EIN HARGLWYDDES SEREN Y MôR –
OUR LADY
Fr Jones’s Newsletter -
Dear
Parishioner,
Amid
all the news coming out of the Middle East this week, there was one unconnected
piece of news that struck me very forcibly.
A survey, conducted by the Prince’s Trust, revealed that one in ten 16
to 25 year olds didn’t think that life was worth living. 12 per cent
thought that life is meaningless and 14 per cent that life has no purpose. This was among the youngsters who were
employed; the figures are considerably higher for those who are not in
education, employment or training: 27 per cent of these thought that life has
no purpose, 21 percent that life is meaningless and 17per cent that life is
just not worth living.
I
found this piece of news every bit as disturbing as the news of the war.
Life not worth living. That is a terrible thing for anyone to say or
feel, but when it comes out of the mouths of 16 to 25 year olds it is profoundly
disturbing.
Around
55 per cent of these young people said that family relations and relationships
with their friends were the most important factors contributing to their
overall wellbeing. The obvious
conclusion must be that it is largely, though of course not exclusively,
unhappy and frustrating relationships within the family and with their peers that cause this depressing attitude to life.
It
made me wonder whether a similar report would have emerged if the Prince’s
Trust has asked these young people whether the Christian Life is worth living.
If
ten percent said that life was not worth living; probably a far, far higher
percent would have said that the Christian life is not worth living, that to
live according to the values and teachings of Jesus Christ is of no benefit or value . And if they
were to say this, it would be for the same reasons: family reasons and
peer-group reasons.
Even
when a young person has had all the benefits of a Christian home, he/she has to
face the pressures of their peers, where religion and the moral life are
largely ignored. The pressure on them
today is enormous and parents must not blame themselves if, after doing all
they could to bring their child up in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ,
they witness him falling away from the Faith.
But
the other reason must be squarely faced, the one about family back-ground. If children do not see the Christian Life
lived out in their own home, they will not understand what it is all about, and
won’t be interested in trying to live it out in their own lives. It will be meaningless to them. If they have never really experienced what
lived Christianity really is, how can they be expected to adopt it as their own
personal life style?
You
hear fair-minded but utterly mistaken parents saying: “We won’t have our little
Charlie baptised now; we will let him make up his own mind”. Then they proceed to live a life that bears
virtually no trace of Christianity in it and expect little Charlie, when he is
no longer so little, to choose for
himself a way of life which they have neither talked to him about nor shown him
how to live. It is not Charlie who is to
blame for his turning out to be a neo-pagan but his parents.
The
Christian Life, living according to the ways of Christ and therefore in
complete accord with the will of God, is, contrary to what these youngsters
say, massively worth living. All the
addictions to which modern man is prone, alcohol, drugs, power, wealth are just
futile attempts by individuals and societies to find that peace and fulfilment
which the Christian Life can supply - without any side effects.
Our
campaign in 2008, our Year of the Child, is to bring families back to the
Church. We want to see the Church full
of children as it should be; but it is the parents whom we must target, because
without their coming to recognise the value of living the Christian Life, there
is no hope for the children.
You
may have noticed that our MEMORIAL BOOK has been repositioned. Its former position was behind the beam that
triggers the alarm, and therefore was out of your reach most of the time. Now it is accessible, and we thank Rob
Williams who made it for moving it. It
is there to remind you whose anniversaries occur on the current day and to
invite you to pray for them and to pray for those who grieve over them. It is our Christian duty not only to pray for
the dead but also to comfort those who mourn.
Its place in the chapel has been taken by a striking painting of the
crucifixion, a reminder that Christ himself shared our human experience of
death.
St
Joseph, having Our Lord Himself and Our Lady beside him as he died, is the
patron of the dying. Pray to him for
those members of our Parish Family who have gone ahead of us, and let our praying
remind us of the family of the Church to which we belong, a family forever
united.
God
bless you,
Fr
Antony Jones