Jenny and I have very much enjoyed travelling with you through Lent this year but now our time is up and we return to our home outside Salisbury in the UK. We have been struck by the friendliness of all whom we have met at CCL in particular and, indeed, in Lille and the surrounding area generally. It’s sad to have to leave just as we feel that we are getting to know you as friends. Thank you for your warm welcome and the kindness shown to us over these past seven weeks or so. We will take home with us many fond memories.
Back in the UK, we usually worship at 9.30am (London time) on a Sunday and so at the same time as you do here. We will think of you all often as we worship together with our thoughts on the same collect and readings as we will all be using as part of the Church of England and, indeed, of the world-wide Anglican communion. One of the things we have come to appreciate at CCL is your diversity which we have not really experienced in what has been for us a mainly rural ministry in small country parishes. The spread of ages and nationalities at CCL has been most refreshing. We will continue to follow your progress with interest and hope that it will not be long before you are able to appoint a new permanent chaplain to work with you in proclaiming and living out the Gospel in this beautiful city.
But first we arrive at Easter Day, the day of resurrection that we celebrate each and every Sunday throughout the year. We have of course made our journey together through Lent to this day knowing how the story ends but we have observed a Lenten discipline; we have passed through Good Friday and the darkness of the cross without which we cannot experience the joy of Easter today and throughout the rest of the year. To skip straight to Easter is just ‘cheap grace’ about which we reflected at the start of Lent. The late Pope John Paul II said some 40 years ago:
‘In a true sense, joy is the keynote of the Christian message. … Faith is our source of joy. We believe in a God who created us so that we might enjoy human happiness – in some measure on earth, in its fullness in heaven. We are meant to have our human joys: the joy of living, the joy of love and friendship, the joy of work well done. We who are Christians have a further cause for joy: like Jesus, we know that we are loved by God our Father. This love transforms our lives and fills us with joy. It makes us see that Jesus did not come to lay burdens upon us. He came to teach us what it means to be fully happy and fully human. Therefore, we discover joy when we discover truth – the truth about God our Father, the truth about Jesus our Saviour, the truth about the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts.
‘We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery – the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!”. We are not looking for a shallow joy but rather a joy that comes from faith, that grows through unselfish love, that respects the “fundamental duty of love of neighbour, without which it would be unbecoming to speak of Joy”.’
That is the joy that Jenny and I will wish for all of you at CCL in our prayers over the coming years. God bless you in all that you do for the Lord – and thank you.