Message from Fr. Con

REFLECTION FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT (YEAR A), Week beginning 26TH MARCH 2023

This Sunday, we enter Passiontide fortnight. We mark it by displaying purple coverings on crucifixes & statues in the church. On one level, this might appear a strange practice. Yet its purpose is to lead us from externals and on to what is INTERNAL. Lent 2023 is nearing its culmination. Thus, as we draw close to “the business end” of Lent, we are drawn to focus more inwardly upon Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
In his Letter to the Romans, Paul reminds us that we live our lives in Christ, and that Christ lives in us: in chapter 8 verses 10-11 he states
“… if Christ is in you then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then He Who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through His Spirit living in you.”
Jesus Christ is our Light. He is the Light of the World. He gives us the Light of Eternal Life. That very Life we are enabled by Him to be living now, albeit in embryo. This covering, with purple, of our crucifixes and statues in church, this fortnight, will help us to focus more intently upon these truths.
We do have the great assurance of His very own words, that He came to earth so that we may have Life and have it to the full. When He speaks about life, He always means Eternal Life. That alone is the fullness of life. Only He is both the fullness and fulfilment of life.
At 1.00 am this Sunday, British Summer Time (BST) replaced Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), once again.
With the arrival of Spring, we will now have the brighter evenings – days with extended natural light.
May these purple coverings of Passiontide in church similarly grant us all the light and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, Who is the Light within the Holy Trinity.