For some Easter is but a distant memory that has been and gone. However, as Christians we know that the season of Eastertide continues for 50 days and leads us all the way up to Pentecost.
Lent
With Lent beginning on Valentine’s Day, this year’s season began from the point of view of love. We choose to acknowledge our sins on Ash Wednesday, not because it is a Holy Day of Obligation, but because somewhere within us all there is that desire to be better than we are and to start again.
The outward sign of the ashes reminds us that whilst flawed we are also loved as we come together to turn around and journey together into this special time.
Whatever you have given up or taken on for this Lenten Season, may it be a time of grace for you and those you love. May it draw you into an ever deeper relationship with God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.
Holding all who keep this holy season in prayer and asking that God use our efforts to draw us ever closer to him.
Love your Neighbour, as Yourself
Faith in Action
We always mention you in our prayers and thank God for you all, and constantly remember before God our Father how you have shown your faith in action, worked for love and persevered through hope, in our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians:2-3)
In Mass on Sunday we heard the above reading from St Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. As we give thanks for the gift of our faith that leads us to attend Mass and be people of prayer, let us also remember the importance of putting out faith into action.
In March 2023, Caritas Southwark was launched with Mass celebrated by Archbishop John Wilson. You can watch the Mass here.
The work of Caritas Southwark is lead by Canon Victor Darlington. Speaking at the launch he said:
Caritas Southwark marks the dawn of a new era, which beckons us all to see the face of our dear Lord in so many of our brothers and sisters in need. Their cry and their pain is an invitation to us, through Caritas Southwark, to stand out boldly for them and with them, and like Veronica- who defied the hostility of the Jewish leaders, by boldly reaching out to wipe the face of Jesus on the way of the Cross, we too can do this in our world today to our brothers and sisters who are suffering. Caritas Southwark affords every one of us a unique opportunity to put our faith into action, like the Good Samaritan and like Simon of Cyrene.
To find out more about the work of Caritas Southwark now, read this link. As you live this week in your reality, take time to ask yourself the question, what can I do to put my faith into action? Who is my neighbour? Who are the people I avoid or struggle to love? What can I do to challenge myself to grow in love so that I can be the hands and feet of Jesus in today’s world? How do I need to hold on to hope in your context and share that hope with others.
Peace
We read in the Gospel of John (20:19) that peace is the gift from the risen Lord to his disciples. We don’t need to look too far to realise that our world at the minute is in such desperate need of this peace.
The reality of peace on a world scale though begins by individuals finding peace and being at peace with themselves. Each act of violence inflicted on another is evidence of the lack of peace and violence one is feeling within oneself, even if we don’t always recognise it. The lack of interior peace with ourselves is also evident in the way we treat our common home as well as our human brothers and sisters. Pope Francis is clear in Laudato Si (paragraph 119) and Laudate Deum (paragraph 58) that the damage that is being inflicted on the environment is symptomatic of the damage we are doing to each other as human beings.
119. Nor must the critique of a misguided anthropocentrism underestimate the importance of interpersonal relations. If the present ecological crisis is one small sign of the ethical, cultural and spiritual crisis of modernity, we cannot presume to heal our relationship with nature and the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships. Christian thought sees human beings as possessing a particular dignity above other creatures; it thus inculcates esteem for each person and respect for others. Our openness to others, each of whom is a “thou” capable of knowing, loving and entering into dialogue, remains the source of our nobility as human persons. A correct relationship with the created world demands that we not weaken this social dimension of openness to others, much less the transcendent dimension of our openness to the “Thou” of God. Our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than romantic individualism dressed up in ecological garb, locking us into a stifling immanence. (Laudato Si, paragraph 119)
58. Once and for all, let us put an end to the irresponsible derision that would present this issue as something purely ecological, “green”, romantic, frequently subject to ridicule by economic interests. Let us finally admit that it is a human and social problem on any number of levels. (Laudate Deum paragraph 58)
In whatever place you find yourself and however you see the world, may you work this week to make your area a better place, and remember that that begins with you. Often the hardest teaching of Jesus is to ‘love your neighbour, as yourself’. (Matthew 12:31) Ask God for the grace to be at peace with yourself this week and then share that peace with others. Have a blessed week and pray for those who are in need of peace that it too can become a reality for them.