Given on 21 Feburary 2026 for the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion at Westminster Cathedral.
Dear Catechumens and all those responding to the Call to continuing conversion, dear brothers and sisters,
Catechumens, as you prepared for this Rite of Election, you wrote your names for the list of the Elect. Today all your names are gathered in the Book of the Elect, present in this Cathedral. This is a powerful sign of the journey you have been taking – a journey that will reach its high point in the new life of Baptism. The whole Diocese, the whole Church, rejoices in the step you take today and prays for you.
For those celebrating the call to continuing conversion, as you look to the moment of your Reception into Full Communion, we join with you in giving thanks for the life of the Christian communities that have nurtured your Faith and for your openness to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, enabling you to respond to the call to Full Communion.
The Psalmist speaks of the desire that we come to know the ways of the Lord, following His paths in response to His gentle summons and knowing that God will always be merciful, always near. Catechumens and Candidates, you have heard the gentle promptings of the Holy Spirit. Your presence here is a sign of your response to God’s call. Your response is an example to us all.
The Lord who is gentle and lowly in heart call us to rest in the love that exists between the Three Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit. Let us reflect today on what is means to live our whole lives in that love, for it is a love that casts out fear. The love of the Trinity enables, giving strength for whatever the Lord may ask of us and enabling us to face the challenges that will always come the way of the Christian. Catechumens, it is into this love that you will be baptised when the time comes for you to be baptised in the name of Father, Son and Spirit.
Candidates, your journey into Full Communion with the Catholic Church is the call to be ever increasingly open to this love of the Trinity. It is the call to open your minds and hearts to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that you may bear the fruit of the Spirit.
As we are called into ever deeper relationship with Christ, so we are called to prayer, for it is in prayer, in the time spent with Jesus that this relationship deepens and we come to see our way forward with Him and in Him. Give time to prayer, brothers and sisters, each and every day. Our coming together at Mass Sunday by Sunday, and at other times too, is an encounter with the Lord Himself, who gives Himself as food for our journey, enabling us to be His instruments in the world.
Jesus calls us to bring our burdens to Him, for in Him we find rest. Again, I say to Catechumens and Candidates, as you bring your particular labours and loads to the Lord, you are active and powerful witnesses to the world around you of the journey to the Lord that is the call to the whole of humanity. As we allow ourselves to journey with Christ, we experience the reality in our lives of Jesus carrying our burdens for us.
Be assured that as you continue your journey beyond Baptism or Reception into Full Communion, the Lord will never ask you to carry a burden that is beyond you. Rather, your continuing closeness to Him will bring you to do great things for Him, things beyond your imagining today, as you begin the final preparations for Baptism or Reception.
As we rejoice in the journeys that you are taking, be assured of the prayers of all in your parish communities and, indeed, the whole family of the Diocese during these days of Lent. Know that we shall rejoice with you at Easter and welcome you into the life of the Church, that our growing community will continue, strengthened by your presence, in the work the Lord has called us to do for Him.