THE MOST HOLY TRINITY – 18 MAY Catholic Children’s Society (Plymouth) Annual Appeal

My dear friends

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. In some ways, it is a strange feast; God really does not need us to celebrate Him on a particular day, because the whole of creation and the whole of the dispensation of grace derive from God. Forever we sing His praises. As we sing or say not a few times in today’s responsorial psalm: “To You glory and praise for evermore”.

The rationale of the Feast is that all the mysteries of Christ and the Feasts of the Saints will ultimately take us to the source and origin of everything, namely God Himself. God is Love, on a scale that we can only worship and in a way that we cannot comprehend. As the Gospel puts it: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but have eternal life” (John 3 16).

What better day to think about the implications of that love on the way we live? The life of the Church and her activity has only one measure by which it can be judged – the love that God has for us. Welfare work with children, for example, is an expression of that love which God has revealed to us in the ministry, death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The love which is lived in the Church and beyond is too vast to summarise or contain in the Church’s institutions or its established ways of doing things. But an example is in the life and activity of the Diocesan Children’s Society. Although adoption work is now carried out by “Families for Children”, of which I am a Patron, the Diocesan Children’s Society has a wide range of other activities that support children in their development - physical, mental and spiritual.

The Society works to bring the love of God to disabled and disadvantaged children and young people of our Diocese. It does this through financial aid, help and support for parents through the Patchwork programme, offering parenting courses in some of our schools. This parenting programme is so successful that the Society is hoping to expand it to more schools. However this will mean recruiting another trainer. At present there are not enough funds to do this, so the Society has decided to hold a major fundraising event this time next year. It is planning to run something in all schools and parishes of the Diocese along the lines of Red Nose Day. But of course it will not be called ‘Red Nose Day’; it will have the theme of the Good Shepherd. I am sure you would want to support this and to participate actively in it. Later this year, the Society will be issuing further details of how to get involved. Please do give generously today.

Further details of all the activities that the Society is involved in are in the leaflet available at the back of the Church. As we say the Creed today, please remember that to be Catholic we are called to believe that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, the Most Holy Trinity. We are called to spread his message of love to all those we meet and especially to those left in any sort of need.

May God bless you all

Bishop Christopher