My brothers and sisters in Christ,

Advent is a season of expectation. The Church identifies with Mary awaiting the birth or her Divine Son. We look forward to the celebration of the moment when the Son of God took flesh of the Blessed Virgin and was born into a human family. It is also a time for looking beyond the boundaries of history to the Second Coming of Christ in glory.

On a more personal level, Advent marks the start of another stage in our journey to God. We all look forward with our hopes and our aspirations to the year that lies ahead. The fact that the Son of God chose to be born into a human family confers a special dignity and an importance on that fundamental basis of human society.

Important though the family is, the Catechism of the Catholic Church  reminds us that: “The first vocation of the Christian is to follow Christ." Jesus says, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me”. 

“Becoming a disciple of Jesus means accepting the invitation to belong to God’s family: for, in the words of Jesus, “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother”.

The human family consists of people made in the image and likeness of God. In the First Letter of John  we read that “God is Love”. That Divine Love unites God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  In the family we see that the Love of the Father reflected in the love of parents for their children. 

The love of God the Son, revealed to us in Jesus through his obedience to the Father, finds its expression in the love of children for their parents. The mutual love of husband and wife is a human sign of the Holy Spirit who binds the Father and Son in the unity of God. That is why the family is called “the domestic church”. “It is a community of faith, hope and charity.”

Within the family parents and children are united by bonds of mutual responsibilities. Children owe their parents respect based on gratitude and expressed by obedience. In later life, children will assume responsibility for their parents.

Parents also have responsibilities. They must regard their children first of all as children of God and respect them as human persons. It is the duty of parents to create a home for their children. It is the home that is the natural environment for initiating a human being into the wider society and there accepting shared responsibility for the world around them. “The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute”. Together with parents, the whole Catholic community shares the responsibility to protect our children from all kinds of abuse and neglect.

The mutual responsibility that characterises each particular family extends outwards to embrace the whole community, especially the community of the Church. The local family, which is the town or parish in which we live, must include those many people who live alone, either by choice or by chance. We think of those who have lost husband or wife, those who have never married, priests and religious sisters and brothers. We all need each other.

Today, parents face difficulties in rearing their children. While the home is the first and most fundamental school of faith, radio, television, electronic games and much else breach its privacy and security. Sometimes mothers and fathers feel guilty that their children are not as faithful perhaps to the practice of their religion as they should be. This is a sadness shared by all of us, priests, parents and fellow parishioners alike. Just as we expect our Heavenly Father to look with understanding, compassion and forgiveness on us, so we too must display that same attitude to our young people. We must never forget that they are God’s children before they are ours.

Our young people still have ideals and are active in local and world affairs. This is evident, for example in campaigns such as “Make Poverty History”. They are concerned with issues of world poverty, fair trade and global warming. Underpinning all these activities are Gospel values which are strengthened by the practice of our Faith.

Our Church must always be a welcoming Church, a Church that welcomes children, the elderly, the infirm, the lapsed, the stranger. In his teaching about the Last Judgement Jesus says, “Come you blessed of my Father….I was a stranger and you made me welcome”.  When the just ask, “When did we see you a stranger?” He replies, “in so far as you did it to one of these brothers of mine, you did it to me”.

On the tenth of September, representatives of all the parishes in the Diocese, together with others engaged in specific forms of ministry, gathered in Oban to begin a process of discernment and planning to respond to the pastoral needs of the Diocese. As we listened to reports of the many initiatives in the parishes and the diversity of skills and experience, we became aware of the rich resources that we have in the Diocesan Community.

Then we looked at the needs, the difficulties and the problems that face our Church at the beginning of the twenty-first century. From a wide range of topics, it became evident that there were certain areas of particular concern.

These were The Family and Youth, the Lapsed and Migrants as well the prayer life of the Church, its liturgy and its spirituality. The priests of the three Deaneries, Argyll, Lochaber and the Isles were asked to discuss the reports form the Diocesan Assembly focussing particularly on these themes.

Between now and the beginning of Lent I am asking the priests to meet with their parishioners to consider these areas of pastoral concern. At the time of the Station Masses in Lent I would hope to meet with the priests and people in the various Deaneries to hear their response to the perceived needs of the Diocese and also the positive pastoral ventures and the good things that are happening in our parishes.

In the autumn of next year, it is proposed to hold a Diocesan Pastoral Assembly in an effort to build upon the many positive and exciting initiatives the Holy Spirit is already inspiring in our Diocese. We have indeed been enriched in many ways; we have received many gifts and graces. Let us share them and use them together for the sake of the Kingdom. When the Master comes may he not find us asleep.

There was a certain rivalry among the early Christians in Corinth; some were for Paul, others for Apollos. So Paul writes: “What is Apollos and what is Paul? They are servants who brought the faith to you. Even the different ways in which they brought it were assigned to them by the Lord. I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God made things grow. Neither the planter nor the waterer matters: only God, who makes things grow. It is all one who does the planting and who does the watering, and each will be duly paid according to his share in the work. We are fellow workers with God”.

We should take this model of co-operation to enable us to share our gifts, to work in harmony, not to promote our own ideas but to discover God’s plan for us. If we do the groundwork, God will give the growth. Let us begin now, praying that God will guide us in our discernment and empower us in implanting the seeds of spiritual renewal in the hearts of all of us.

With my blessing

+Ian
Bishop of Argyll & the Isles