Pope Francis has just published a new book called Let us Dream: The Path to a Better Future (London, Simon and Schuster UK: 2020 [ISBN: 978-1-3985-0220-8]) which I highly recommend. Writing during the coronavirus pandemic, the Holy Father notes the cruelty and inequality of our society as being exposed more than ever, and at the same time the resilience, generosity and creativity of so many dedicated to rescue society, the economy and the planet. He challenges us to come out of the lockdown to create a new and fairer society, a better world, that puts service of the poor and care for the planet at its core, along many of the lines he spoke of in his recent Encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti. In the three short chapters of this book, he speaks very personally of how three crises in his own life changed him dramatically for the better. His narrative typifies his “theology of the people” and how he sees Christ as being found always on the peripheries. There is much here to ponder. One of the features I was especially impressed with was his reflection on synodality and how synodal working is not only central for the Church but also as a model of dialogue and participation for society when grappling with difficult and complex issues. This book would make good Advent/Christmas reading.

To complete the questionnaire, click here. 

Some months ago, I asked clergy to share their thoughts in relation to three questions that I posed about the state of our Diocese, to inform the development of the long term plans and priorities: what they thought was good about the diocese, that we should celebrate; what might be identified as the challenges across our diocese; and what we may need to put in place to develop further our mission. We now want to understand better what you the people and parishioners of our Diocese think and what you consider is important as we journey in faith together. This will help us all to develop plans and priorities for the Diocese so that we can truly be faithful missionary people in a flourishing and vibrant Diocese that brings the joy and hope of the Gospel message to our communities and the wider world. The online questionnaire will run over Christmas and into the New Year and we will be promoting this opportunity through parish newsletters and websites, parish groups and in the notices at the end of the Mass. Already we have had several hundred replies. The survey will take between 10 and 20 minutes of your time as there are a few areas to cover and I would like as much detail as you are happy to give. The views and thoughts from people who no longer come to church is also important to us so please do encourage those you think might want to have a say to also complete as much of the questionnaire as is relevant to them. We will publish the results in the Spring and as I said earlier it will inform my thinking about our priorities for the next few years. In advance, thank you for your help. Click above to begin it. The link can also be found on the diocesan website and there is a paper version for those unable to access the digital version: leave a message with name and address for Chris Smith our Director of Communications on 02394 216496. We will publish the results in the Spring.

We have just sent to the printers the first edition of our new quarterly Diocesan Newsletter. We will then begin distribution to parishes in the week after Gaudete Sunday in time for the Fourth Sunday of Advent and for Christmas. Make sure you pick up a copy from church! This Advent/Christmas edition will incorporate a selection of news from around the Diocese, with a round-up of Christmas traditions in the various ethnic communities that are a rich part of our diocesan family. There are a couple of interviews with inspiring people and clergy and a feature on the Apostleship of the Sea and the work they have been doing this last year. The newsletter will be available free online and in printed format. I am grateful to Chris Smith for his design and editorial work, Fr. PJ Smith for organising production and distribution and to all who have sent in articles and made contributions. More next week.

This Thursday, 10th December, is the newly instituted (optional) Memorial of Our Lady of Loreto. Since the Middle Ages veneration for the Holy House of Loreto has been the origin of that particular shrine which still today is visited by many faithful pilgrims in order to nourish their faith in the Word of God made flesh for us. In the Holy House, before the image of the Mother of the Redeemer and of the Church, Saints and blesseds have responded to their vocation, the sick have invoked consolation in suffering, the people of God have begun to praise and plead with Mary using the Litany of Loreto, which is known throughout the world. In a particular way all those who travel via aircraft have found in her their heavenly patron. This celebration will help all people, especially families, youth and religious to imitate the virtues of that perfect disciple of the Gospel, the Virgin Mother, who, in conceiving the Head of the Church also accepted us as her own. Click below for an extract from the Letter of Pope Saint John Paul II on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the Holy House.

This month, the Holy Father's monthly intention is For a Life of Prayer. He asks that we pray that our personal relationship with Jesus Christ be nourished by the Word of God and a life of prayer. Click the image to watch this month's short "Pope Video"

Next Sunday is the Third Sunday of Advent. Sunday's Gospel is John 1:6-8,19-28 when we hear St John's account of how St John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus. You can find the reading for Sunday's Mass here and you can read Scott Hahn's reflection on the Sunday readings here. 

