I will only speak briefly because there is an appeal at the end of Mass.
In our second reading we heard St Paul pass on the promise from the Lord that he was given:
“My grace is sufficient for you: my power is made perfect in weakness”, to which St Paul adds, “For it is when I am weak that I am strong”
This principle has been reiterated many times by Christians, and it holds not just for us as individual believers in the Lord but also for us as an organization and as a church:
In those centuries and cultures when the Church has been outwardly powerful and materially wealthy she has also been inwardly weak in her spiritual life.
Whereas, when the Church is persecuted and poor she returns with renewed vigour to the source of her REAL strength: the Lord Jesus.
At the end of Mass today, accompanying the insert sheet in your newsletter, Dominic Lavan, the chair of our parish finance committee will indicate that our parish income is far from being at a point of strength:
we are running at a structural deficit.
In some ways this is a good thing, an opportunity:
It can help us not be complacent about the parish and about the parish finances;
It can help motivate the parish finance committee to be even more careful stewards of your money
-and they have been increasingly careful in recent years.
But, it’s not a viable thing if the parish is to have a long-term future,
And so I urge you to listen carefully to Dominic’s words at the end of Mass.
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