Pilgrims of hope

St Nicholas Care Fund is more necessary than ever as winter poverty bites

By Brian Swanson

Archbishop Nolan has used the message of hope that the Holy Year will bring to make a powerful plea to parishioners to give generously to the St Nicholas Care Fund to support their mission to help those on the margins of society.

In a letter to be read out in parishes on Caring Sunday, December 15, the Archbishop writes of the poverty witnessed by the late Cardinal Tom Winning more than three decades ago which inspired him to establish the fund.

“More than three decades ago, moved by the deep hopelessness and poverty he saw within our communities, the late Cardinal Winning established the St Nicholas Care Fund to provide aid and hope to those in need throughout the Archdiocese of Glasgow.

“His compassionate response to the suffering he witnessed has continued to bear fruit, and the Care Fund remains a vital lifeline for many.”

During 2024 the Fund has helped vulnerable people battling addiction, isolation, and discrimination; refugees fleeing from wars and the effects of climate change, and those without homes or families who are struggling to survive in the harsh realities of today’s world.

Archbishop Nolan said: “These are not distant strangers but people in our own communities who may view the upcoming Christmas season with fear and uncertainty, rather than the joy and hope that should mark the birth of our Saviour.”

Grants awarded by the fund last year included:

£2000 to St Paul’s, Shettleston, to help with start up costs of their Community Hub’s “Wee Blether and Bite” initiative which provides free hot meals and companionship for people living in the parish regardless of their faith.

£4020 to Immaculate Conception Parish Maryhill to enable it to continue funding its breakfast club, food bank and other activities working alongside partner churches in the area.

£2524 to refurbish therapy bikes for clients of Revive MS Scotland, based in Govan, the only charity in the West of Scotland providing nationwide support for people who are affected by multiple sclerosis.

Advent packs already delivered to parishes contain an envelope for small donations, a form for setting up regular donations, and a newsletter featuring a QR code enabling donors to make quick and secure donations.

For more information contact the St Nicholas Care Fund on 0141 226 5898 or email PCT@rcag.org.uk

Spain is calling for Father John

By Brian Swanson

Parishioners of Holy Name in Mansewood and St Mary Immaculate in Pollokshaws are preparing to bid a fond farewell to Father John Carroll, their parish priest, following his appointment as the new Rector of the Royal Scots College in Salamanca.

Father Carroll, who served as Vice-Rector of the Spanish college from 2000–2004, told Flourish that he was ‘humbled and surprised’ by the appointment but said he was looking forward to the challenges his new role presented.

He added: “I am honoured that the bishops have put their faith in me to take up the position but it leaves me feeling a little humble.

Experience

“I hope to be able to bring some of the experience of parish and school ministry from the last 20 years in Pollokshaws to the role.

“I am looking forward to working with Fr Stuart Chalmers, the spiritual director, and the students to help them on their journey of discernment.”

He added: “On a personal note I will miss all the good people in this community who have supported me both personally and spiritually over the years.”

Father Carroll, a former chaplain to Holyrood Secondary School, succeeds the current rector Father Tom Kilbride – also a priest of the Archdiocese and author of Flourish’s Scripture column – who has held the post for the past 10 years.

Fr Tom will return to the Archdiocese early next year after a brief handover period.

Father Carroll, who studied at the Spanish college before being ordained in 1989, is known for his devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, and in his role as chaplain to Hosanna House and the Children’s Pilgrimage Trust (HCPT) he has accompanied young pilgrims to the French shrine for a number of years.

Archbishop Nolan said: “I welcome the appointment of Father Carroll and I know that future seminarians will benefit from his lived experience of priesthood which has honed his humanity and his pastoral skills.

“He will continue the good work of Fr Tom Kilbride who will be an asset to the Archdiocese on his return to parish life.”

Bishop John Keenan of Paisley, President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, said: “We are grateful to Fr John for accepting this important role in the introduction of our seminarians to their journey of priestly formation and we look forward to him bringing his long experience in priestly service and pastoral ministry to his office as Rector.

“We are also grateful to Fr Tom for his wise and faithful service as Rector over the past ten years in which he successfully pioneered the propaedeutic period which is now well established and fruitful in preparing our seminarians for major seminary.

“We wish them both well and ask you to keep them in your prayers.”

Fear reigns in Bethlehem this Christmas but hope will not die

By Brendan Metcalfe, Friends of the Holy Land

This Christmas, children in the Holy Land aren’t dreaming of gifts, nativity plays, or decorations – but rather roadblocks and bombs.

A heartbroken father shared, “My oldest daughter, only six and a half, asks me why they are killing children in Gaza. It’s impossible to shield children from the horrors of war, and this constant exposure to death and destruction is impacting their mental health.”

This Christmas there may be no celebrations in Bethlehem for a second year, however, Friends of the Holy Land are determined to keep hope alive for our brothers and sisters.

Since October 2023, up to 20% of schools in the West Bank have closed due to escalating violence. Many more children are unable to attend due to travel restrictions, school fees, or because they’re simply too frightened to leave their homes.

A father in Bethlehem explained, “They are fearful that the military could come at any time.”

Their fears are justified. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, there have been 69 attacks on schools and over 2,350 incidents affecting students in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Our team on the ground sees the impact every day. We have funded critical therapy and counselling services to provide regular interventions, equipping more children with the tools to navigate the ongoing trauma of their daily lives.

Families

While other international organisations may remain stuck at borders or struggle to establish local connections on the ground, our local team know the families at breaking point personally.

