Portsmouth Diocese e-News Issue 470
Over the weekend, to great rejoicing, the newly rebuilt Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was re-opened after the disastrous fire of 2019. Let us pray that the reopening will not only symbolise a physical restoration but usher in a spiritual restoration too, both in France and throughout the Western world. As Roger Pouivet, the French philosopher, observes, the great Gothic cathedrals such as Notre Dame encapsulate in stone the Scholastic theology of the High Middle Ages. Like St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Notre Dame is a theological Summa in architecture, that makes the Catholic faith intelligible to those who visit it. Let us pray that the restoration of Notre Dame will be for all a significant moment for faith.
Welcome to this week’s e-News, the Second Week of Advent 2024. I ask your prayers this week for all our retired clergy, and especially for those who have died recently, Mgr. Nick France, Fr. Michael Cronin, whose funeral is tomorrow, Fr. Don Clements, Fr. Eric Spencer, our longest ordained priest and Deacon Anthony Cairns. May they rest in peace.
[Image: AP/Stephane de Sakutin]
Pilgrims of Hope
From the Bishop
Over the weekend, the Second Sunday of Advent, I published a new Pastoral Letter to be read in all the churches and chapels of the Diocese. It’s called “Hope.” In it I talk about the forthcoming Jubilee Year, 2025, and the theme that the Holy Father has given to it “Pilgrims of Hope.” I then go on to discuss one of the ‘Six Holy Habits:’ paying a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and how more than anything this Habit can renew us in Hope. I speak about my own childhood experience of visiting church and also about what St. John Henry Newman says about Jesus in the Tabernacle. The Pope mentions this latter in his recent Encyclical Letter. You can read the letter here – or click here for the video presentation (c. 10 minutes).
You can continue to read this issue in full here.
