Cardinal's Welcome
One of the largest annual events in the Diocese of Westminster is the pilgrimage to Lourdes. This year over 700 people joined together for this week of processions and prayers, the old and the young, the healthy and the infirm. Each year it is a great event which helps to deepen our faith and the bonds of shared endeavour between all
who take part in it.
A pilgrimage is somewhat like a practice run for life, for life itself is a pilgrimage, a journey towards our destiny, our heavenly home. Some of the characteristics of our annual pilgrimage, then, show us features of behaviour that are important for our journey through life. One that is so prominent is that our life is enriched when we share in an exchange of gifts and talents.
Some go to Lourdes as helpers. But they find that they have received from others far more than they gave. Others go full of awareness of their need for help, their dependency on others. They often find that, in fact, they have made a great contribution to the pilgrimage. Only together can we build our journey through life. Only together do we genuinely contribute to the good of others and receive from them the inspiration and help we so often need.
This Annual Report gives many examples of how, in the life of the diocese, there is a constant exchange of gifts. Here are stories of how those with resources have been of service to those who are in need. And there are also, in less obvious ways, the stories in which those who receive become an inspiration to those who have stepped forward to help. Helpers are often moved by the perseverance, courage and generosity of those they have come to assist.
These narratives also make it clear that the outreach of work which marks the life of the diocese is open to all. We are not an organisation which simply looks after its own. Rather, the calling to which we are responding, the call of Jesus, is that all people are daughters and sons of God, and therefore have a common bond of being sisters and brothers of the one family of God.
I hope you enjoy reading these accounts of journeys in the Diocese of Westminster, in our parishes, schools, chaplaincies, outreach work and on pilgrimage, of people sustaining each other on the way. I invite you to consider their stories and how they reflect the pattern that Christ sets for all his followers. These are the stories of people who make a difference in the life of our local communities, and are in turn nourished by those same communities. Together we can complete the journey and say with St Paul:
‘I have fought the good fight, I have
finished the race, I have kept the faith.’ (2 Tim. 4:7).
I thank all who have composed this Report and its financial component. I thank especially parish clergy and their helpers for their financial oversight. I thank the staff of the Curial Offices who have the difficult task of ensuring our compliance with regulatory requirements. This is a necessary and sound basis on which our ability to serve the public good, to fulfil our mission, depends. I thank them for their tireless work.
May God bless our Diocese of Westminster today and in the years to come.
✠ Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
