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Finding out what God's doing...
and joining in
Our annual Caritas Assembly on 5 November, reported in this bulletin, opened with some shocking statistics:
- Mortgage repossessions in Spring 2022 were up 29% on previous quarter - and that's well before the recent hikes in interest rates
- Households are expected to be paying 30% of their income on energy in January 2023
- Uprating benefits to earnings (which was advocated for before today's Budget statement) would leave working family of four over £1,000 worse off.
We might like think that Catholics are more into values than statistics. But statistics must shape the way we express our values - why else did Jesus advise us to 'read the signs of the times'?
This reading of the signs is something best done with others. None of us has the whole picture, whether of needs, or of the opportunities to respond to them. That's why the Caritas Outreach Toolkit, launched in today's bulletin, encourages you to 'think partnership': with other churches and faith communities, Catholic Schools and other local institutions, adult services departments and District/Borough Councils and the rich local scene of voluntary and community effort.
The Catholic Church has historically had a reputation of being 'the church the does its own thing'. Wouldn't it be better to be the church that does God's thing? Look around your neighbourhood and you'll be amazed what God is already doing. All God asks is that we join in.
Join our first 'Warmer Welcome' workshop, a week on Monday, for people involved in running community cafes, drop-ins and 'warm hubs', and let's hear from each other what God is doing, around our parishes and beyond.
-- Paul
Caritas Diocese of Nottingham
What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?
Can such faith save them?
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,”
but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
James 2.15-17
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- The Caritas Outreach Toolkit - ready to download
- Warmer Welcome workshop - 28 November on Zoom
- A report on our Assembly earlier this month.
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The Caritas Outreach Toolkit is now available!
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It's been encouraging to see so many parishes seeking to open up spaces of hospitality this winter. The Caritas Outreach Toolkit is intended as a one-stop-shop for advice and inspiration to help you and your parish develop outreach activities, safely and effectively.
The toolkit brings together resources from across departments of the diocese and beyond, including advice and forms for safeguarding, health and safety and finance. It also has useful templates to help you discern and design a project in the first place, and build the local partnerships you will need.
It will continue to be updated and expanded with new advice, and, we hope, streamlined to minimise the bureaucracy involved in setting up a project. Please tell us where that is most needed!
We’re also available at the end of the phone or by email if you have any questions, and can offer a bespoke package of support to help you and your group get going. Initially the offer is for up to three days of support for a new group - for whatever you feel you need.
Click below to view the Toolkit
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Warmer Welcome Workshop
Book now for 28 November
This Winter we will be hosting a regular online get-together on Zoom for anyone offering parish-based hospitality and outreach in the cost-of-living crisis. At the last count there were 12 such places of hospitality around the diocese. Lasting up to 90 minutes, the next two are on:
- Monday 28 November at 7.00 p.m.
- Tuesday 10 January at 4.00 p.m.
Whether you are in the earliest stages of planning to open a 'Warm Hub', or have been running a community café for many years, these friendly gatherings will be an opportunity to:
- meet others who organise similar projects to yours
- exchange good practice and pick up ideas from across the diocese
- ask for advice from peers and from diocesan staff
- help your project grow in size and community impact
- find support with project development and fundraising.
Click below to sign up to either workshop. A Zoom link will be sent to you a day or so prior to the meeting you have booked for.
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Please print off and share the poster below
in your parish
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Breaking bread for the cost-of-living crisis
A report on the Annual Caritas Assembly
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It took a child to share his packed lunch. With them Jesus fed five thousand families. It's a story that can inspire us as we seek to share what can seem to be the few resources at our disposal with those in need. At the Caritas Annual Assembly, on Saturday 5 November at St Joseph's in Leicester, we began to see what it might look like to take that Scripture to heart.
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"Time, talent and possessions" - in his homily at the opening Mass, Bishop Patrick highlighted these three assets which are ours to share. He encouraged us to recognise in them the 'loaves and fishes' the people around us need in these lean times. Nourished by the Eucharist, our parishes can be the places where the multiplication happens.
Three keynote talks and eight workshops later, the point was echoed in the closing plenary. One person commented that the Gospel gives us the tools to enable people to be 'artisans of their own destiny', a phrase which entered Catholic social teaching in Populorum progressio (1967). That requires a commitment to 'do with' people instead of merely 'doing for' them - or even, as the Passionist Austin Smith once said, a commitment to simply 'exist with' them.
