Notes of hope in the time of Covid

The family that prays together
It was a Saturday night during a visit to a parish family home, when Cardinal Napier shared in something special.

At 8.00pm sharp all chatter and activities stopped as the family, from oldest to youngest, said the Rosary together. But not just as one household. This time has been allocated for their entire extended family, wherever they are, to pray together.

A second, but shorter family prayer break, is 3.00pm every afternoon to say the Divine Mercy Chaplet. And if parents aren’t home, the children aged seven to 13 years, keep the prayer assignment on their own.

The experience was a beautiful example of family life, and a strong lesson. The domestic Church is where the faith has to be rebuilt and strengthened. Whilst there is certainly place for catechism lessons from a book, the rebuilding and strengthening is most effective by the example of parents and families living their faith together.

Hope for child headed households
The plight of children existing without parents or guardians is of great concern, and receiving priority in attention.

On three Missions alone, 60 of these child headed families have been identified to receive whatever help is needed. This includes food parcels for survival; ensuring that the school age children attend classes; access to drop in centres for the preschool siblings to be cared for during school time; and assisting the senior children in the family to apply for a Government child support grant. We thank you for your support which makes this hope possible, with many more of these families still needing to be identified.

Comfort to be found in the Bible
Around the world, we’ve all been touched in some way by the Covid-19 pandemic.

And our hearts go out to you if Covid-19 has affected you or someone close to you. Please know that you’re in our prayers.

Here in our Archdiocese, we’ve lost Priests, a Monsignor, and our new Archbishop in waiting. These losses have been very personal and very deep, impacting greatly on our work on the Missions where we’ve also lost many parishioners.

These are times when death can seem very close, and we ponder what it might be like in the antechamber to life with God.

In a recent article, Cardinal Napier pointed out that even in the worst of times, there’s comfort to be found in the Bible – Thessalonians 4:16-18.

Pilgrimage news
We continue to hope that the planned pilgrimage to be led by Cardinal Napier will happen later this year. But if Covid-19 travel restrictions impose yet another postponement, we’ll continue to plan for this event to happen as soon as it does become possible. So please continue to submit your special intentions to be included in the daily Masses during the pilgrimage.