Bishop Terry Writes…

The Holy Father has asked that the Universal Church should celebrate a ‘Year of Faith’ beginning on 11th October this year and lasting until 23rd November 2013, the Feast of Jesus Christ, Universal King. There are many reasons why he has asked us to do this, but in particular it is 50 years on 11th October since the beginning of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council and 20 years since the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Sometimes we are asked “So what do you believe in?” Most of us, I suspect, begin with trying to condense the Creed and the Articles of Faith, the teachings of the Church and the Catechism into simple terms. But before we know it, we say something like “Well, really I believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and who came to redeem me and offer me eternal salvation.” We know that faith, first and foremost is belief in a Person. As St Paul says, “I know who it is that I have put my trust in” (2 Tim 1:12).
However, at the same time, we also know that faith is in those very articles of the Creed and teachings of the Church which we accept as revealed by God. So who we witness and what we profess are part of the same reality that we call Faith. So during the course of this Year of Faith, we want to deepen our relationship with the Risen Christ to whose living presence we witness by our lives and we also want to deepen our understanding of the contents of our Faith.
One of the recommendations that is placed before us is to take the opportunity to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the first place which saw our Saviour and Mary, his Mother. We intend to do exactly this, go on pilgrimage as a Diocese to the Holy Land in March 2013. There will be an opening and closing celebration for the Year of Faith for the whole Diocese and via various other events, celebrations, study days, etc we will use this graced year to grow in faith of Him who we profess and what we profess. We ask Mary, our model of faith and virtue, to help us to imitate her and to guide us in the coming Year of Faith.