This week’s Gospel gives us another Gospel’s perspective on John the Baptist: this time, he is presented to us as a witness, one who sheds light upon the one who is Himself the Light of the World.

You can register to watch the webinar here, or join us via Facebook live. If you can’t join us, you can subscribe to the podcast here.

Here is the homily I preached at the 12 noon Mass in the Cathedral last Sunday, 6th December.
 
When I was a fellow of Boston College in Massachusetts, I used to live in a parish nearby. Unlike here in old England, New England has ‘serious’ seasons: hot summers and winters with lots of snow. The weather tends to be more predictable: if they say there'll be storms tomorrow starting mid-morning, there will be, even if it’s sunny and clear when you first wake up. The pastor of the parish I lived in had a contract with a snow-clearance firm: once the forecasters warned a Snow Emergency was imminent, giant yellow snowploughs would roar onto the parish lot, with flashing lights and lots of noise. Within seconds, huge swathes of snow would be cleared to the left and to the right, the paths to the church completely unblocked, right down to the paving stones. It was all very effective. It’s also a perfect illustration of the Advent message we hear today: Prepare a way for the Lord; make his paths straight. Let every valley be filled in, and every mountain be laid low...

One of the signature features of the Church’s liturgy in Advent are the seven great ‘O Antiphons ’ recited by the Church in Evening Prayer, the Office of Vespers, over the seven last days of Advent, from 17th December leading up to Christmas. The O Antiphons go back to the monasteries of the sixth and seventh centuries and are prayers addressed to the Messiah, to Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, asking Him to come once again into our lives. Last week, we began this mini-series in which we are meditating on four of these Antiphons. Click on the picture to hear a short reflection on the Antiphon O Clavis David, which is sung on 20th December. O Clavis David .. O key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel, you open and no one can close; you close and no one can open; come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Some of our Diocesan schools have recorded Advent services for the four weeks of this time of preparation. This week's service for the Second Week of Advent is brought to us by staff and students at Blessed Hugh Faringdon Catholic School. Click on the picture to watch it. You can also click here to see the growing collection of services as the weeks pass, including the service for the First Week of Advent brought to us by staff and students at Oaklands Catholic School. (My apologies to Oaklands for the omission of this video last week, Ed.)

Advent is a time when we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas and when we renew our desire for His second coming at the end of time. True, Advent can be busy. There’s food to order, gifts to buy, cards to send. But spiritually, what should we be doing during this Advent season? We should be praying to God for the theological gift of hope and the renewal of that gift in our lives. We often pray to God for deeper faith and deeper charity but how often do we pray for stronger hope, the hope that comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts? Hope is essential to the Christian life. It’s hope that gives us joy, energy, enthusiasm; it makes us smile; it puts a spring in our step; it assures us that with God the impossible can be possible, that obstacles can be overcome, that the gloom can be transformed into light. More, it is hope that enables us to glimpse the joy of our true home in heaven. Click below for some ideas to help you keep this busy but beautiful season special.

Jo Lewry shares ideas about Christmas fundraising for CAFOD...

Christmas will be very different this year for all of us, but we have lots of ideas of ways you can get together virtually over the festive period. On our parish fundraising page, we have a virtual Christmas Nativity play, Christmas carol sheet and suggestions on how to organise a virtual carol service. For those who like to keep fit do join our virtual Christmas Fun Run on 27th December. The Christmas Fun Run started in Liverpool 37 years ago and has taken place on the 27th December ever since but this year we are inviting all our supporters, so you can take part wherever you live.  You can run, walk or toddle 5km (3.1miles) and raise money for CAFOD through our just giving fun run page. Don’t forget you can buy CAFOD World Gifts the gifts that transforms lives up until 21st December. Free delivery until 16th December and the card can also be posted direct to your loved one.

Finally we have a livestreamed Advent Mass on Wednesday 16th December at 6pm - please register here to join.

Michael Keogh from St Boniface parish in Shirley, Southampton encourages us not to get ahead of ourselves. He writes...

Now good people of the diocese, hold your horses, let us not get ahead of ourselves: resist the urge to put up the Christmas decorations and tree just for now. Let us try and celebrate Advent and prepare a way for the Lord. Then we will have the stamina to truly celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. (Artwork by Hannah Wood, a parishioner at St Boniface). 

