happens that as I prepare these reflections I am also preparing for a visit to the Thanet deanery and for a Mass in honour of St Mildred. We have a Benedictine convent in Minster whose origins go back to the seventh century. St Mildred became the second abbess of Minster in 695. She was abbess for thirty years and when she was dying, the community asked her to say some words of farewell that they could remember her by. What she said strikes me as being as relevant in our diocese today as it clearly was then.
          "Be at peace among yourselves and be holy. Keep the love of God and your
          neighbour with all steadfastness. As is fitting for the house of God, see to the needs
          of all the community, listen to your superiors, be careful of your discernment, bear
          one another's burdens, obey one another, yielding to each other. Be one body and
          one spirit in the Lord, forming one household of God. And may the God of peace
          and love remain with you always."
Being united and working together are especially important today. The times require us to share our resources and to "yield" to one another. But to what purpose? What are we seeking to do and to be as the local Church of Southwark today?

We are not engaged in creating a new Church but in discerning how to receive, hand on, and take forward the gift which is the Church. Any plans or strategies that we develop must be the fruit of a return to the one source of life and wisdom, namely, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and saviour of the world. To find our bearings we must return to the New Testament and to its witness and teaching about Christ and about the Church. The Scriptures speak a language of new life that grows out of darkness and suffering. That is the language we need to speak. I propose some passages and some images to lead and guide us.