Last week was an emotional roller-coaster.It started with great joy. Our first grandchild, Luca Vittorio Giorgio Patey was born late on Sunday evening, 13th October. I was able to get down to Milton Keynes the next day and had the great joy of seeing him and holding him in my arms.
Then on Wednesday I was asked to visit the bishop. Bishop Malcolm asked me to move from Coalville to Ashby and Measham where Monsignor Phelan, the present priest, is retiring because of ill health. The bishop was kind enough to explain his reasoning to me, and I am sure he has made a wise decision. However, it is very hard for me to say goodbye to a parish I love so much, where I was welcomed into the Catholic Church in 1994, ordained to the priesthood in 1998, and where I been privileged to serve as priest-in-charge since 2009. I found telling you all at the weekend Masses very hard indeed, as I think you are aware. I have been overwhelmed by the kind things people have said since.
Father David Cain will be your parish priest from the beginning of Advent. He was ordained in 2003. He was assistant priest at Sacred Heart, Leicester with Fr John Lally, well known to Coalville people, and later served as assistant priest at the Cathedral in Nottingham. He spent some years as full-time Vocations Director and was instrumental in increasingthe number of men offering themselves for the priesthood in our diocese. For the last two years he has undertaken further studies at Louvain in Belgium. Father David is very excited about coming to Coalville and is looking forward to living in the new presbytery flat. I know that you will welcome him, and that this wonderful parish will go from strength to strength under his leadership.
Let us pray for each other, for priests past, present and future, and for more vocations to the priesthood.
