex County Hospital patched it up, inserting a metal plate and several screws to hold the pieces together.

Then, two months later, the scab on the point of the elbow came off and revealed a small hole in the arm - with part of the plate and the heads of some screws plainly visible.

My doctor sent me back to hospital where the surgeons were surprised - and a little alarmed -  whipping out their mobile phones to take photographs of the elbow. I was told it was rather dangerous because of bacteria on the exposed plate and another operation was needed urgently, so they scheduled it for a couple of days later.

However, on the day the operation was due, a specialist arm surgeon advised against it as the bone fragments had not fused yet and removing the plate and screws might cause the arm to ‘collapse.’

So, I returned home with my holy arm. A couple of months later we found a possible reason for the failure of the bone fragments to fuse – tests showed that I had osteoporosis in the spine and osteopenia in the hips. In the meantime, the hole enlarged slightly and the plate and screws were quite visible, glinting brightly...

Two weeks ago the saga ended with another operation to remove the plate and screws and sew up the hole. I’m relieved to report that the surgeons found that the bones had finally fused. Also, the bacteriological results from the inside of the arm were satisfactory in that they did not find any truly-nasty bacteria, and a prescription of three months oral antibiotics should sort out the junior league bacteria that they did find.

So, I’m no longer quite so holy (or holey) and the arm works well so I can now be more timely about updating the blog...  

Lent (and Thinking of Syria)

‘Flooded with news reports and troubling images of human suffering, we often feel our complete inability to help.’ The words are from Pope Francis’ Lenten message where, in his usual plain-speaking and challenging way, he addresses what he calls the globalisation of indifference.

The list of current-day horrors seems endless...Ebola, Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, al Qaeda, Ukraine, Libya, Palestine, typhoons, wildfires, earthquakes, floods, kidnappings, school massacres ...never before have we been informed so rapidly and comprehensively, with up-to-the minute video reports by satellite and blow-by-blow accounts on the internet.

Yet, the more the tsunami of horror floods our consciousness, the less impact it seems to have, morphing into yet another infotainment; if the news is too distressing I can always flip a switch and retreat to one of the hundreds of other channels on my Sky tv. After all, there is too much horror isn’t there? And we are powerless, too far away to make a difference. And even if we could, we don’t have the ability or resources to change things.

Not so, says Pope Francis.

‘If one member suffers, all suffer together’ (1 Cor 12:26) he reminds us. Although he does not spell it out, I’m sure that the suffering of Christians in the Middle East is very much on his mind.

Syria is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world where a few still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. About one hundred years ago, Christians made up 30% of the population of Syria, now it is around 7% or one million people, mainly Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Syrian Orthodox. Already, an estimated five hundred thousand Syrian Christians have been displaced by fighting or have left the country, dozens of churches have been destroyed and entire villages razed to the ground. Many people fear a repeat of the violence that occurred in Iraq after the US invasion, when Christians were targeted and whole communities destroyed, so that in a few years the estimated number of Iraqi Christians fell from a million and a half to about 400,000. Similarly, in Palestine the proportion of the population that is Christian has dropped from ten per cent seventy years ago to about 2% today.

So, what can we do? Here’s what the Pope says:

(1) Pray (and may I recommend a prayer from Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar of Damascus?)

 A Prayer for the People of Syria

God of Compassion,

Hear the cries of the people of Syria,
Bring healing to those suffering from the violence,
Bring comfort to those mourning the dead,
Strengthen Syria’s neighbours in their care and welcome for refugees,
Convert the hearts of those who have taken up arms,
And protect those committed to peace.
God of Hope,
Inspire leaders to choose peace over violence and to seek reconciliation with enemies,
Inspire the Church around the world with compassion for the people of Syria,
And give us hope for a future of peace built on justice for all.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace and Light of the World,
Amen.

 (2) Have a strong but merciful heart and make an act of charity – particularly since it is Lent (and may I recommend Aid to the Church in Need?  Aid to the Church in Need )  

(3) Let the dire need of far-away Christians in the Middle East remind us that life is uncertain, we too are dependent upon God and our brothers and sisters. Let us accept that – by ourselves - we cannot save the world; we need to implore God’s grace and trust in His love.   

Amen.