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On the way we were enriched by three very varied keynote speakers. Sean Ryan from Together for the Common Good recounted a vivid dream he once had of Pentecost, with a distinctly glam-rock cast of apostles, and urged us to let the Holy Spirit take us by surprise. He gave moving testimony to the importance in his own life of following inklings that can't be rationally justified, but if trusted enable God's purposes to take over.
Amy Daughton drew on a key inspiration which Pope Francis credits for his latest encyclical Fratelli Tutti: the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. They, and the Gospel itself, invite us to step beyond merely functional relationships, even in the Church, so that we discover ourselves relating to each other as 'neighbour'. Amy left us with three of Fratelli Tutti's most searching questions: "What is tenderness? What mark did I leave on the life of society? What real bonds did I create?"
The third speaker, Louise Cooke, added the grit of frontline experience from her work as CEO of the Sharewear Clothing Scheme. Louise explained why clothing poverty has become as much a crisis of human dignity as hunger. Having been fieldworker for the diocesan Justice and Peace Commission a few years ago, she shared the fascinating story of her journey into Sharewear. Like Sean, it required her to take a risk that was apparently incomprehensible at the time - but she now heads a unique and rapidly growing charity with an outstanding reputation. We'' be telling you more about how you r parish can get involved in the Sharewear network in a future bulletin.
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Over lunchtime and into the afternoon Sean and Louise went further with some of the participants, while others explored other workshop topics, including:
- the practicalities of opening a cafe
- reducing energy bills in church and at home
- CAFOD's Fix the Food System campaign
- doing a parish skills audit and volunteering campaign.
All the while Amy listened in, and she shared three reflections at the end of the day. She observed how often fear had been mentioned - fear of taking risks, fear of leadership, as well as our own genuine fears of scarcity. 'But,' she asked, 'how sustainable is a stability based on fear?'. Partnership and creativity can seem disruptive, but unlock new possibilities in our relationships with each other, our Church and the wider world.
Quoting Pope Francis' gnomic phrase 'Time is greater than space', Amy highlighted the need for a fresh attitude to time. The difficult choices Sean and Louise had described, and some of the ministries showcased in the workshops, took years to bear fruit. Let's make a commitment to the long term, even if only the short-term is in sight.
Finally she quoted the theologian Nicola Slee who has explored the multiple overwhelmings many now face, not least financially. It's important in these times not to cling to the illusion that we can cope, but to trust God, Who is the ultimate Overwhelming - and the one in whom all are safe.
It was a profound and tantalising note on which to end the day, as we returned to our parishes, ready to let the Overwhelming in!
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Meanwhile, in other news...
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A new app to help your parish food collection hit the spot
We've all heard the news of how foodbanks are struggling to meet the needs of their clients. Less often, we hear how foodbanks struggle to afford people a balanced diet. There is now an app which tells you what your local food bank urgently needs. Bank the Food can be downloaded for free - click below and try it out.
It could be especially useful for the editors of parish bulletins whose church has a collection point for their local foodbank. You can check the app when the bulletin is being prepared, list the items you'd like people to bring over the next week - and so make a bigger difference for those facing hardship and the foodbanks which serve them.
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Skegness pier head following a storm in 1978, later destroyed by fire in 1985
Will Skegness Pier rise again?
Together for the Common Good's monthly newsletter is always recommended reading. This month's edition features an article by Tim Thorlby, originally from Skegness. "The area hit the headlines in 2016 when the constituency delivered the biggest vote for Brexit in the UK – 75.6% for Leave. It was an act of frustration and anger from communities that feel overlooked. The status quo isn’t working for the people of this area; they want change. So do I. I would like areas like my home town to become places where the younger generation want to stay."
Drawing on Catholic social teaching, Tim explores why successive governments have failed to 'level up' places like Skegness and many others in the diocese which voted Leave. He argues for a place-based politics powered by social purpose. He concludes "For all of the towns and communities in our nation which feel overlooked and left out, there should be hope. The current status quo is not inevitable. Maybe one day the pier in Skegness will be rebuilt."
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“That is precisely what solidarity is:
sharing the little we have with those who have nothing,
so that no one will go without.
The sense of community and of communion as a style of life increases and a sense of solidarity matures.”
Pope Francis, Message for World Day of the Poor, 13 November 2022
Loving Father, your risen Son sent us out into the world
as ambassadors for the kingdom of God;
inspire us with your Spirit of compassion, justice and truth
to declare the Good News to those who are poor,
to work for the relief, defence and liberation of all
who are trapped in oppressive circumstances.
We make this our prayer through Christ our Lord.
Amen
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