“It is Friday 4th September as I sit here writing this. Now, you may ask, ‘so what’? Aha! I tell you, it is in fact the date on which I complete my 8th year here in the Catholic Parish of Bishop’s Stortford!
People say ‘time goes so fast’, and ‘I don’t know where it’s gone’. I have also heard people say., ‘it goes faster the older you get!’ Well I don’t know about this but I have a hunch that the more you feel settled the less time drags! And that is how I feel, settled.
Now where does such a feeling or ‘state’ come from ? I think it comes from feeling at ease with yourself and your surroundings, and I have certainly felt that since I arrived. Not, of course, that I have not felt it before in other places… but I was 61 when I arrived here and next year I will hit 70 – THAT is the thing that seems strangest to me!!
Have I become wiser ? I hope so and do sense something of that; have I become kinder, I sincerely hope so, for that to me has always been the key to Priesthood; not the easiest one, I know.
But, of course, the question always is, how have I managed, where have I got the strength from ? Like all of us, it is from my relationships with others and, especially for the Priest, the very source of all that lies in my relationship with God; sometimes calm, sometimes rocky, sometimes deafening, sometimes too silent… but, as the prophet Jeremiah reminded us during the week, the presence of God burns in our very bones.
So, my prayer for all of us this week is that we remember to thank God every day for our life, our loves and all the gifts he offers us each day and that we might recognize more of those gifts each day than the few we usually manage to !”
Fr Peter