There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven.  (Ecclesiastes, 3)

The Dominican Sisters of St Joseph invite you to join them online for their annual Carol Service next Sunday 13th December at 3pm. Join them and have a singalong from the safety of your home. They look forward to welcoming friends from across the Diocese and beyond to join them in this celebration You can tune in here: https://www.churchservices.tv/lymington

The Carmelite Priory at Boars Hill in Oxford invites you to join them for a new series of online sessions of Reflection and Prayer with St John of the Cross ahead of his feastday...

Join Fr Iain Matthew, the bestselling author of The Impact of God, as he explores John's spiritual wisdom, so relevant for our times. The event will take place via Zoom from 5-6pm on 11th, 12th & 13th December. You can register here and find more information on this poster.

Fr. PJ Smith, the Pilgrimage Director, looks forward to our diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes next summer, suggesting that we might consider giving the gift of a pilgrimage to a loved one. The pilgrimage is from 19th-23rd July 2021...

Give the gift of hope this Christmas by purchasing a gift voucher, with Portsmouth Diocese to enable your loved one to join Bishop Philip as he leads the Diocese on Pilgrimage to Lourdes in July 2021.  Pilgrims will visit the Grotto where Our Lady appeared to St Bernadette, visit places that were important to St Bernadette during her life in Lourdes, attend Mass daily, participate in the torch light procession and the Blessed Sacrament procession, enjoy the companionship of the other pilgrims and youth helpers and have the opportunity to grow in their own spirituality.
 
We are very hopeful given the news that a vaccine is imminent that a gradual return to normality after Easter can be achieved and that we will be able to journey to Lourdes on Pilgrimage. Any gift vouchers that you purchase will be with the Diocese of Portsmouth and so your money will be held safely until a final decision to proceed with a booking is made on the 1^st of May, a refund requested or a donation made to help a pilgrim to attend in your place who otherwise would not be able to travel. Find out more now by emailing lourdes@portsmouthdiocese.org.uk or by clicking here for a booking form.

This last weekend, on the day of regional elections in Cameroon, three people were killed, and a priest and a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Bamenda badly injured. Although the situation is calmer, according to Archbishop Andrew, with schools reopened and children returning, there is still no news of official peace meetings and negotiations, and there is still sporadic violence. I have written to Archbishop Andrew to express our sorrow and also to promise our prayers for an end to all forms of armed conflict and the resumption of dialogue. Meanwhile, Fr. Emmanuel Rinda, parish priest of Corpus Christi and St. Joseph Portsmouth, and one of our Bamenda priests working here, emailed me to ask for prayers:
 
Good evening, Father. We had regional elections today in Cameroon, a proposed solution by the national dialogue as a means of resolving the problems in Cameroon. This was rejected by the Anglophones as not a solution and so the fighters called for no movements from Friday 4th to Monday 7th December. The Archbishop gave permission for Sunday Masses to be celebrated on Saturday evening though only in those parishes where the priest judges that the celebration of Mass would not put themselves or their parishioners at risk. In one of the parishes, a priest and seminarian were shot by the Ambazonian boys as they were on their way to Mass. Their car was destroyed. The priest was shot on the arm and the seminarian in both legs. The situation of the priest is not serious but that of the seminarian is. I thought it wise to keep you informed. They need our prayer.

COVID-vaccines are a welcome feature in the news at the moment, with the promise soon of widescale inoculation against the pandemic. However, questions have been raised about the ethical sourcing of the various vaccines and whether this might be morally problematic for us as Catholics, especially given that some vaccines (though not all) have been developed using tissue from aborted babies. An American organisation called Children of God for Life, supported by the US Catholic Medical Association and National Association of Catholic Nurses, has produced a table of the principle COVID-vaccines currently in production, clearly differentiating those that have been developed without the use of foetal tissue and those with. You can read this table here. Meanwhile, Dr. Helen Watt from the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, the Catholic academic institute based in Oxford that engages with moral questions arising in clinical practice and biomedical research, has written a helpful article about the moral choices involved in receiving a vaccination, including whether receiving the Astra Zeneca-Oxford vaccine, given the emergency circumstances that we are in, would be morally permissible. You can read her short paper here. There is also an interview with her on the front page of the Anscombe Centre website.

