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Now it is time to say "Goodbye - God be with you." Jenny and I have decided to retire in January and I first of all want to say a huge thank you to everyone in Gomersal for the tremendous support you have given me since I have been Priest-in-Charge at St Mary's. It really has been an enormous privilege and so rewarding to serve at St Mary's, in the local schools and in this community.

I know I am leaving the Parish in the very capable hands of Anita, Cindy, Sue, Paul, Solveig, Joyce, Marlene ....... the list is endless because there are so many good people who give so much of themselves in the service of Christ at St Mary's.

In the years I have been here I think I have re-learned that the most important things in life cost nothing in monetary terms because they are all gifts from God's heart of love. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Sometimes God's gentle offer and demand press upon us as fearful things, almost threatening. But they are neither fearful nor threatening. God in his gentle love longs to set us free from the prison we have stumbled into - the loveless prison where we refuse both the offer and demand of forgiveness. In a way we might think of ourselves as a frightened bird before him, shrinking away lest this demand crush us completely.

But when we eventually yield - when he corners us, and finally takes us in his hand - we find to our astonishment that he is infinitely gentle, and that his only aim is to release us from our prison, to set us free to be the people he has made us to be.

As a consequence of this divine action we find that when we then fly out into the sunshine we are able to offer the same gentle gift of freedom of forgiveness to those around us.

This is the practical outcome of what the resurrection, turned into prayer, turned into forgiveness and turned into love.

It's constantly surprising, constantly full of hope, constantly coming to us from God's future to shape us into the people through whom God  can carry out his work here in Gomersal and beyond.

That will never cease because the initiative is always for ever with God.

May God richly bless you as you journey through 2009 and beyond and may you all continue to grow and flourish in the love of Jesus.

John