Perspective

One of the things I am noted for is the hiring of skips and I have had a number of them in the last three parishes that I’ve been running. Luckily here at St Bons I have a wheelie bin near the back door, which will take all sorts of rubbish. So, this week I have continued my sorting out of both the private accommodation upstairs, and the various rooms on the ground floor of the Presbytery. This has led to a number of trips to the wheelie bin.

It’s amazing what you find when you start looking at things. For example, in the sacristy I discovered we had 14 chalices – this would be ideal if our average Mass attendance was of 1700 people but a bit excessive for our current needs. Sadly these 14 are not all beautiful and valuable silver chalices but a number of them are pewter or plated and of little value. But let me reassure you that doesn’t mean they’ve ended up in the wheelie bin, they will be recycled to a far more needy home. I also discovered that we keep the spare batteries locked in a safe.

Obviously, all these things made sense to people when they either purchased them or stored them but I was struggling to understand it from my perspective. This doesn’t mean that I’m right that they were wrong it just means we see things in different ways. This is true in so much of our life, we all have different views and opinions and the great thing about the church community is that we are able to cope and welcome to variety of different approaches and opinions. If the parish really is a family, then we know families have their differences and occasional disputes, but ultimately, they work for the good of all.

Mgr Bernard