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A
Message From Fr. Alistair |
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| February, 2008 |
Dearly Beloved,
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness."
Lamentations 3:22-23
By the time you read this, we will have had our first Sunday Eucharist together. We will have
experienced together the never-ceasing steadfast love of the Lord renewed by the Body and Blood
of God's dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We will have started to cultivate our fellowship
and friendship through the welcoming receptions after our morning Masses.
In this new pilgrimage to God, we are called as followers of Christ to harvest the energies of love both
in our fellowship and in our breaking of the Bread together. Our parish needs the energies of love just
like our cars and homes need fuel to run. What a blessing it is to know that this spiritual fuel of the
steadfast love of the Lord is renewed every morning! And God's mercies never come to an end, which means
that there is plentiful forgiveness and redemption in the name of Jesus Christ in our life together.
As a famous hymn goes, in the church, ".there is welcome for the sinner, and more graces for the good."
In fact, the inexhaustible fuel of God's steadfast love and mercy powers the whole corpus of the economy
of salvation, or more prosaically, the church's business to save souls. We need to be constantly reminded
of that truth because God's love is the basis for our relationship in the years to come; God's love is
the raison d'être of All Hallows'.
As the 40th Rector of All Hallows' Parish, I invite all of you to share the energies of God's
love with each other, and extend the Good News of this ever-renewable source of energy with everyone
who comes into our doors. I invite you to make it a Lenten discipline to talk to someone you haven't
yet talked to in the church, and to smile at every new face that shows up on Sunday to worship
with us. I invite you to share the love and excitement that you have for me with every newcomer
to our parish.
I feel deeply honored and ex-traordinarily humbled by the support, hope, and love that you have for me.
You are the reason that I wake up every morning, thanking God for his renewed mercies for us at All Hallows'
and in the wider world. I look forward to getting to know all of you and to growing together in spirit
in the weeks, months and years that we shall share in the time and space that God bestows on us.
To God be the glory,
Father Alistair So
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