To friends of Nottingham Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission
Dear friends
I sincerely hope this update finds you and your family well.
Even if you have escaped the Coronavirus so far, I am sure that, like me, you are grappling with its impact – on ourselves, our Church and our world. We’re crossing some kind of threshold. What is on the other side no-one knows. But we know that things will never be the same again.
Those on the front lines of health and social care, or meeting our basic needs, are working sacrificially, but, for what it’s worth, are at last gaining the esteem they have long deserved. For everyone, whether confined at home or out at essential work, the experience is a kind of crucible. It will change us: as Pope Francis said in his Urbi et Orbi message, the pandemic is a time for judgment – not God’s, but ours.
Francis has emerged as an outstanding prophetic voice for this threshold time, urging us to claim the future for a more loving civilisation. In a remarkable message to leaders of social movements on Easter Sunday he shared his hope:
that this time of danger will free us from operating on automatic pilot, shake our sleepy consciences and allow a humanist and ecological conversion, that puts an end to the idolatry of money and places human life and dignity at the centre.
He praised his readers for having ‘the culture, the method, and most of all, the wisdom that are kneaded with the leaven of feeling the suffering of others as your own’. And for their beautiful work he named them ‘social poets’.
I encourage you to read his letter yourself, and read it as addressed to you to. This update comes to you not only as a friend of the diocesan Justice and Peace Commission, but as a ‘social poet’ in your own right.
Below, we invite you to a webinar next month to help you shape the response of your parish and diocese to the pandemic. I very much hope you can join us, as we lean over the threshold. We’d also like to hear of any good ideas you are trying in your parish to support vulnerable parishioners and sustain the ‘body of Christ’ during lockdown – and any help you can offer.
The Justice and Peace Commission is here for you – and, as the pandemic is teaching us, we are all here for each other. Let’s do what we can to keep in touch, and emerge from it renewed.
Paul
Paul Bodenham | Programme Leader for Social Action | Diocese of Nottingham
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Networked Church – Socially distanced but still connected!
We’re collecting inspiring examples from our parishes of how people are caring for the vulnerable and finding ‘new ways of being church’. For example read this story from St Mary’s parish in Loughborough which tells how a Facebook Group is helping parishioners stay connected. How is your parish navigating these strange times? We’re planning to publish a collection of good ideas, so if your parish has an idea that works, let us know.
Not every parish is blessed with IT expertise, and we’re writing to parish priests offering support if their parish could use it. We’re also making an appeal for ‘virtual volunteers’ – and as a computer user, that’s where you might come in. Would you be willing to share your computer skills, however basic, to help another parish – even just for an hour or two? Find out more at our ‘virtual volunteer bureau’, and whatever tools you’re used to using, please do what you can to lend a virtual hand – we’ll put you in touch with a parish that needs your help.
We won’t be sending out printed copies of Just Now for a while. However with Diane Williams, Adult Formation Administrator, we’re planning a more frequent e-bulletin. We’re likely to use Mailchimp, a third-party mailing service, and so will need to share your email address with Mailchimp Inc, which we will use to contact you in accordance with their privacy policy and that of the Diocese. If you have any concerns, please let me know.
We are Caritas – Love and justice for a wounded world
The Faith into Action day on 28 March at Nottingham Cathedral Hall had to be postponed, but you can download the brochure (right), which we are pleased to release anyway. It lays out six ‘ministries’ which we can help you develop in your parish:
- Building communities of missionary disciples
- Environment and global responsibility
- Poverty and dignity
- Modern slavery and human trafficking
- Refugees and asylum seekers
- Tackling social isolation.
We know that greater hardship is likely once the pandemic has abated. How will the Gospel call us to respond? In this remarkable interview with the journalist Austen Ivereigh, Pope Francis discerns opportunities buried deep in this tragedy - opportunities:
- to build ‘an economy that is less liquid, more human’
- to ‘move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it’
- to “see” the poor, and, in so doing, to restore their humanity.
These are the challenges which await us as we establish Caritas in Nottingham Diocese. They are not new, but they are newly urgent, and with a new sense that now is the kairos, the favourable time.
If you would like to help us seize this moment to build a better society, please join us in an interactive webinar next month. You will be able to:
- meet Catholics like you from around the diocese who are keen to put faith into action
- find out more about plans to support social action and missionary discipleship in the diocese of Nottingham
- imagine what your parish could do to heal society after the pandemic
- start making plans to put it into practice.
The webinar will take place using Zoom for 90 minutes on two alternative dates, from which you can choose which suits you best:
- Monday 18 May at 2.00 p.m.
- Wednesday 20 May at 10.30 a.m.
Please follow this link to sign up, and I will send you details of how to get connected to Zoom in due course. For video conferencing, all you need is a laptop or PC with a webcam, microphone and speaker, or a smartphone, but you can also dial in for audio only with a simple landline telephone.
Looking further ahead, we already have a provisional date to reconvene the Faith into Action day: Saturday 7 November. If you couldn’t make it in March, you can already book provisionally for November, with no obligation.
Meanwhile keep safe and well, and I hope to see you at one of the webinars next month.
Paul
