This weekend we celebrate Home Mission Sunday.  A time when we focus on how we may witness to our faith, and in doing so lead others, where we are, to Christ.

I think most of us support the foreign missions, by prayer and offerings (the red mission boxes spring to mind), but we are content to leave it to priests, religious, and catechists in these far away places to do the work.  At home we need to take on some of the responsibility for mission ourselves. Sadly, most of us are shy about asking someone if they would like to become a Catholic, we are shy to talk about our faith, we are shy to witness to our faith.

I may not personally be a good evangelist, but I know something about being evangelised because I’m a convert. It may surprise you to know that the first “evangelist” I met was Joan, a five year old Catholic evacuee who was sent by her parents in London to the comparative safety of Nottingham. In 1940 she came to live  near me when I was four. She was different. One day she asked me to forgive her for something. I can’t remember what it was. No-one had ever asked me to forgive them. I knew in my heart that she asked forgiveness because she was a Catholic. Shortly after, she went back home and I never saw her again, but I’ll never forget her.

The next evangelist was a bed-ridden old Irish Lady, Miss Liddy. I delivered half a bottle of whisky to her every six months, during the war. God came into her conversation naturally every few sentences. It was unrehearsed, she wasn’t trying to impress or convert me. Her voice didn’t take on a peculiar accent, like that of some Christians I knew, when they talked about God.

When I was about 12, my sister, who’d become a Catholic, got me to join a Catholic swimming club. The boys of my age seemed different too. At the annual gala, they had handicap races.  My brother and I swam slowly in the heats to get good handicaps.  We both won prizes.  Nobody seemed to mind!  I decided I wanted to know what it was that made them so different, went for instruction and was baptised at the age of 13.  Did you notice, the priest was the last link in the chain of conversion?  In the 1950’s about 10,000 people in England and Wales became Catholics each year.   It has now reduced to a fraction of that.  Could it be that we have become inconspicuous in the intervening years?  You don’t see many Catholics making the sign of the cross before meals in restaurants, as they pass a church, or before they enter a race.  Few honour Christ’s crucifixion by refusing meat on Fridays as we were required to years ago.

Since the Holy Father’s visit one year ago, the bishops have been reflecting on how we as a body, in England and Wales, can raise the Church’s witness in our society. They believe that the time has come to reintroduce Friday penance and to witness to Christ’s redeeming action on the cross by abstaining from eating meat. This act is to be joined with prayer. 

Inside the newsletter, you should find a concise leaflet setting out in more detail the bishops views, and on your notice board a copy of the full version, with many question and answer explanations.