Over the past year, as well as keeping children in school and helping vocational studies, we have been able to provide medical care and trauma therapy, build wells, install water tanks, help small businesses start and restore the dignity of those unemployed. We have also helped other local Christian organisations maintain their social programmes.

Though Christmas celebrations may be cancelled in Bethlehem, our brothers and sisters there share our hope in Christ. With your help, we can ensure that hope shines brightly through the remarkable Christians who continue to witness for us.

As you spend time with your families this Christmas, we ask for your help so that we can continue to give Hope to the Children of Bethlehem.

Pilgrims of hope

SPES non confundit. “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5).

In the spirit of hope, the Apostle Paul addressed these words of encouragement to the Christian community of Rome. Hope is also the central message of the coming Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every twenty-five years.

My thoughts turn to all those pilgrims of hope who will travel to Rome in order to experience the Holy Year and to all those others who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches.

For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the “door” of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as “our hope”.

Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring.

Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt.

Happiness

Often we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness. For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope.

Pilgrimage is of course a fundamental element of every Jubilee event. Setting out on a journey is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life.

A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life.

In the coming year, pilgrims of hope will surely travel the ancient and more modern routes in order to experience the Jubilee to the full. In Rome itself, along with the usual visits to the catacombs and the Seven Churches, other itineraries of faith will be proposed.

Beauty

Journeying from one country to another as if borders no longer mattered and passing from one city to another in contemplating the beauty of creation and masterpieces of art, we learn to treasure the richness of different experiences and cultures, and are inspired to lift up that beauty, in prayer, to God, in thanksgiving for his wondrous works.

The Jubilee Churches along the pilgrimage routes and in the city of Rome can serve as oases of spirituality and places of rest on the pilgrimage of faith, where we can drink from the wellsprings of hope, above all by approaching the sacrament of Reconciliation, the essential starting-point of any true journey of conversion.

In local Churches, special care should be taken to prepare priests and the faithful to celebrate the sacrament of Confession and to make it readily available in its individual form.

Sustained by this great tradition, and certain that the Jubilee Year will be for the entire Church a lively experience of grace and hope, I hereby decree that the Holy Door of the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican will be opened on 24 December 2024, thus inaugurating the Jubilee.

In addition to finding hope in God’s grace, we are also called to discover hope in the signs of the times that the Lord gives us.

Signs of hope

The first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war… May the Jubilee remind us that those who are peacemakers will be called “children of God”.

Looking to the future with hope also entails having enthusiasm for life and a readiness to share it. Sadly, in many situations this is lacking. A first effect of this is the loss of the desire to transmit life.

A number of countries are experiencing an alarming decline in the birthrate as a result of today’s frenetic pace, fears about the future, the lack of job security and adequate social policies …the desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters as a sign of the fruitfulness of their love ensures a future for every society. This is a matter of hope: it is born of hope and it generates hope.

During the Holy Year, we are called to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind. I think of prisoners who, deprived of their freedom, daily feel the harshness of detention and its restrictions, lack of affection and, in more than a few cases, lack of respect for their persons.

In every part of the world, believers, and their Pastors in particular, should be one in demanding dignified conditions for those in prison, respect for their human rights and above all the abolition of the death penalty, a provision at odds with Christian faith and one that eliminates all hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation.

Signs of hope should also be shown to the sick, at home or in hospital. Their sufferings can be allayed by the closeness and affection of those who visit them.

Signs of hope should also be present for migrants who leave their homelands behind in search of a better life for themselves and for their families. Their expectations must not be frustrated by prejudice and rejection.

The elderly, who frequently feel lonely and abandoned, also deserve signs of hope. Esteem for the treasure that they are, their life experiences, their accumulated wisdom and the contribution that they can still make, is incumbent on the Christian community and civil society, which are called to cooperate in strengthening the covenant between generations.

Poor

I ask with all my heart that hope be granted to the billions of the poor, who often lack the essentials of life. Before the constant tide of new forms of impoverishment, we can easily grow inured and resigned. Yet we must not close our eyes to the dramatic situations that we now encounter all around us.

The reality of death, as a painful separation from those dearest to us, cannot be mitigated by empty rhetoric. The Jubilee, however, offers us the opportunity to appreciate anew, and with immense gratitude, the gift of the new life that we have received in Baptism, a life capable of transfiguring death’s drama.

What, then, will become of us after death? With Jesus, beyond this threshold we will find eternal life, consisting in full communion with God as we forever contemplate and share in his infinite love. All that we now experience in hope, we shall then see in reality.

We are reminded of the words of Saint Augustine: “When I am one with you in all my being, there will be no more pain and toil; my life shall be true life, a life wholly filled by you”. What will characterize this fullness of communion? Being happy. Happiness is our human vocation, a goal to which all aspire.

We should indeed prepare ourselves consciously and soberly for the moment when our lives will be judged, but we must always do this from the standpoint of hope, the theological virtue that sustains our lives and shields them from groundless fear.

The judgement of God, who is love, will surely be based on love, and in particular on all that we have done or failed to do with regard to those in need, in whose midst Christ, the Judge himself, is present.

The Jubilee indulgence, thanks to the power of prayer, is intended in a particular way for those who have gone before us, so that they may obtain full mercy. The sacrament of Penance assures us that God wipes away our sins...

Still, as we know from personal experience, every sin leaves its mark. In our humanity, weak and attracted by evil, certain residual effects of sin remain. These are removed by the indulgence, always by the grace of Christ, who, as Saint Paul VI wrote, “is himself our ‘indulgence’”.

The coming Jubilee will thus be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God.

May it help us to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation.