2025 April Letter from our Priest
Dear friends,
How are you at following directions? (Me? It depends on who’s giving them if I am honest!). When I think about those I am happy to instruct me, they are those who have been wherever it is before or the trusty SatNav). I tend not to trust those who seem to be ‘winging’ it as they share their directions with no apparent proven experience. Generally, I need to feel that the one I am listening to knows what they are talking about.
This season of Lent I have been thinking about footsteps – the way we follow the steps of those who have walked before us (who had often gained much wisdom in the process and are worth following). I think about those role models who not only talked the ‘talk’ but walked the ‘walk’, that I remember with fondness and respect. I have also been reflecting on following the footsteps of Jesus – the one who is centre of my life, and I have pledged to follow always. During Lent I remember his journey through his ministry and road into Jerusalem towards his death. I recall that pretty much everything I face Jesus faced too in some way and to some degree – the challenge of others, misunderstandings, ridicule, danger, as well as the joy, laughter and the comfort of friends. As we journey into April, we journey towards a pivotal moment in history that we mark and remember – Jesus’ death, and we remember all that led up to it – the betrayal, the hopes dispelled in the events of just one night, the injustice of a sentence undeserved, the violence of his arrest and his final execution. Following such footsteps or being prepared to because you share the same conviction of trust in God is quite something and we probably won’t be asked to go to the same extreme in proving it – but the passion, the confidence and sacrifice is something we are asked to contemplate upon and live out. How far are we prepared to go for our faith in Jesus? How far are you prepared to go in your conviction about anything in your life?
To follow in Jesus’ footsteps is not something I do flippantly without realisation of potential consequences, what gives me confidence is that he has gone before me. Whatever I may face, Jesus has most likely experienced too – he made his way through it, keeping his faith in the Fathers plan (trusting him in the future he could not in that moment fully see). He did this in life and in his death. The result was the resurrection – in death Jesus became more alive than he ever had been (by my baptism I have died to self and walk with a confidence that as Jesus is with me now, he will be past death and beyond). Jesus is my hope, my life and my confidence – where do you place your hope? Perhaps this Easter take some time to reflect – what does life mean to you? Where is your hope? What or who do you trust in? Jesus is worth listening to!
Suzie