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“We’ve been in Guildford since
1993, where we’ve brought up our family, and where
we are all very happy. I love just being a parish
priest."
"The Catholic
Faith has attracted and inspired me throughout my
life. (See What We Believe.) I encountered it
within the Church of England, so becoming a ‘priest
of the Church of God’ in this particular context.
But I have come more and more to appreciate how
profoundly we need re-integration with our Mother
Church from whom we were separated at the
Reformation. The ordination of women is now a major
obstacle to this aim (even though I am personally
inclined to see it as
a necessary and authentic development of the
Catholic tradition). But,
for me, unity with the Roman Catholic Church has to
come before this particular issue. However, my
guiding light is to do all that is possible to
foster communion - with our Mother Church of Rome -
and (that is, expressly not 'instead of')
with all our fellow Christians. Disengaging with
each other, on any level, just does not feel to me
to be the way of Christ."
"My spiritual mainstay is
in being a Companion of Julian of Norwich. The
writings and the life of Mother Julian help me to be
more inwardly settled, and to live prayerfully with
a contemplative spirit. She inspires me to try to be
openly available to people with a listening ear, and
to grow in awareness of the unconditional love of
God who enfolds us all."
"Indeed,
Christianity is about the life of the Spirit.
It can often feel very difficult to be a Catholic
Christian in twenty-first century Western Europe.
But we must resist the tendency to be
inward-looking in church life, or to be fearful as
the old institutional forms creak and perhaps
disappear. Christ is risen! His new life
will find its own true expressions." |
