From the Acting Parish Priest…
Dear Friends,
It is a very great privilege and joy to be able to share these next months with you while Fr Peter is on study leave.
The Virtue of the Week at S. Michael’s School has been ‘friendship’. Jesus in this morning’s Gospel calls the Apostles —and us who stand in their company —“friends, if you do what I command you”. And what are we commanded to do?
It is as straightforward and as complicated as this:love.
The love we see in the Incarnation: out-reaching, giving of self, sharing pain and joy, speaking healing, hope and life. The love of the Cross: full, unflinching, forgiving, redemptive. Love declared emphatically in the Resurrection: undying, all-powerful, indefatigable and eternal.
This love in which we are called to joyfully abide.
‘Love’ is too often misspoken as, or mistaken for, some weak and watery patina.
On the contrary: we, an Easter people, know that Love undergirds all that ultimately is. Love it is that made the stone roll away. Love it is that invites us here as Christ’s friends, not for any merit of our own, but because this is what the God who is Love wills: that we may share in abundant life. In a joy that is complete.
That we may bear fruit, delighting and abiding in the Father’s love for ever.
Poet and Priest George Herbert wrote:
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
Thank you for the warmth of your welcome. May God bless you all.Fr Tim Hurd
