Pastoral Message: Holy Family 1999

PASTORAL LETTER OF BISHOP CORMAC MURPHY-O'CONNOR

To be read at all Masses
on Sunday 26th December 1999

My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

On this feast of the Holy Family, and the last Sunday of 1999, I am writing to greet you all and assure you of a remembrance in my prayers during these days.

Many thoughts go through my mind as we begin the Jubilee Year and approach the new millennium. I think of Pope John Paul's plea for reconciliation in our families and in our world. I remember his hope, for a deepening of our ecumenical endeavour so that we may draw ever closer to our Christian sisters and brothers in our witness to Christ. There are so many thoughts to share but the Psalm today rings in my mind: Give thanks to the Lord, tell his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. O sing to him, sing his praise; tell all his wonderful works!

Recently, I saw a film entitled, La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful). It is a strange and wonderful story of a Jewish father and son captured and put into a concentration camp. In spite of the horror and anguish of life in that terrible place, the father protects the son and enables him to see in a wonderfully humorous way that life is good - indeed, life is beautiful. I hope you have an opportunity to see this film - it is well worth it. You see, it is not enough to deplore or condemn the ugliness and bad things in our world; it is not even enough to speak of duties and the common good and of pastoral programmes; one needs to speak and act with hearts full of compassion and love, making the experience of our lives on that radiates the beauty of all that is true and right.

As I look around our part of the world in Surrey and Sussex - and beyond - while there are matters that cause me concern, there are also many things that fill me with enthusiasm and joy. It is my faith in God and His Son, Jesus Christ, which enables me to look more deeply and understand that, if seen rightly, everything can turn our hearts and our minds towards God. My daily prayer and encounters with people of all kinds enable me to look forward with confidence and hope to the years to come. Give thanks to the Lord, tell his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.

My final thought on this feast of the Holy Family is to be filled with faith and hope in God and to be assured of his love because La Vita è Bella - 'Life is beautiful'.

May God bless you all in this coming year. O sing to the Lord, sing his praise; tell all his wonderful works!

Yours devotedly in Christ, Rt. Rev. Cormac Murphy-O'Connor Bishop of Arundel and Brighton.