I recently received another email from Christine Wohar, the Executive Director of Frassati USA. I share it with you here.
 
Dear Bishop Philip, Do you remember that great scene from the classic Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life, when George Bailey discovers his daughter Zuzu’s petals in his pocket? It’s the climactic moment when he realizes that his life has been restored and his nightmare is over. (Click on the photo above for the clip). After living through 2020, we can probably all identify a lot more with George and wish we could pull a few of Zuzu’s petals out of our own pockets and turn back time. But we can’t. And life is not backward looking. Thankfully, we have the liturgical year to move us forward out of darkness and into the wonderful, ever-new season of hope we call Advent...

Dr Dudley Plunkett, former Senior Tutor at the Maryvale Institute and parishioner of the Immaculate Conception, Southampton offers us the latest instalment in his monthly series offering a brief biography of one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales around their feast-day. This time we feature St Swithun Wells whose feast day is celebrated this Thursday, 10th December, in parishes across Hampshire...
 
Swithun Wells, a lay man, was born in Hampshire in 1536. He lived a quiet life, managing a school until he was obliged to give it up when suspected of Catholic sympathies and of protecting priests. He continued to assist priests in his London house and was several times arrested and once interrogated about his knowledge of the Babington Plot. Two priests, Edmund Gennings and Polydore Plasden, were discovered celebrating mass at Swithun’s house on 28th November 1591 by the notorious priest hunter, Topcliffe. Although not present at his house at the time, Swithun was arrested and brought to trial. He was found guilty of harbouring priests and condemned to death. He was executed on a gallows erected outside his house in Gray's Inn Lane in London on 10th December 1591, along with Fr Edmund Gennings who had been condemned for treason. Fr Polydore Plasden was executed on the same day at Tyburn. Topcliffe, who was present at all the executions, reproached Swithun, saying  ‘See what your priests have brought you to,’ but Swithun replied, ‘ I am happy  and thank God to have been so favoured  to have so many and such saint-like priests under my roof.’ May St Swithun Wells, pray for us.

In her final offering of Hymn of the Month, Julia Courtney, a parishioner from St Patrick’s Church, Sandown, IoW, brings us a perfect choice ahead of Gaudete Sunday...

This year the Responsorial Psalm for the Third Sunday in Advent is the Magnificat  (Luke 1:46-55) a song of praise attributed to Our Lady during the Visitation, her meeting with St Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. Elizabeth recognises Mary as the mother of the Lord, and in response Mary offers this wonderful canticle of prophesy and thanksgiving. Over time, the Magnificat has been rendered in many translations, one of which was the inspiration for this month’s hymn, Tell Out My Soul. In 1961 the Anglican priest Timothy Dudley Smith was asked to review a copy of the newly published New English Bible. Here the Magnificat opens with the words ‘tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’, rather than ‘my soul proclaims’, or ‘my soul magnifies’ as in some other versions. 

School Chaplain, Fr Michael Peters reports on recent celebrations for Founder's Day at Charlton House School...

26th November is Founder’s Day for the Brothers of Christian Instruction. Throughout their seventy-plus schools word wide, staff and pupils give thanks to John de la Mennais, and Charlton House Independent School, Southampton is no exception. Covid restrictions made it difficult this year (no dressing up as in the past), but we did discover that the children concentrated more on the story than on the ­actors. These all appeared through the ‘pages’ of a giant story book and ended with prayers for his beatification. As our Southampton centenary approaches all thoughts look towards 2022. For the present, another page has been carefully turned. (John, centre, is joined by his first volunteers to set off around the world to found his schools)

Pauline Mason from St. Joseph’s church, Newbury shares her reflection on engaging with coronavirus...

An eerie silence.
Then silence
As l recall, not known before
Or the bird call
As never before
As heard before
Which should tune us    
To rise above the sin
That has governed us since the ‘fall;’
May Nature return to it’s rightful place
Above the rest that man has made
And silently call us all
To find that place
Reserved for all.
A heavenly place which is above all,
Even silence.

A number of opportunities in our Diocesan schools can be found here.

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St Thomas More Catholic Primary School in Kidlington Oxfordshire (Archdiocese of Birmingham) is seeking a Headteacher. See here for details.